June 08, 2006

"Tallying the lessons"

"The county's top election official is re-evaluating how democracy is waged in the wake of Tuesday's primary election, which was riddled with voting machine problems and delays.

Before November's general election, in which more voters are expected to decide on more issues, elections officials likely will beef up poll worker training, make sure more tech-support staff is available and could reduce the number of polling locations in order to prevent problems that delayed some polls opening by more than three hours, said Deborah Hench, San Joaquin County's registrar of voters.

"You have to compare it to having the Asparagus Festival in 330 locations," Hench said of the effort to train and deploy poll workers at 333 polling locations spread throughout the county.

Counting the ballots also took longer than in all but six other counties statewide, lasting until 3:28 a.m. Wednesday.

Poll workers complained that the Diebold TSx electronic voting machines used for the first time in two years Tuesday were too difficult to set up and training that the workers received did not adequately explain how to assemble or disassemble the machines."

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Posted by Randy Riddle at June 8, 2006 09:06 AM