Because I’m traveling so much, I voted absentee for the first time ever last Tuesday.
Here’s a letter about it that I sent to the LA Times, the LA County Registrar-Recorder, my County Supervisor, and Sec. Bowen:
For the first time, I voted absentee in this election.
I was shocked to discover that what I had was a computer card, covered with over 100 numbered bubbles in somewhat erratic columns, and a brochure that listed the candidates and measures, and told me which numbered bubble to fill in. As someone who spends a fair amount of time reviewing the usability of systems by people, I’ve got to say that this is one of the worst that I have ever seen.
The potential for error by able, alert voters is overwhelming; I cannot imagine how difficult and error-prone these must be for elderly or disabled voters. If the ‘butterfly ballot’ scandal in the 2000 Florida election was based on ballots that were difficult to comprehend – what upcoming electoral scandals and lawsuits will this County face because ours are incomprehensible? Why can’t we deliver a simple, easy to understand and validate absentee ballot to our voters?
I’ve made inquiries, and NO OTHER county has absentee ballots like these; in every case the ballot itself is human-readable with a candidate’s or measure’s name next to the bubble to be filled out.
Los Angeles needs ballots like these before the November election. Period.
Marc Danziger
Here’s the reason why (my neighbor’s unused ballot, not mine…)
…and because someone is going to claim it’s my ballot…
Brad Friedman, over to you – go gettum…
My current home of Oregon has the “best vote by mail”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oregon_VBM_ballot_May_2008_3.jpg, and I think it is handled so well because it is used for the General election as well.
Mmmm… Cheap, easy, reliable and gives greater turnout coupled with security. Nah, let’s spend hundreds of millions on E-Voting adventures. Just curious – isn’t the same type of ballot used for poll voting? I think it is, from what I remember reading about ES&S.
My guess would be “hey, it’s cheaper this way” is going to be your response, if you get any.
Holy King County Election Department, AL-man! That’s an amazingly lame ballot! Surely no one else in CA does it that way?
Dave,
Not that I think “greater voter turnout” is remotely worth the risks associated with mail balloting, but yes that’s a fine ballot design. It looks like like a regular optical-scan ballot to me; is that what it is?
While I was too young to vote when I lived in LA County, I did see the ballots in the polling places in 1990: the *in precinct* ballots were *just like that*.
It looks like when they switched to a new in precinct system they kept the old system for absentees.
But note: this means they’ve been using a hideously un-user friendly system for at least eighteen years.
Kirk: from what I understand, that was never terribly common (although I think Santa Clara County did it that way for a while).
No county I’ve lived in other than LA County does it that way. But … LA County has a quarter of the registered voters in the State, so anything LA County does wrong in the election department has an impact statewide.
This is absurd. Armed Liberal, you did a very good deed for democracy by protesting against that. Bravo!