Date

I just got back from voting and surprisingly it was uneventful. I say surprisingly because this is Ohio, where 2004 and 2006 elections have shown significant concerns with the electronic voting machines AND on top of that they're Diebold AccuVote TSX units. Diebold of course being known for apparently not using a bit of their security knowledge gained from developing ATMs on their voting machines.

I showed up at the polling location at a bit after 8 AM, failing to find it on the first pass even though there are huge signs out front saying "VOTE HERE". I blame that on being a bit hung over (yesterday sucked, so Nick and I tried to invent a Jeremy Clarkson drinking game with a bottle of Skyy while watching Thriller).

Here was the only real issue I had all morning. I hadn't a clue what precinct I was in for my polling location, when I voted in 2004 there was basically one place for everyone registered on campus. The map they offered wasn't helpful at all, so eventually I found a list of names that I was on and caught a very tiny "D" marked in the corner. I wandered over to the Precinct D table, showed my ID, signed in, and was handed a smart card. After about 5 minutes in line I walked up and went through the system.

The UI was actually quite nice, well designed, and clear. The font rendering made it clear there was Windows behind it which is a bit annoying, but I already knew that. The verification page was decent and I enjoyed how it printed the information page by page as I looked at it on the screen, allowing for easy verification. The only complaint I have about this part of the process is that the printer was badly chosen. Fonts are small and thermal paper just doesn't last.

After verifying my vote, the smart card popped out. I handed it to a poll worker and headed to work.