Nancy Thomson

The hanging chads in the November 2000 presidential election that caused so much trouble in Florida have produced a whole new bureaucracy. It is called HAVA, the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Signed into law by President Bush in October 2002, all states must change to electronic voting machines. This is required because of the Florida experience even if the previous non-computer voting in the other states posed no problem.

Each county is allowed the choice of several computer systems. The Orange Republican Women Federated hosted a learning session on electronic voting machines at their meeting. Two machines were set up. One computer was open for demonstrations. A second computer had a "hood" over it that provided privacy in voting. Both machines were situated on long thin metal legs presenting a sort of Star Wars robot look.

A lovely lady volunteer who does PR work for the new voting system provided information and fielded questions. The election -voting booklet explains about the modernization of the voting systems. This includes official and pollworker training, voter education, accessibility by individuals with disabilities, alternative language needs, a statewide database, complaint procedures, provisional balloting AND other changes.

Many of the ladies practiced voting on the computers. Will there be someone there to help us, was a familiar question. My husband who is an engineer was present at the meeting. He said it would take dexterity to turn a knob while watching a green line move on the on the opposite side of the computer. Also someone unfamiliar with computers would have a problem.

Orange County chose the eSLATE voting system. There are 6 steps to the process. 1, After using the SELECT wheel and ENTER button to enter a 4 number code, the ballot from your precinct appears on the screen. 2, Turn the SELECT wheel to move the blue bar over the choice you wish to make. 3, press the ENTER button to mark your choice. 4, Use the PREV & next buttons to move back and forth between ballot pages. 5, Press the HELP button once to get instructions on the screen: press it twice to ask for help from a pollworker. 6, After entering all your choices, press the CAST BALLOT button. You will see the American flag on the screen indicating your ballot has been recorded.

Our PR lady said they need many more volunteers to go around the county demonstrating the new system. She has gone to all sorts of clubs and organizations with the machine. It wasn't too bad trying to explain the new system at a senior citizen's center, but trying to demonstrate the procedures to a multi-cultural group proved difficult. A clip- board was passed around for the Republican women to sign as electronic voting demonstrators. The saving element in volunteering came when 100 Mormons went up the religious hierarchy ladder and received permission to demonstrate the electronic voter system in our area.

These electronic voting machines each cost thousands of dollars. We were told not to worry because the federal government pays for most of it. Add to this expense, all the training and necessity to have a trained person at the polls at all times. The back of the eSLATE flyer is written in Korean. Of course the computers contain multilingual services. Won't there have to be multilingual interpreters available at the polls for the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese and other non-English speakers to explain the voting?

Actually we're lucky this eSLATE system hardly ever breaks down, it is the least expensive of 3 other systems, and the simplest to operate. So we are told.

Turning the simple process of voting into a complicated process is bad enough. Even more disturbing, the federal government has taken over another Constitutional function of the states. Voting matters are to be determined at the state level, and all such election functional decisions made there.