My Husband Is A Voting Unit Judge For Howard County, Maryland

[arwalden]

and is an alternate (on-call) Chief Judge for the region... within a reasonable driving distance. This is the 4th election that he's been a judge for and he's had to attend several training sessions. His official duties start tonight when all the people at his assigned polling place meet up for a final review of tomorrow's activities, as well as setting up the touch-screen voting machines.

Even though it's a "paying" job... it's really a pittance compared to the loss of salary (I guess it could be compared to jury duty pay).

Even though I still don't like the idea of having no paper trails for recounts and verification, it looks like Maryland's security precautions are pretty thorough. I had a chance to review his course materials, and it's pretty interesting.

Maryland's board of elections has gotten word that some anti-touchscreen group might be planning to disrupt the voting process with a vote slowdown tactic. Supposedly, some are planning to show up at their assigned polling places and upon being assigned their VAT card and activating their voting machine, their plan was to just stand there and r-e-a-d v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and vote slowly, and act incompetent or confused, and make intentional mistakes, or pretend not to understand, or pretend that the machine is making an error (when it's not)... etc etc.

Fortunately, the BOE has planned ahead and the polling place Judge has the authority to handle the situation if it should arise. It's my understanding that setting time limits on voting is legal and polling place judges are permitted to enforce the limits. A citizen may not be permitted to tie-up a machine while they laboriously ponder their decision. Each voting place has a Democratic and Republican judges to ensure fairness and impartiality whenever a decision has to be made.

Anyway... he always enjoys the work and he feels like he's done his civic duty by contributing to the voting process in a meaningful way. I think it's pretty cool too! I guess that's why I'm bragging about him here.

-- Allen

[meg]

1. It doesn't make sense

Why would evoting people want to slow the vote down? Evoting critics have been very fair about evaluating the technology. How does slowing down voting help the evoting critics?

However, GOP operatives have been caught on numerous occasions in their plans to slow down the vote.

Now, slowing down the vote - who does that sound like?

[terrya]

2. You have every right to brag.

Mike is doing very good work.

It sounds like everything might well be on the up and up. Good to hear.

How was your sabbatical, btw? :-)

[ploppy]

3. Brag Away!

It sounds like you have bragging rights! It's a great contribution.