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My early voting experience today
I voted early this morning in my suburb just outside of Chicago, and thought I'd pass along some observations. Given the controversy about voting this year it was indeed interesting to see how my village handled early voting.I live in Cook County, and early voting for my precinct was done at the village hall. When I arrived I waited in a short line for a minute, and while I did so I filled out the 'early voting' registration form. There were six voting machines (more on that in a moment) and a half-dozen election judges supervising the vote. When I got to the table one judge asked for my drivers license. Drivers license? You mean an honest-to-goodness photo ID? Yep. Early voting in Illinois requires a photo ID. The registration form listed the acceptable forms of ID. Of the half-dozen people in line, not one complained or said that they didn't have a photo ID. Everyone produced a drivers license save one woman who presented her (American) passport. After presenting my license, the judge turned to a computer screen and punched in my license number. My photo and signature appeared on screen, and she carefully compared my license, my signature on the registration form, her screen and my face. I was then cleared to vote, and after a short wait went to an open voting machine. Another judge handed me a plastic card to insert in the machine and informed me that if I needed help she would be there to walk me through the process. The machine was a 'Sequoia' brand touch screen. The screen was bright, the instructions clear, and when you touched a box for a candidate a large green checkmark appeared, so it was easy to see what you just did. I went through about a dozen screeens pointing at candidates. At the end there was, as I expected, a chance to review my vote on the screen. I had deliberately left one office open, and sure enough my deficiency was shown in red on the screen. I went back and corrected that without a problem. Then something happened that was a pleasant surprise. Observant person that I am, I had totally ignored a small, separate device with a window to my right in the booth. When I finished with the last review screen, my vote was presented again on the main screen AND on a paper roll on the device to the right. That was behind glass so you couldn't touch it, but you had the opportunity to see that, on screen and on paper, your vote was as you wanted it. I then checkmarked the 'cast ballot' button on the main screen and the paper roll whirred away into a storage box. While I don't know this for sure, I rather suspect that the paper roll serves as a permanent audit for that particular voting machine. The entire process took 20 minutes. Presenting a photo ID was no problem at all. The touch screen worked flawlessly. The paper trail is visible. How did I vote? Heh, how do you think? Posted by: Steve White 2006-11-02 |
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