korthof's Journal: Voting today was tough.

I am still leery of the electronic voting system. Forget the logic behind there programming and faults etc. I am worried about the legal discrediting of certian machines and the possibility of my vote being thrown away. So I entered my polling place today in Orange County California after almost being ran over by George and Martha's car. I asked my poller if it was electronic voting only, to which 3 people replied a resounding "Yes". I waited in line for a bit and then asked again, at which point I got a shady (spirit of cloak and dagger) "Are you really surrrrrre you want a paper ballot?"

I felt like I was buying crack on the street corner. After them asking me two more times, I received a paper ballot and was able to cast a hard copy ink vote.

In the time it took me to cast my ballot, which was not long, as I had a premarked ballot in hand. I heard about 8 senior citizens call for help because they had screwed up their electronic vote. I felt like I was in the midst of the Florida upset in real time. The confusion even for the common electronic voter was unbelievable.

I signed up to volunteer for next year, so maybe next time I could place years of user interface help at the forefront.

I left the place happy knowing my vote would count, but worried many others wouldn't or would, but not as they had expected.



Posted here because I never get a story accepted. :/