I just voted

I just got back from voting. There were 4 poll workers in the room, and there were no lines. I was in and out in about 15 minutes. I presented my driver's license and documented the last 4 digits of my SSN since my license, while valid, is out of state.

There was only one libertarian option on the ballot: Pierce for governor and his running mate. They were not listed as libertarians, so if you didn't know Pierce's or his running mate's name, you were screwed. Republicans and Democrats had their party listed under their names. This is another example of the entrenched power of the two parties that cannot be discounted.

I thought the voting machines were pretty good. I was given my personal smart card to activate the voting machine. I had an 11 page touchscreen ballot, and I could scroll back and forth and look at everything, vote for candidates and change votes, without ever committing the vote. Then at the end of the process, after I had completed voting, the machine gave me a summary screen. On the summary screen I noticed that one of my "no" votes was marked as a "yes" vote. I went back and changed that vote. It was an artifact with the only problem I found with the machine - the touch screen wasn't as accurate as it should have been. But with all the flexibility to review and edit votes, this was a minor problem easily overcome. After reviewing and accepting the on screen summary, the machine printed a paper copy of my votes for review. Only after printing and reviewing my entire paper ballot did I committ my votes. I removed and returned the smart card and left. It was a good system. When control of elections is local, the people have the power to force election officials to provide a good system, and they did that in my precinct.

All in all, voting was a simple, painless process. I'm very satisfied with the identification process and the paper trail left by my vote. The identification process and having both the electronic count and the paper redundancy should make elections much more honest. The opportunites for undetected fraud are significantly reduced compared to paper only ballots which are far prefereable to electronic only counts.

For reference, I live just across the river from downtown in Dayton, Ohio.