J & I went to vote this morning. It took us around 45 minutes from start to end. We got there around 8:10 am and left a touch before 9. There were lines aplenty. Our polling place was a school, specifically in the gym. There was a line to get into the gym, and in the gym you had to wait in 3 lines, one to get your orange card with your information, another to get your e-voting smart card (or whatever they're calling it), and another to wait for the voting machines. Everyone waited together in the line leading to the gym, then split up according to last names to get the two cards, then everyone waited together again in the line for the machines.

It went: everyone waits in line. Then, you move into the gym, wait in line according to last name (A-G, H-O, or P-Z) to receive an orange card with your voter registration info on it. Then wait in another line (still according to last name) to get the smart card device you put in the machines. Then go wait in the line (with everyone again) to wait for your turn at one of the 9 or so voting booths. Stick the card in, do your votin' thang, and on your way out, give the card to an election official or drop it off in a box on your way out. It went pretty smoothly, although the lines were a bit out of order (the line for the machines was in between the lines for H-O and P-Z, facing the other way), and there was a fair amount of waiting. The people working the polls were very friendly.

While I was there, I talked with one of the officials in charge at my polling place about my concern over the lack of voter-verifiable paper trails in the (Diebold, I believe) machines my jurisdiction uses. He was a pretty nice guy, although a bit of a smooth talker. I just wanted to register a complaint about it, but he went to the trouble of trying to talk up the machines, mentioning that the votes are recorded and checked on both the smart card and the hard drive on the machines before they are accepted, and showing me the security sticker on the machines that proves any physical tampering. He did say he would write it up and mention to the higher-up elections officials that I had a concern about it. Don't get me wrong, I like the electronic voting machines. They're easy to use, and tallies up totals a lot quicker than other methods. What I don't like is that if there is a problem with them, there is no way to check and do a re-count of the votes. Think about it this way--if you're having sex and you really don't want to get pregnant, you use mulitple birth control methods (e.g. condoms and the pill). That way, if something goes screwy (excuse the pun) with one form of protection, you have the other to rely on. It doesn't help that the CEO of Diebold has said before he'll do what he can to help Bush get elected... here's a story about e-voting that mentions this that I dug up via google news.

Anyways, I hope all goes well. This evening, I'll be at home with J, sitting back with a beer, watching tv, checking the internet and keeping track of the tallies via the US map & stickers that came in a recent New Yorker issue (thanks, cnn, for paying for that). And watching the daily show election special (it's at 10pm, instead of the usual 11). So, woo! for democracy.