You would think that the US Presidential election is something that Americans would want to do thoroughly and accurately. Yet after decades of technological advancement, debugging, and controversy there are still problems with the ballot casting today.
Even after the Florida issue all those years ago, faulty machines are being used to cast ballots. These machines were intended to speed up the voting process, make shorter lines, and in the end promote a greater voter turnout. But then they break, and people are forced to stand in line for, in some cases, up to 5 hours. iReport contributor Jessie Sargent was 8th in line to vote, and she still had to wait three hours because of registration confusion.
In Shaker Heights, Ohio, people were given the wrong ballots-instead of the two page version. These people were given only the second page of the ballot, which contained only information for state elections, not national.
In some counties, rain soaked ballots that needed to be read with optical scanners. When these ballots were put in the scanners, they tore apart, leaving bits stuck inside and making the scanners useless.
Memory cards for some voting machines were faulty, and needed to be replaced.
All of these problems on the eve of possibly the most important election in generations: the country is on the brink of a depression, if it isn't in one already. And there are still thousands of problems, even though we have had more than enough time to realize that the system we have for voting needs a lot of improvement. At CNN alone there were over 11,000 reports of voting problems. Coincidentally enough, the greatest number of those problems, over 1,500 reported issues, were from Florida. It doesn't really seem like we're learning anything here.
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4 comments:
You're absolutely right! You know how we do it in New Hampshire (or, at least in my town)? We use a black Sharpie marker to color in a little circle and put our ballot in a box! Tell me, what is so difficult about that?!
Yup, and back in good old ME we use check marks. I mean, theres something to be said for the fact that I'm from a relatively small town and county, but still, the simplest solution is usually the best. the best part is, the written ballot is still the fallback in case the machines break-which means in all the places where there were wet tickets that couldn't be scanned, or where machines broke down, people used hand written ballots. you would really think wede have learned by now.
I can say Ive had problems with ballots in Rhode Island but I have friends in Florida and they say it's annoying when a voting machine breaks.
I should mention Massachusetts' ballot system -- its called connect the arrow; all you need to do is fill in the middle section. It's not that hard, in fact its perhaps easier than Florida when they attempted punching holes back in 2000...ugh. And they even tried our form this year and they completely messed it up from those who dotted a part of it, and then there were some who circled it...just remember, voting will never be perfect until we standardize the system.
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