Florida Fiasco moves north to Staten Island?

There are far too many variables that come into play with paper ballots. They leave way too much room for corruption and disenfranchisement. What is the backup plan? What if they run out of ballots in “certain” places? How will they be transported and who will do the physical counting? Hanging chads, pregnant chads, write overs, stray marks….my head is spinning as I FORESEE visions of Florida. Staten Island is about to make national news again, not for election night violence this time…..

That was my statement, when I discovered we would be using paper ballots, now here is my personal experience.

I worked the night shift Monday, so I went to the polls as I returned from the city. As I approached the table, a middle-aged African American woman had just placed her ballot in the box, and had a broad smile on her face. That smile turned to fear as she read a poster of the proper instructions for filling out the ballot. She turned to the worker and stated, I put a circle around the candidate, thats what you told me to do, but it says here to fill in the box. The worker replied that it would be “ok”, and that her vote will be counted. She asked if she could have it back, or do it over, but the poll worker insisted it would be ok. As visions of High school days, and military days, where filling in scan forms was a recurring event, I remembered how many times people had to ask for another one. Just because they couldn’t seem to follow simple instructions. At that time, it was my thought that the voter goofed, and to be honest, was about to get what she deserved. I voted, properly of course, and went on about my day, supporting the candidate I just cast a vote for. I called my wife to tell her the story, and to remind her to fill out the ballot properly for whoever she was going to vote for, as if I didn’t know (wink), she laughed at me of course…she thinks she is smarter than I am. As the day progressed, I accompanied her to vote, somebody had to stay with the kids, in the car. She came out with THAT look on her face. She was mad as…well you know. She told me the same poll worker gave her the SAME INSTRUCTION, and it was now some 5 hours later, and countless voters (ok maybe not countless) have passed through this same table with this same worker and the same faulty information. My wife admonished the woman immediately. She insisted that she tell people the correct information, and that it was important for people to vote correctly. From my perspective, it is impossible to know whether those ballots were counted or not, but for a ONE DAY event, uyou would think that the BOE would give them a script of what to say, and that the workers wouldn’t make up their own rules as they go along.