So I voted on Diebold tonight

[Awsi Dooger]

And survived. Might as well do a summation. I've noticed Diebold earns plenty of ink around here but seldom if ever has anyone walked through the process from their own experience and perspective. This is my third cycle on Diebold, second with paper trails. My enemy are punch cards, not DREs, but I've come to accept op-scan with error protection as the superior choice.

All of the poll workers appeared 60ish and 70ish, standard. I chose a shopping mall and near the 9 PM closing time for expediency. Indeed, I was encouraged to "hurry up" as I approached and I was the final voter of the night. The woman at the sign-in laptop didn't ask for any type of ID, as always, other than the sample ballot which is mailed to you and serves as the ID here in Nevada. She asked my birth date to verify, and since it's a primary she also confirmed I was a registered Democrat.

They hand you a narrow credit card-like device to activate the diabolical machine. This time a poll worker walked me to a specific machine, unlike 2004 when I waited 30+ minutes and was impatiently leaning forward when anyone head faked a finish. Inserting the yellow credit card on the bottom left-center prompts the machine and the language screen appears. I had little trouble with that choice and four elections appeared, federal first followed by major statewide races. I counted and there were 22 races with 82 options total. And keep in mind that's merely the Democratic version. There were 9 partisan races where the choices differed depending on the party, plus the Republicans had one additional partisan race.

One thing Diebold gets right; the screen is not crowded. That made an immediate impression on me in 2002, and continues. There are generally four races per screen and less than that if the number of candidates is huge. For example, in Las Vegas we have a 17-person stampede for the sheriff race after four years of significant crime increase, and that race encompassed the entire screen. Each box is roughly one inch high, containing the person's name and party affiliation. There is a sensible gap between the last candidate and the start of the next race.

OK, for those of you desperate for a hint of a flaw, it happened on the second race. I confidently identified Shelly Berkley for congress and the little green check mark wanted no part of it. It flashed on the screen, in the middle of the circle next to her name, for only a split second before departing. I needed a careful fingertip replay before the check mark plastered. That repeated two more times on subsequent races, for a pop rate of 3 in 22. The check mark never transferred to Berkley's opponent, it simply vanished, the screen perhaps detecting a double punch when that was hardly the intention. Or the execution, from what I could tell. Admittedly, I have no idea what would have happened if I didn't notice the blank race and hit "Next" on the bottom of the screen, advancing to the next slate of races. Would there have been an under vote warning?

I should mention we have paper trail in Nevada, mandated this year. In 2004 it was a split decision, some of the early purchase machines unable to be fitted with the printer. While voting tonight I glanced at the paper trail area at left several times, wondering if it understood how much new interest it had generated, compared to the all but ignored black wing on the other side. Sad.

Anyway, while voting that paper trail is nothing but a strip of glass with a light gray background, maybe 10 inches high and three inches wide and in my case not exactly spotless. A prominent shadow went diagonally from lower left to upper right and I was interested to see how that would impact verifying the paper, once we got there.

After the last of the 22 races, the machine provided a rundown of my selections only, one name after another on the same screen, with 22 races in this case taking up one full column then halfway down on the right. Once those choices were verified, you are asked to summon the paper trail.

It rises slowly from the bottom, smaller print than my memory from 2004. The lettering is perhaps 1/5 of an inch high, maybe half the size of the screen version I had just reviewed. At nearly 6-4 I was frustrated the scroll halted flush to the bottom of the paper trail screen, and not at the top or centered, but I guess that's ideal for the populous in general. The shadow aspect forced me to lean forward to sample the names, and I was thinking of the multi colored ballot thread here, since it would have been far simpler to scan the paper trail if let's say every other name and race was in green lettering and not all black. I assume it's the cost factor again, and those are probably B&W printers. It's also more difficult to verify the paper trail than the review screen since there are no border lines between races on the paper trail.

I managed a perfect score, BTW. Other than few of my choices are likely to win, a runaway theme since 2002. Oh yeah, the final command was submit your vote. Took six minutes total, after showing up.

[Trajan]

1. You make cheating sound ....

so wonderful and exciting ....

I cant wait .....

[eridani]

2. Now tell us what the microprocessor did while you were touching the screen

If you know what it did, explain how.