Replies

Voted around 7:30 a.m. here in Central PA. Fairly long line for these rural parts (about a 10-15 minute wait).

When I asked a longtime poll worker "How's the turnout?" she said "We can barely keep up" (she's an elderly lady and a solid Republican - and she's been working the polls for decades). This is good, because we're in a very Republican RED area.

Here's an interesting little thing I overheard:

As I was signing in, a poll worker came over from the computer voting area and said to the poll worker with the book "We have another runaway voter - put a slash by her name". I'm guessing that this means the voter started her ballot on the computer and walked out of the polling place, but didn't press the "vote" button that actually casts the ballot. And, obviously, from the comment, she was at least the second voter to do so. Interesting phenomenon. Wonder how common this is?

Our instructions said that we have to hit the "Vote" button twice to register our vote. I'm sure the elderly will get confused, since most are not computer literate.

I had no problem with an optical scan, paper ballot and a pencil. Voter intent is quite clear that way.

"We have another runaway voter - put a slash by her name". I'm guessing that this means the voter started her ballot on the computer and walked out of the polling place, but didn't press the "vote" button that actually casts the ballot. And, obviously, from the comment, she was at least the second voter to do so. Interesting phenomenon. Wonder how common this is?

There was a guy next to me who almost did the same. The poll worker caught him before he got away.

I'm not sure I like or trust these electronic machines. It was not intuitive to me that you had to press the 'VOTE' button above the touch screen. I was looking for something on the screen itself and finally noticed the big flashing red button (duh) and pressed that to register my vote.

I'd also say that the way they had these machines lined up, there was little privacy. Voters leaving their station and walking behind you could easily see who you were voting for.

All things considered, I'd prefer to go back to the electro-mechanical machines or even better, a paper ballot. I don't really care if it takes a day or two to count them all. We don't need to know the results immediately just to make the TV types happy.

I'm in Eastern PA and a local councilman told me he was concerned about that button. He also told me that we bought some of the machines that didn't work in other districts. I told him that there's always a learning curve on any machine and bound to be some problems. I also said--in the nicest way possible--that if a person can't vote properly, maybe they shouldn't be voting. He was a dem, but he was nice.