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Doug,

As a way of intro, I am a Chief Precinct Judge in Guilford County and have been an election official for five years. There are many factors to be considered in voting reform. In my mind the most important issue is how to increase the number of people voting. Casting a ballot is at the heart of democracy. Insuring that no one is unfairly excluded should guide our actions. Then we must insure public confidence that every vote counts.

I believe the current movement to super voting centers is driven by the need to respond to the desire for a "paper trail" to voting. The way I read the material the voting centers are a way of mitigating the cost of investing in new voting machines capable of producing a paper receipt.

The issue of a paper receipt needs to be taken head on. We live in a high technology age. Gathering info, presenting info, educating, controlling complex systems for finance and defense, and buying and selling are all common place over the internet. If we can rely upon the technology of the computer to control air travel and banking I think we can rely upon the same technology to control voting. If voters demand a receipt, let's explore posting a receipt notice on a voting bulletin board permitting those who desire one to retrieve it and also permitting voting administration to have a back up source.

Now on the issue of voting centers as opposed to neighborhood precincts, I say no. Curbside voting and early voting are excellent additions to voting regulations permitting more people to cast their ballots. My experience on election day is that in spite of long lines of an hour, not really that long when compared to the reports from Ohio, hotly contested races and some very long ballots people at the polls are friendly, orderly and respectful. Voting in one's home precinct may be one the last great neighborhood things we have. We need to encourage more not less neighborhood activity.

Let new rules expand the early voting. Let technology help us streamline voting and control ballots. The coming together with neighbors to exercise one of the fundamental rights in our democracy should be preserved.

Bob p

Bob,

Thanks for your comments. Our editorial, to be published in Friday's edition, will support the pilot project. But your concerns certainly should be taken into consideration.

Doug,

I saw the editorial today. Disappointing to say the least. I just cannot believe that congress, the state, local board and the N&R are so quick to support the "paper ballot" or "paper receipt" idea. My undertanding of the issue in Carteret is that it was clearly human error not machine malfunction that caused the problem. Why is there no hue and cry to outlaw the banking system that can operate nicely without checks.

So we want to push back technolgy that has shown it can help with efficiency and we want to over throw neighborhood voting in favor of super voting centers. Why don't we just invite all the big box stores to take on the task? We'll all go to one of the big stores, buy a few trinkets and cast our ballot at the same time. And when you get your voting receipt, it will say "Thanks for Voting at WalMart!"

I think we are missing the point on what the voters want to do!

Bob p

Mr. Plain:

First, full disclosure, I edited the book "Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century," by Bev Harris and David Allen. I favor voter-verified paper ballots as a supplement to electronic vote-casting and -counting. Here's why:

I don't think we'll ever be completely confident of preventing vote fraud. What we can do, however, is institute a voting and vote-counting system so transparent, and with an auditing system so rigorous and so sensitive to anomalies, that any errors or attempts at fraud will be discovered quickly.

I'm open to discussion regarding exactly what elements such a system should contain, but for the systems we have now, we must add a voter-verified paper ballot at the least to help ensure detection of any fraud or innocent error.

Convenience and efficiency for election workers shouldn't be the point of a system. The points should be 1) easy access to all qualified voters and no access to anyone not qualified; 2) absolute protection of ballot secrecy and 3) transparent, rigorous auditing.

As easy as electronic machines have made my journalism life on election nights, there's no constitutional purpose served by taking three minutes instead of three hours or three days to count ballots when the faster method increases the dangers of error and/or fraud.

Lex, Doug and others who I hope are listening,

I just have no confidence in something with "absolute protection". This either does not exist or is so expensive that it's not worth it.
Having paper does not necessarily guarantee no fraud.

On the other issue, I still maintain that easy neighborhood access to voting supplemented by early voting and good rules on provisional ballots is superior to the super voting center concept.

And by the way, if you have ever worked an election, you would know that convenience and efficiency are not what elections are about. Voting is a community exercise in democracy.

Bob p

Bob,

Thanks again. I think we're talking about unrelated issues. I'm still uncertain about whether paper backups are needed. As for neighborhood voting, I do enjoy voting at my home precinct, but legislative intent now seems to be to let people vote anywhere within the county. Some system has to be adopted to make that practical. Also, because I now work in Greensboro but still live in High Point, it may be more convenient for me to vote in Greensboro. If the new plan makes that easier, I can support it.