So I went to vote this morning, having for the first time actually registered in the City of Charlottesville so I don't have to send an absentee ballot or drive to Roanoke. And I feel very satisfied about that. I can now only hope that things go for the best. "The best" meaning Jim Webb, Al Weed, and NO on Virginia Ballot Initiative One.
But. Here's the part I'm concerned about, other than the results: for weeks now I had been getting irritated about incessant coverage of potential problems with electronic voting machines. "Just shut up about the voting machines!" I thought. "We've heard it all! It can't possibly be that bad! It's ridiculous for people to encourage voting by absentee ballot even if you could get to a poling place!"
Well, I feel stupid now. Because, honestly, that was the most confusing public machine experience I've ever had. I know very smart, competent, people who consistently have trouble with ATMs and the U-Scan at the grocery store, and this thing was about five times more confusing, I thought. I had to stand there and read everything on the face of the machine before I was even sure what to do, and I felt really scared that I had messed it up somehow.
First, this "voting identification number" I got on a slip of paper and then had to enter – I totally didn't know I was going to have to do that! It was scary! They just handed me the paper and didn't say anything, and then I had to get there and enter it – but not in any normal way, no. With a DIAL. It is totally counterintuitive to me to enter numbers or letters with a dial. The correlation between rotating the dial, watching the cursor move horizontally and then vertically, and pressing enter when I got to the thing I wanted to select was really confusing to me. Of course I did it, but had I been already somewhat unsure of who I meant to vote for, I am pretty sure the weirdness of having to transfer these unexpected numbers in an unexpected way would have been enough to drive that information out of my head.
Then there was the way the cursor moved – with the dial – in the actual vote selection screen. Again, counterintuitive. The thing that was being selected turned red, but at first I didn't realize that and it seemed weird and confusing. And sometimes the text got bigger, and that was confusing.
Which…again – though the text of the ballot initiatives did get bigger when you "dialed" it, it still was really small. Way too small for, say, my grandparents. Those things are confusing enough anyway without being really difficult to read as well. In the old-style machines, it was much, much easier to read. In this one, they were in this box way over to the left – I actually had trouble reading them myself and had to just rely on my memory of what I meant to vote. (And when I got to the confirmation screen it was really hard to tell I'd chosen Webb because his whole name didn't fit in the box. Also unnerving.)
I did it. Of course I did it. I'm a highly computer-literate young reading-type person with relatively good eyesight. But those are definitely not advantages all people have – and though I'm confident people got through the experience, I'll bet it was pretty unnerving for, say, a number of elderly people. So, conclusion is I really do not like the electronic voting machines.
Oh, and also, I got hassled about my ID because even though I'm registered and on the list for Charlottesville, my ID says Roanoke. Another thing that would have unnerved me had I been less confident.
As I was jogging home (I jogged there and back), I decided that I think they should have made the machines more like American Idol-style voting. Like "For Jim Webb, press 1." And there's an actual 1 key there on the console in front of you. People are used to that system. It's also closer to the old lever system, where a specific lever corresponded to a specific candidate. As usual, American Idol is a better arbiter of public needs than the government is.
I voted in an actual booth for the first time in 2004. Our polling machines have nice, clear spaces for the candidate names, and a 1"x1" square next to their name. When you push that square, it turns green, indicating your selection. It's pretty simple. Even so, I had a lot of anxiety about making sure I filled it out correctly.
Now, I'm not sure if ours were completely computerized or not - but WHY can't they make them all this user-friendly? It really really shouldn't be so hard to make a good machine! Some of the ones in Indiana required 42 steps to start up. 42! With the little old ladies who run polling stations, shouldn't you streamline it a bit? And I'm not even going to start about tampering.
Oooo, the voting machines make me mad!
And once agani, I am happy to be Canadian. Call us ludites, but you give your name to the nice little old ladies running the station. They point you to the correct line based on where you live and your last name. You give them your ID, they cross your name off the list using a pen and a ruler, and break open the paper ballots. You go to a small table surrounded by a trifold display board thing. Then, using a pencil, you check off your choices, and fold it up. Hand it to the little old lady, who uncovered the box and slips your ballot in. End of story. And yes, the votes are tallied at the end of voting, and we all know who won before bedtime. Seriously. It really can be that easy.