Vote Centers for BoCo

["Paul Tiger - LPBC - Outreach" <outreach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings All,

Yesterday evening one of the options receiving a good deal of attention was
vote centers. I support using them.
The county need not make a long-term commitment to using vote centers. As
Tom Davidson and Joe Pezzillo have both repeatedly pointed out, the county
can and should rent elections equipment for our own testing and continued
use.

The county can run the 06 elections in vote centers with certified equipment
and proven processes. I believe that it can do this for less of an expense
in every aspect of the election, even if only as an experiment for our
county.
The benefits are low initial costs; better use of labor; more efficient
processes; BETTER ACCURACY; and faster tallies. There's also very tight
security of the ballots. They stay in the place where they were printed  and
cast.

Tom and Joe have made the rental point, and I think that it deserves some
clarification. Renting is not leasing. Leasing means you are a buyer. If
we're experimenting, then were not buyers.
My opinion is that we've bought something not ready for prime-time from a
company with little commitment to customer service. Now we know that, but we
still have a million and half of their equipment. As a service oriented guy,
I wouldn't pay more money to a firm that has failed so miserably to deliver
the goods. I wouldn't even rent their stuff.

The detractors of vote centers have some valid points, but they are mostly
about social engineering. Will voters be comfortable with vote centers? Will
they be more or less pleased with the integrity of elections if vote centers
are used?
Last evening a woman from Utah spoke about DRE and some other things that I
very much doubt that BoCo will ever invest in. One thing she did say was
that vote centers can issue the wrong ballots to voters. That should not be
possible with ballot-on-demand, which is what we use. Whether we continue to
use the Hart system or some other, ballot-on-demand was before and should be
in the future - on the spec list.
A voter gives their location information (voter ID) and the ballot-on-demand
system prints their ballot, not someone else's.
The clerk has problems with the speed and reliability of the printers that
were used. More easily rectified than tossing out the baby with the
bathwater.

There are others who will oppose vote centers, and I welcome their
arguments. However, let's make sure that we are dealing with technical and
legal issues and not what makes some people warm and fuzzy. Change is
inevitable, people tend not to like it and express a lack of confidence in
their changing environment.
Beyond the issues of cost, I simply ask that we have an elections system
that works technically well and is lawful. If it does these things, then
voter confidence will be re-instated.

Paul Tiger, Outreach Director of the Libertarian Party of Boulder County
Outreach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
303-774-6383 voice and messages
720-323-0570 cell
www.LPBoulder.org
"The government that governs best, governs least."
                            Thomas Jefferson