My husband and I voted early in today’s General Election here in
Santa Clara County, California. Our neighborhood polling place has
been moving around in recent years but is currently in the banquet
hall of the
Assyrian Church of the East, located a few blocks from our house.
Santa Clara County has been using electronic voting machines since the
machines became available
some years ago. There were ten machines at the church this morning (five for each
of the two voting precincts in our area). Someone I know who votes in San Mateo
County (just north of Santa Clara), said that they have just a few voting machines
and are still mostly using paper ballots. Two people I talked with at lunch who voted
in San Francisco said it took 5 paper ballots each to record their votes this morning.
The electronic voting machine usability is getting better each time.
Even though there were 21 offices (including our U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative,
California Governor, and San Jose Mayor) plus 14 measures to decide on, voting took
me just a few minutes. Of course, John and I had spent hours during the last few days
reading the candidate statements, the texts and arguments of the measures, and
the official analyses so that we could go with our sample ballots all filled in.
Each precinct at our polling place had five election officers plus there was a
supervisor to help both precincts. The election officers check in each voter
(looking up their registration and collecting a signature), then give each a plastic
card to activate the voting machine. The voters wait in line for a machine, then
feed the card into the slot. The voting machine collects a vote for each office
and measure using a touchscreen. After all selections are made, the display
screen shows the voter a summary of all of
their choices to see if anything needs to be changed. The voter can also
review a paper tape to be sure all votes were properly recorded. Then,
the machine asks the voter to confirm and submit their vote and all is done.
To further improve this system, all that is still needed is some kind of
confirmation receipt. The way the electronic voting machines work now, individual voter’s selections can not be tied to an individual record on the machine in
an accuracy audit.
I like that there are lots of people to check on each other and to help voters
who may be confused or in need of physical help or detailed instructions. Most of
the election officers seem
to be older, retired, English speakers but there is a page at the back of each
Sample Ballot titled “Democracy Needs You” calling for Election Officers, especially
those who are bilingual or High School students. High School seniors who are at
least 16 years old can serve as Election Officers. At our polling place today, I
saw no High School students but one of the Election Officers wore a badge saying
she spoke Spanish.
All in all, it seems to me that voting is easier and faster (and potentially more
accurate) since computers were introduced. However, computers have also made the pre-election scramble for votes even more intrusive and unpleasant. In addition
to many dozens of individual pieces of paper mail, we must have received
thirty recorded phone calls from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Bill
Clinton, former San Jose mayors, and who knows who else, all asking for our votes.
After the tenth recorded phone call in a row, last night John started taking the
phone over to the cats to let them listen to the spiel rather than hanging up.
The cats just looked confused.
KatysBlog 