Maryland's Web-delivered ballots -- more than 110,000 have been requested -- must be hand-copied by po

[RandySF]

The rush to vote from home this year left Maryland election judges with a burden that plagues no other state in the country: Ballots delivered online cannot be read by the state’s scanning machines.

To be counted, each of those ballots must instead be hand-copied by election judges onto a cardstock ballot.

And each week, more requests for those Web-delivered ballots are rolling into election offices around the state, dramatically increasing the pressure on a system built for a far different type of election.

A month ahead of the deadline, more than 111,000 people have requested Web-delivered blank ballots — nearly twice the volume of the previous election. About 924,000 voters have so far asked for ballots to be mailed to them.

The Web-delivered ballots offer front-end expediency for voters, who can follow a link in their email, enter credentials on a website and download a ballot packet to print at home on regular paper.





https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maryland-web-ballots-hand-copied/2020/09/23/73221310-f2bd-11ea-999c-67ff7bf6a9d2_story.html

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. Well shit

I applied for a ballot online in July. Still haven't got it.
And I have no net access,no computer and no printer. Fuck .

[SamKnause]

5. Ohio doesn't send ballots out until October 6th.

They have received my application for a ballot.

I called the Board of Elections to track and verify my application.

I will be able to track my ballot on line after is it mailed.

[No Vested Interest]

6. Any chance you can hand-deliver it to your election board?

I'm also in Ohio, only a few miles from my county board of election headquarters.
My and daughter's will be taken there by car.

[LisaL]

12. There should be a drop off ballot box at each boards of election.

NT

[Grasswire2]

2. FUBAR nt

[ecstatic]

3. wtf??? Why would they set up something so ridiculous?? nt

[MustLoveBeagles]

4. I don't see this ending well

[DemsIn2020]

8. Yeah.

This is going to be a complete cluster.

[MustLoveBeagles]

9. Whoever thought this was a good idea needs a swift kick in ass

On a happier note, welcome to DU

[LisaL]

11. Yea, you'd think that before allowing people to print their own ballots, somebody would have checked

whether scanner can read them.

[Hekate]

7. We've had 20 godsdamned years to get this right, and between deliberate vote suppression/tampering &

...sheer ignorance of how computer systems and their interfaces work, we are up Shit Creek. Way too much is MIHOP, but some is the aforesaid ignorance.

It is absolutely infuriating.

[Klaralven]

10. Govt IT is done by specialized companies whose main expertise is taking care of politicians

[Boogiemack]

13. Now Maryland poll officials will be accused of tampering with the ballots.

Cut these off and ask senders to do over with in-person deliverable ballots. It's not too late.

[DeminPennswoods]

14. Just count them by hand

like in the old days. Scanning certainly makes life easier, but 111,000 is hardly an insurmountable amount to hand count.

[honest.abe]

15. I saw this option when we filled out the request form.

I suspected their might be complications with the web option so we choose the mail in ballot.

However, we have not received it yet even though we sent in the request about 3 weeks ago.