Yesterday I was discussing the optical scan machines with a co-worker who regularly votes but wouldn’t consider herself politically active. She was upset by what she felt was a complete lack of privacy. The poll worker had looked at her ballot as she fed it into the machine, and it made her highly uncomfortable.
Her sentiments echoed what I heard over and over on election day. No one I talked to seemed to like the new system. The most common complaints were that it took much longer to vote, there was no privacy, and that people were worried that their vote wouldn’t count. Pretty much everyone that I asked expressed one of those sentiments. It was the one thing both Republicans and Democrats could agree on.
Personally, I’ll miss the old machines but there’s something very satisfying about filling in the ovals. Maybe it’s because I’m from of a generation that grew up constantly taking standardized tests. The experience didn’t feel like voting, but it did feel familiar to me. I also liked how the results come out on a long receipt at the end of the night. Again, it took me back to my childhood and the adding machine that lived on my father’s desk.
Now that we’ve all had some time to reflect, what do you all think of the new machines? Is it just that they’ll take some getting used to? Are there any minor changes that might make the new system more comfortable? Or are the optical scan machines a total bust?
On Wednesday, Anson agreed to pay the state $30,000 to settle the lawsuit and an ethics complaint related to the drawings, again without accepting blame for his actions.
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctanson1108.artnov08,0,2689413.story
EAST HAVEN – A ranking state senator’s plan to build waterfront condominiums in a grassy flood plain was approved Wednesday night despite objections of state environmentalists and officials of a neighboring regional airport.
The waterfront homes, proposed by Republican Sen. Len Fasano, will sit beside a beach club overlooking Long Island Sound, just beyond the flight path of planes approaching from the water. The planning commission, appointed by outgoing Mayor Joseph Maturo, approved the project unanimously despite concerns from the state Department of Environmental Protection, Tweed-New Haven Airport and several residents.
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-ctfasano1108.artnov08,0,2421644.story
If state Sen. Louis C. DeLuca has really lost the public’s trust, why did he get re-elected Tuesday to his position as moderator of the town meeting in the little town of Woodbury?
DeLuca’s attorney posed that rhetorical question in a letter sent Wednesday to the bipartisan committee of senators weighing whether to recommend censure or expulsion from the Senate for DeLuca, who has been battered since a guilty plea to a state misdemeanor this spring revealed his relationship with James Galante, a trash-hauler accused of mob ties.
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=3b4d7c80-8d88-4a54-8b6c-d32d1cc580ea
Police also searched the mayor’s home at 277 Ocean Drive E., where they found a small amount of cocaine residue and drug paraphernalia, according to the statement.
Greenwich police would not say what led them to the teenagers or the car, or why Greenwich officers made the arrests in Stamford. The statement from Greenwich police indicates they searched only Malloy’s house and not those of the other teens.
Benjamin Malloy, who lives at the Ocean Drive East home, was charged with possession of marijuana, conspiracy to possess marijuana, possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
http://www.norwalkadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-nor.malloy2nov08,0,3249421.story?coll=nor-news-local-headlines
I am not sure what the above comments have to do with the thread on voting. To get to the subject – The file folders used in my town did a great deal to keep the ballot protected and private. You could keep the poll worker from seeing your ballot except for the very brief time it took to feed into the machine with the folder. I think the system worked well.
Please tell your friend and everyone else that you can a) be given a “privacy folder” allowing you to cover up your votes and b) insert your ballot into the machine face down so that noone can see your votes.
She did use the folder. The poll worker still snuck a peek. Also, Fairfield and other towns had a two-sided ballot.
I will say that where I voted in Waterbury had a nice set up. The scanner was seperated by partitions from everyone else and the nearest poll worker was outside that partition. So it was nearly impossible to see my ballot. The other interesting thing they did was that they had us exit from a different door so we didn’t pass back through the voting area. I like the machines, and thought things went fine.
And that might be what’s needed–a better setup. I had a poll worker standing right near the scanner, too. It did feel a lot less private than the old machines with the curtains.
Great post CGG. The bottom line is that there is less privacy. And if you make a mistake after you already fill in a ballot, then you bring it back to one of the workers and they can look at it too. I don’t really trust these machines. And as I was walking to my partician I could see how people were voting. I too had a two side ballot.
While there are bigger things in the world to complain about, I nevertheless was not impressed.
My town did not offer the use of a privacy folder and they used a two-sided ballot. It is easy to sneak a peak when you walk by people filling out their ballot on your way to your privacy booth and on the way to the scanner. While you probably couldn’t read the names you could get a sense for whether they were voting R or D. That needs to be addressed in the future to maintain the integrity of the voting process.
I was somewhat amused by those individuals who still didn’t expect a paper ballot – where have they been? Oh yes, they didn’t know why they were voting or who the candidates were – truly amazing.
Since I live in a town where we’ve used the optical scanning technology already, it was not biggie then, and no problems this time. I did not have any moderator looking at my ballot. I would suggest the voter, next time, keep eye contact with the moderator or engage that person in a quickie conversation until submitting the ballot into the scanner or continue to use the privacy folder when placing the ballot on the scanner. I was told that the ballot can be fed into the scanner from either end, so I don’t see how a moderator can read the ballot if submitted “upside down.”
If anyone has any concerns about moderators, privacy folders, lack of privacy booths or any other concerns, they ought to call the Secretary of State’s office. They provide all the resources to Connecticut’s 169 municipalities’ registrars of voters, but it is ultimately up to the respective towns to utilize those resources.
Election results were quicker and something the lever machines did NOT have is the actual paper ballot so for the towns that require recounts, officials can manually count the individual ballots.
From the administrative end, I can totally appreciate the new system. But I agree. I felt that my polling site in Waterbury completely lacked privacy. I bent my (one sided) vote card in half to maintain privacy on the way to the optical scanner. I drew my polling place as best as I could remember it – http://tomvs.gotdns.com/docs/Tinker%20Polling%20Site%20Map.pdf
If any benefit came from the new system, I was able to include my 3 year old son in the process by allowing him to insert my card to the optical scanner.
Does anyone know what happens if someone doesn’t fill in the circle cleanly? Is their vote ignored or does the macine trigger a manual check?
>>I was somewhat amused by those individuals who still didn’t expect a paper ballot – where have they been?
People aren’t really paying any attention.
We had a bond referendum a few years ago (a simple “yes” or “no”) and someone asked; “Where’s the party lever?”