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This report is an example of how failing
to establish priorities among the various goals in an election can be
destructive. In this case, the need to actually capture the vote was more
important that the need to scan it locally in the precinct. If the ballots
had been put in a ballot box and taken to a scanner elsewhere, the voters could
have been enfranchised.
harvie branscomb
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 12:43
PM
Subject: Re: how about a trial timing of
how long it takes people to vote before the election?
Right, but you do have the problem of how to keep track of what is
happening to the ballots when they are sitting around for a couple of
weeks.
Margit
On 8/25/08, Mary
Eberle <m.eberle@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi
Margit and Everyone,
Would early voting be a better approach than
seeking more investment in machines, especially DREs?
However, I did
just hear of a situation in Indiana's spring primary in which the voters who
appeared to vote when the polls opened in one precinct were given paper
ballots to mark but could not cast them because the scanner did not work.
The second scanner was delivered, and the poll workers could not get it to
work either. Finally the voters left without casting their
ballots.
For line-phobic people, early voting on paper ballots at the
clerk's office or satellite office, where people presumably know how to
operate the machinery, seems the best bet to me.
Mary
(303)
442-2164
Margit Johansson wrote:
Hi All,
I've
just been reading something about the interaction of voters with machines
in 2004 in one state. With a long ballot, some people with limited
English skills, and machines cancelling people's votes when they took too
long, some people took an hour on a machine.
Part of the
solution to lines is to have enough machines. Another would be to
have people prepared for how they were going to vote ahead of time.
Could we get the clerks to do tests before the election, using
people who were and were not prepared, people whose English was poor,
etc?
Margit
Margit Johansson
303-442-1668/ margitjo@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:margitjo@xxxxxxxxx>
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