Seven thousand Orange County voters were given incorrect ballots, and the efficient electronics system can’t even tell who’s voted was miscounted! I voted yesterday, too, in a local election. I gave my name to the person checking registered voters upon entering the poll, and a second upon leaving. Supervisors monitored both transactions. I was given one and only one ballot, and I feed it through the mark-sense machine myself. The paper ballots were retained in a locked and sealed container. The results were printed in the local paper this morning. I just don’t see anything about this system that needs to be more automated and made less secure!
Dan Gillmor’s eJournal reports ‘Ballots’ Lost in California: Voting Officials Blase. “A registrar of voters who seems more concerned about ducking his responsibilities is saying, essentially, that everything is fine because the margin was lopsided enough to make this screwup meaningless. Oh, that’s a relief.”