Yesterday, Illinois opened up early voting for the Feb 5 primary. I decided to stop by and cast my vote on the way home from work today. It was the first time I have participated in early voting and the first time our county has used touchscreen machines. I thought I would share some observations.
Illinois now allows voting 22 days before an election. This is not absentee balloting--they have a number of special voting locations set up around the state and the procedure is identical to that on the regular election day. Any eligible voter can vote early (but not often, like the old days ;-).
I felt "fired up" and ready to vote, so I stopped by to cast my vote for Barack Obama. I live in DuPage county, and the polling place I chose was set up in a shopping mall.
The first thing I noticed was that, for 3:00pm in the afternoon it seemed pretty busy. They had maybe 10 machines set up and all were in use, plus there was a small line outside. While waiting to be checked in (always a suspenseful moment, wondering if the election judge will live long enough to complete the process) I asked about turnout and noticed the stack of "check in" receipts on the table. They said it was the heaviest they had seen for a primary. The "check in" slips (signature pages) were stacked by party. I was number 111 for the Democrats today. There were 72 republicans. This in a county that votes 55%-60% for the republican presidential candidate and that has NO Democrats on the ballot for ANY of the county offices. (When I first started voting in this county in the 1980s, it took 5 min just to find the ledger of registered Democrats and brush off the cobwebs). Yeah, I'd say the Dem presidential race is more exciting....
It was also my first experience with a Diebold touchscreen machine. That felt kind of odd, actually, because, like most progressives, I have come to see Diebold as an agent of the devil (or republicans--same thing). Seeing the big "Diebold" logo on the machine made me feel uncomfortable, like an evangelical at a public library.
An election volunteer (the only one ambulatory enough to walk back to the machine with me) went through the procedures. For someone computer literate it was pretty straightforward, but it struck me that it would be easy for first time users to make mistakes.
I made all my big X's, and hit the button to file the ballot. One these machines, a paper "receipt" is generated for each voter. There is no way to touch the paper receipt. There is a clear window on the side of the machine where you can watch your "receipt" scroll by and make sure your votes were registered correctly--then it is stored in the machine. I found that mildly reassuring, I don't know--maybe the paper was just a placebo to keep the masses happy.
Anyhow that was it--I have voted in every primary and regular election since I was first eligible in 1972, and, sappy as it sounds, I still get the same feeling of satisfaction every time I do it.