Montgomery County (Dayton) results may not be known until tomorrow afternoon

modernesquire — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:16:30 -0800

So says this post from the Columbus Dispatch.

There's apparently a misunderstanding out there that people are being asked to vote provisional paper ballots if the lines are too long. THAT IS UNTRUE.

In order to relieve the expected long lines today, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner ordered the county Board of Elections to give voters the option of casting a paper optical scan ballot instead of waiting for an electronic voting machine to become available. Any such optical scan ballot offered to relieve the congestion of the lines is a regular ballot, not a provisional ballot. The idea is that by giving voters an alternative method to vote that doesn't require waiting for an electronic machine to become available, the lines will move more quickly and less people will turn away from voting due to the long lines and wait times. Brunner's plan essentially doubles the capacity of voting stations that were more designed to handle 40% turnout rather than the projected 80%. Remember how the day after the election students at Kenyon College were still in line waiting to vote? This plan was designed to prevent that from happening.

So far, it seems that the wait times today, as a result, is roughly an hour or less. Far less than what people waited to do for in-person early voting.

Anyways, back to Montgomery County. Because Montgomery County has implemented this system, a significant share of the votes cast today were by these regular paper ballots which take more time to tabulate than merely plugging in the memory cards from the electronic voting machines. The volume is so great that the County has had to hit the panic button to request more paper ballots because it's burning through them.

In the end, more people are voting in Montgomery and aren't having to wait that long to do so. This minimizes the number of people who didn't vote due to it taking too long. As much as I would love to have Ohio decided tonight, I'm willing to trade off knowing the result immediately for a process that encourages, rather than discourages, as many votes as possible.

Your thoughts?

Buckeye State Blog - Montgomery County (Dayton) results may not be known until tomorrow afternoon - Comments

Montgomery County (Dayton) results may not be known until tomorrow afternoon