Will voting facilities likely be swamped with people at 6 a.m.? (license, renewal)

[michgc]

Originally Posted by Yankeesfan

Now the next question will be, then why don't we only do paper ballots? I don't remember the reason but there is a federal law, I think, requiring that both options be available.

I don't think there's any such federal law. I voted in NC, and we definitely only had the paper option. I'm pretty sure my brother in Pennsylvania only had the paper option, too.

[Yankeesfan]

It's part of HAVA (Help America Vote Act); this is a summary I found online:

"The use of DREs [direct recording electronic voting machines], particularly the touchscreen variety, is expected to increase substantially under provisions of HAVA. Three provisions in the Act are likely to provide such an impetus. First, HAVA authorized $3.65 billion over four years for replacing punchcard and lever machines and for making other election administration improvements, including meeting the requirements of the Act.

Second, beginning in 2006, HAVA requires that voting systems notify voters of overvotes and permit them to review their ballots and correct errors before casting their votes.

Third, the Act requires, also beginning in 2006, that each polling place used in a federal election have at least one voting machine that is fully accessible for persons with disabilities. DREs are the only machines at present that can fulfill the accessibility requirement. They can also easily meet the requirements for error prevention and correction."

A friend who is an election officer told me that they are not legally allowed to recommend one form of voting (paper vs. machine) to the voters. Virginia is limiting the number of machines and switching to paper as much as possible because people want a paper trail. Reactions are all over the place. It's always interesting to read the comments in articles. Some exclaim "Paper ballots? What century are we in?!" while others say "Use a paper ballot so you leave a paper trail!" I read one article (can't find it now) that said NoVA residents were opting for the machines because that's what they're used to and they are by nature more high-tech oriented. I saw this at my own precinct -- an election page would go through the line and ask who wanted to move to the paper ballot line, which was clearly shorter and moving faster, and only a few people would move.

Meanwhile Fairfax County had 250 fewer Election Officers than in 2008 because people didn't want to volunteer. So anyone who is complaining, consider volunteering next time .

[phrekyos]

Originally Posted by Yankeesfan

A friend who is an election officer told me that they are not legally allowed to recommend one form of voting (paper vs. machine) to the voters. Virginia is limiting the number of machines and switching to paper as much as possible because people want a paper trail. Reactions are all over the place. It's always interesting to read the comments in articles. Some exclaim "Paper ballots? What century are we in?!" while others say "Use a paper ballot so you leave a paper trail!" I read one article (can't find it now) that said NoVA residents were opting for the machines because that's what they're used to and they are by nature more high-tech oriented. I saw this at my own precinct -- an election page would go through the line and ask who wanted to move to the paper ballot line, which was clearly shorter and moving faster, and only a few people would move.

Yeah, that's not true. We definitely encourage the paper ballots here. We have to switch to them anyway - Virginia law disallows purchase of more DREs. So, we have a single DRE to comply with HAVA and everybody is offered paper by default. This is what Fairfax SHOULD have done. If there's only one DRE, and it's clearly geared toward disabled voters, there's a lot less confusion and wasted time. I was a poll worker in the first election when Fairfax switched to paper, and it was a mess. Sounds like that hasn't changed a bit.

The paper ballot system we have here in Alexandria is more high-tech than it looks, too. Every ballot has a unique number to prevent anybody from inserting a ballot from another election, from another precinct, a copied ballot, etc. Furthermore, it makes a digital image of the write-in votes so they don't have to be counted manually or separated physically from the other ballots.

On top of that, paper ballots are easier for people to navigate and mark than DREs, in my experience. No touch screens to go out of alignment, no confusing dials, etc. They're probably cheaper for the county (just one or two scanners per precinct and printing ballots, instead of buying and maintaining a dozen DREs each) and you can have a lot more voters voting at one time (however many portable booths you can cram in the polling room vs. a 12-machine limit for our old system).

[CAVA1990]

This all seems so antiquated. Why don't they just do something like put an app on your phone that lets you transmit data perhaps to a central server if you're within a certain proximity of the polling place?

[CaliTerp07]

I wish they'd have a central registry of voters, so I could vote at ANY polling location. I realize it would be a large database, but not significantly larger than the DMVs, and I can go to any of those.

It would have been so much easier to be able to vote at my work where I could have monitored the lines and jumped in when they were short.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by CaliTerp07

I wish they'd have a central registry of voters, so I could vote at ANY polling location. I realize it would be a large database, but not significantly larger than the DMVs, and I can go to any of those.

It would have been so much easier to be able to vote at my work where I could have monitored the lines and jumped in when they were short.

Our current voting process is very similar to how they took the census back in biblical times. The main difference is we arrive by car rather than on the back of a donkey.

[phrekyos]

Originally Posted by CaliTerp07

I wish they'd have a central registry of voters, so I could vote at ANY polling location. I realize it would be a large database, but not significantly larger than the DMVs, and I can go to any of those.

It would have been so much easier to be able to vote at my work where I could have monitored the lines and jumped in when they were short.

One reason is that all the polling locations would have to be in sync with each other so you could tell who has already voted and who hasn't. If you can only vote at one place, it's not an issue.

Another reason is that they try to evenly distribute the number of people between polling places. You don't want one location over-run with people and another to have very few. It would also be very hard to assign the proper number of poll workers and election machines if you couldn't know how many people you'd be getting.

[Yankeesfan]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

This all seems so antiquated. Why don't they just do something like put an app on your phone that lets you transmit data perhaps to a central server if you're within a certain proximity of the polling place?

No voter suppression inherent in that idea .

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by Yankeesfan

No voter suppression inherent in that idea .

Well we would still have alternative means for the phoneless, if that's the concern. You can re-register your car or renew your drivers license on-line but you're still free to go down, sit in the little chairs and watch your bingo number come up at the DMV.

[Jayess1]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Well we would still have alternative means for the phoneless, if that's the concern. You can re-register your car or renew your drivers license on-line but you're still free to go down, sit in the little chairs and watch your bingo number come up at the DMV.

So you haven't renewed your VA driver's license lately...