Sherry Chandler » Protecting the Vote
Protecting the Vote
Here’s a subject I’ve been meaning to broach for a while.
In this election, the Democrats finally got a winning margin big enough that we didn’t have to sweat a couple hundred lost or miscounted votes in Florida or Ohio. But it doesn’t mean we can all breathe a sigh of relief now because the vote is safe.
Because there were races in Florida and Ohio that hung on a few hundred lost or badly counted votes. The Sunday New York Times has a good overview article here and an editorial comment here. The race in Katherine Harris’s old Sarasota district is particularly egregious.
In my area of Kentucky, I heard many complaints that the new touch-screen machines — which we are continually told are “Federally mandated to be handicapped accessible” — were slow and glitchy. And in Bourbon, my home county, and at least one contiguous county, results were delayed because of problems tallying the votes on the new machines. If I understood correctly, the problem was in getting vote totals to balance. Sounds like something was lost or gained, doesn’t it? We had no close or contested races — our blue-dog Democratic Congressman is such a political power in the state that Republicans didn’t bother to waste money backing an opponent. Still, it had even my Rush-Limbaugh fan brother talking about a paper trail.
My family all voted on the old machines, the ones we’ve been using for a decade or so without trouble, though even they provide no paper trail. Next year, the touch-screen will be all we have to vote on.
We did have one case in Louisville in which a poll worker assaulted a voter for refusing to vote in a judicial race. I’m not sure, however, that that was in any way machine related. Still it brings me to a point that doesn’t get big attention but that I keep seeing pop up: poll-worker fatique and poll-worker ignorance. From the NYTimes article:
Election workers and experts say the advances in technology have simply overwhelmed many of the people trying to run things on the ground. At a hearing in Denver last week, one focus was on how hard it has become for the poll workers, often retirees getting paid $100 for a 14-hour day, and what it would take to attract younger people who are perhaps more savvy about computers.
“It used to be that you would come in, set up the machines, make a cup of coffee and say hello to your neighbors,” said Sigrid Freese, who has worked at Denver polling places for more than 20 years. Now, she said, the job is complicated and stressful, and “I know a lot of people who said, ‘Never again.’ ”
We have had the same poll workers for years, they know us by sight and we never have to prove who we are. They’re fine people but they look blank if you ask about a paper trail, as though they’d never in their lives heard of a contested vote.
So I would urge those of you who are young and media-savvy to consider volunteering to work at the polls. The country needs you and it’s one small thing we can do to make sure every vote counts.
And let’s don’t drop this issue just because we won most of the races this time.
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7 Comments
1. Georgia Green Stamper replies at 28th November 2006, 9:44 am :
I did vote on the new touch screen machine, and found it complicated to nagvigate even though I use a personal computer every day. My biggest complaint is that I was unable to see all of the ballot at one time which was disconcerting. Also, it seemed complicated NOT to vote in a race as the ballot did not advance to the next screen in the same manner as it did with a vote. (I have empathy with the frustrated CA poll worker here -:) There were several Family Court judicial races that I had not realized were on the ballot and had given little thought to so I thought it wiser to skip than cast an uninformed vote - but skipping wasn’t easy. Of course, the ballot was unusually long in Fayette County where I vote what with a lot of judicial races and a proposal to purchase the water company. The long ballot was blamed for the lengthy lines in Fayette County this election day. But honestly, I think it was the awkwardness of the new voting machines that slowed everyone down. I also don’t understand what prevents someone in computer-savvy-world from connecting my unique voting code number to how I voted - but my husband says I’m worrying needlessly about that.
2. sherry replies at 28th November 2006, 10:08 am :
Thanks, Georgia, for sharing your story. Maybe that pollworker did have provocation.
AND I should point out that I don’t think this issue is necessarily a partisan one. Everybody’s vote should count.
3. Terry replies at 29th November 2006, 2:34 am :
I volunteered to be a poll worker (not that I count as young) and went so far as to fill out the qualifying survey and application. Alas, as soon as I was selected to work, my county went to vote by mail. I would have loved to work the polls.
4. sherry replies at 29th November 2006, 6:33 am :
How did that go, Terry, the vote by mail? Did they get a better “turnout”? What were the results?
5. Georgia Green Stamper replies at 29th November 2006, 11:33 am :
Terry, I had no idea that there were locations the the U. S. where the vote was done only by mail! No polls open on election day at all? The potential for lost votes and fraud would seem greater to me with a mail-in vote. What is the ID/verification process? Voting via home computer also seems like a fraud waiting to happen to me.
6. sherry replies at 29th November 2006, 12:13 pm :
Hey Georgia! Terry can, and I hope will, speak for herself here. But I thought I’d also post this link to the post about mail-in elections in Spokane County at I see Invisible People:
http://dailytroll.com/?p=1054
7. Terry replies at 30th November 2006, 12:00 am :
The vote by mail returns were actually down. The ballots went out 6 weeks before the election, and a lot of people lost track of them or filed them away to look at later, I think. My own precinct used to average an 85% turnout - this year it was closer to 50%. What bothers me the most is the lack of anonymity. My 20-year-old daughter, when doing her ballot, asked my opinion on every single issue. I told her what I thought but encouraged her to research it for herself. She didn’t, just accepted what I said, and I feel a great burden because of that. She doesn’t feel the power that I did at that age, and that saddens me. She disconnected from the process, never having voted at the polls. Our official results only came out a week ago, but everyone had already called the election based on the counties that didn’t vote by mail. It made me feel invisible, and I don’t like that.
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