The Voting Experience

Annie and I went to vote today, as I hope all of you did. Our precinct station is in Joppa, a town even smaller than our own Bertram. We drove up to a nondescript white building next to a church, where just one beat-up pickup was in the gravel driveway. We walked in next to a freshly-plowed field; I think everyone should have the smell of horse manure in their nostrils on the way to the polling place. It kind of puts the whole thing in the right context, in all kinds of ways.

We were greeted by five nice older ladies who were the precinct captains. They had a crock pot full of something yummy-smelling for later in the evening, and a table full of pens, voter rolls, and snacks. To my surprise, even our tiny little county had electronic voting machines. They were easy to use, but walking away I felt somehow uneasy. This is strange for a technophile like me to admit, but the idea of nothing but a computer chip holding my vote makes me uncomfortable. At least with a paper ballot, you know that all interested parties (including myself) can get together in a room and look at the damn thing to make sure it's what I meant to put on there. But who can sit around and check electrons?

I wish we had some kind of paper trail, it would make me feel much more at ease. After I hit the submit button, for instance, it'd be nice to have a printout showing my vote. I could initial or sign it, then put it in a traditional paper ballot box. After the election, officials from the various parties and state or local government could spot check the precincts to make sure nothing went awry with the voting machines.

Or even better, maybe it's time for the entire country to take a look at an Oregon-style "Vote By Mail" system. The evidence so far is that such systems increase voter participation and information and is easier to verify.

We need to do something, though, because like professional sports, if the participants lose faith in the honesty of the system, the whole enterprise comes crashing down. Ultimately, what keeps the rule of law in force is that all of us living under it have confidence that everything is done on the up-and-up, without deceit or corruption, that we're all operating under the same fair, objective rules. If we lose that faith, then democracy simply cannot work.

After Florida, Ohio, and the myriad of complaints about electronic voting machines already coming out this year -- from both parties -- it's clear to me that we need to figure out a different way. And I think Oregon might already have solved it for us.