I've never had to worry about lines -- our max wait has been 4-5 people, about 2-3 minutes. One of the ways to prevent them is to make the maximum size of a precint's roster count smaller. In our county, it's 1000 people, which translates to 300 or so active voters, of which almost half are absentee since they began offering the permanent absentee option. Of course, to have smaller precinct sizes, you have to have enough pollworkers and equipment, which can be its own problem.
So? You can still help, by being a pollworker. So, that's one excuse. What are your others? If you care about voting, if elections matter, prove it. Become a pollworker.
No, my county has had electronically tallied voting for years, using the Sequoia Optech (Eagle) system. They didn't replace hand-counted paper ballots for ADA rasons. They replaced one electronic tallying system with another. And again, paper ballots are the law here. You come into my precinct to vote and don't want anything to do with a machine, that's absolutely fine -- I will cheerfully give you a paper ballot and a pen, which you can mark to your heart's content, and put into a sealed plastic ballot box, to be counted separately at the end of the evening. You couldn't do that when we had the Eagles!
No, at no point in the recent past has balloting in my area ever been as you describe -- there has never been a point where my job was to certify that voters "take a ballot, fill it out, drop it in a box, then [...] the box sealed up and sent." And to be clear, I'm quite knowledgable about the computer processes involved, even though I haven't discussed them here.
If you think I'm ignorant, that's fine. I know exactly what I have to certify, and I do exactly that. If you haven't been through the process with me, you're just pretending you know what I deal with. Can I control what happens to voting equipment when it's not in my care? No. But if I choose to, I could follow that equipment through the process.
It is not my job to ensure that there is no tampering of computer records. I can't assure that, and I'd be ridiculous to say I could -- which is why at no point in this discussion have I ever said that. I've explained how the processes I handle directly work. I've explained the reasoning behind some equipment choices. I've explained some of the historical reasons for some legal issues about voting. I'm glad to explain those processes to anyone who asks. But you know what? But it is not my job as a pollworker to guarantee to anyone anywhere, including you, that election tampering is impossible in any way in California. I know *exactly* what my duties are. I also know that this is the way I can help. Instead of sitting at home, complaining that voting is fraudulent, I can put my ass in a seat at a polling place and say, "Here, in this place, so much as I can do so, I can work to have every voter I interact with vote." I'm not an advocate for electronic voting. I'm a pollworker. I wish more posters to this thread were pollworkers, too.
So, here's my question. Under your ID-only system, is there no absentee balloting? If the concern is preventing people from voting for someone else, I am unclear how you can have absentee balloting -- because that ballot is in someone else's hands. If you still allow absentee balloting with signature, then my impression is that would be a far greater risk vector.
Here's the deal: in the precincts I have worked, I have no more than 1000 names on the roster. I get between 25 and 250 voters in person (and another 200 or so are permanent absentee voters). Of those, the pollworkers working in the precinct will know by name and face about 80 percent of the voters. The rest we learn over time. I do have inactive voters in the back of my roster -- voters who have not voted in X number of elections, who may have moved away or died and not yet been removed from the rolls. If someone came in to vote one of those inactive names, we'd know. It would be a big thing, and we'd all have a discussion about it, etc. Because the addresses in my roster are nearby and neighbors of my poll workers, it wouldn't go unnoticed. By the way, so far, I have never had a single inactive voter come in to vote. If I had, I'd remember, because it's so unusual.
Do I think that not requiring ID is perfect? No. But I think it's better than turning away voters, ever.
And I urge you to become a poll worker. Get your hands in the sausage.:-)
We don't have lines, either. Our precincts are not more than 1000 registered voters. Of those, maybe 300 are inactive (have not voted in 10 more elections, I think), another 350 or so are registered to vote permanent absentee voter, and of the rest, no more than 50 percent or so actually vote. So of 1000 voters, I between 25 and 250 actually voting. Our particular polling place is broken up into 4 precincts, so those numbers are repeated in their areas of the room.
On incredibly busy elections, during brief periods, I can have a 3-4 person back up, creating wait times of 2-3 minutes. That's it. Limiting the total number of voters on a single precinct roster helps with that. The other thing is that because poll workers come from the community, I frequently work at precincts where the poll workers between them know 60-75 percent of the active voters on the roster, by name. It's actually hard to pretend to be so-and-so when the poll worker knew so-and-so for 20 years before he died.:-)
So, amusingly enough, when we had paper balloting in this county, the voter did what you're suggesting -- used a magnetic pen and marked a paper ballot -- and then fed the completed ballot into a scanner that counted it and tabulated the vote in a secure memory pack. At the end of the night, the memory pack got counted, and the paper ballots were just... a paper trail.
