More Ch-ch-ch-changes: Board of Elections and the New Voting Devices

Based on the thorough coverage offered yesterday by Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Heights Blog, it sounds like you must sign in, then get a voting sheet, wait on line to go to the little voting table, fill out your ballot, then (probably) wait on line again while the un-technological voters who have never operated an electronic scanning device before stand there confused on how to use it. Then go up there and feed it into the Voting Maw (hoping that it doesn’t get jammed-- as those who HAVE operated an electronic scanning/printer device before can attest could occur). Why can't they have someone from the Board of Elections doing the form feeding while you watch them? Is that against the law?


Suppose you don’t want to fill it out at the voting table, can you just fill it out on the line to the scanner while leaning on a magazine or newspaper?

Funny, I thought electronic voting meant an ATM-type device, with a touch screen, but it seems NYS is fetishistic about having a paper trail, hanging chads and all that. I mean, why couldn't someone have just come up with an electronic ATM voting device that just keeps a printed record (like an ATM receipt) –what’s the big deal? So you could go into a voting booth and do your same voting thing? I mean, we have trusted the integrity of voting with the Old School machines for eons without concern for paper trails, what's the big dealy-o now?  Hopefully it will be better than expected but given the move from fewer steps to many more steps in the voting process, and the use of a paper ballot, one is not automatically hopeful.

One of my colleagues at the office said you are going to have to take a day off to go vote. In retrospect, I liked having my votes tallied, all private and religious-like behind a curtain, by a Coca-Cola vending machine on steroids..

Planning to pick up my car from the shop after work, then go to the gym and then vote, but anyone have any experiences with the new voting system at today's primary so far?