For this reason, in our county, I'm always privately a little amused when voters talk about how they want to "go back" to paper ballots. We had an electronic system before; it's just that we used to generate the electronic total from the paper. We will provide a paper ballot now to anyone who asks, but that ballot isn't computer read at the polling place.
Wow, your comment makes no sense. We're talking about disabled voters voting with assistance -- not being told how to vote, but having to have someone else mark their ballot for them, because they're unable to see or otherwise mark the ballot themselves.
Yes! *laugh* A voter can be challenged for being incapacitated due to alcohol or drugs. I grew up in places where it was illegal to sell liquor on election days, because of that concern.
Except you'd have to change several things. You'd have to change the paper trail, and the electronic record, which is not being store at the voting unit itself. It's possible, but I'll be honest -- it's easier to change/falsify paper ballots.
At no point have I said that voting fraud does not or cannot happen, or that the election system of my county is tamper-proof. NO election is tamperproof. The goal of systems I'm aware of is to make it harder, but the bottom line is that it's not completely preventatble, even with paper ballots.
No, that's not correct. Under recent rulings, police can stop you and ask your *name*, and can arrest you if you refuse to provide it, or charge you if you provide false information. But current legal precedents do not currently require ID. It's a common misconception.
Now, if you are doing something that requires an ID -- driving a car, for example, you can be asked to show that ID, and charged if you don't have it. But currently, it is not a legal requirement for US citizens to carry ID.
I am not a lawyer, but that's my current understanding of the situation. Google it. Further, google the history of requiring ID to prevent voters. It's one of the single most historically common ways that poor and African-American voters have been prevented from voting. Don't let them have ID's, then don't let them vote without ID's -- or make them pay large amounts for ID's, then don't let them vote without them, etc. Right up there with poll taxes and literacy tests.
It doesn't have to be undecided. When we had paper ballots that used magnetic ink pens, if people made a stray mark on the ballot, it spoiled the ballot and the ballot reader wouldn't be able to process it. This would happen a lot with mothers trying to vote and hold children at the same time. Sometimes it would just be a clumsy moment -- you drop the pen on the ballot while getting ready to vote and you could spoil the ballot.
Mmm, I love those tamper evident seals. Not only do I have to track and verify something like 25 of them, but I have to keep logs of them, mark down the numbers, have them double checked and signed, and nothing gets sealed or unsealed without witnesses present. These days, a big part of what I do as a pollworker involves locks and seals. We have an entire certification class in just that subject.
To be more clear, while the law says you can have that, and you're entitled to it, the point of the recent changes is that "separate but equal" isn't. Voters are entitled to be able to vote without assistance, if they want to. To tell a class a voters that they only way they're going to get to vote is with assistance, that's the problem. The ADA says reasonable accommodations, which is what these things are supposed to address. Yes, there will always be voters who cannot be accommodated by anything other than assisted voting, but there are many many more who could be able to fully exercise their rights, if reasonable changes were made.
Ramps and curb cuts don't make every building accessible to every disabled person. But they do make places accessible to many more people than not having ramps or curb cuts at all. This argument for "people have always made due before" could just as easily be used to say, "Hey, for generations, people stayed home if they couldn't get into buildings. Why do we have to make them accessible now? It's always worked before."
Let me be clear. I am not a "pro-electronic voting moron". I'm pro-voter. I'm pro-voting rights. I'm for whatever it takes to have as many people as possible be able to fully and freely exercise their voting rights. In my county, right now, I feel confident that the head of my elections process is someone who supports those goals. I put my energy into making every voter feel empowered and making every vote count. Right now, that means helping voters understand how the electronic system we have works for them, and cheerfully giving voters paper ballots if that's what they want to be comfortable voting.
At no point in this thread have I ever said, "This is what people should do" or "This is why electronic voting is good". My opinions about electronic voting are irrelevant, actually. I ask my pollworkers to leave their opinions at the door. My job -- one I take very seriously -- is to ensure that the ballots and equipment I am responsible for are secure from the moment I sign for them until the moment I sign them into someone else's care, and to make sure every voter who shows up at my precinct gets to vote. I do whatever it takes for that to happen, because that's the bottom line. If my devotion to voting rights makes me a moron, I guess I'll accept the label.
Sip-and-puff, or giant button. We have a voting entry option which is basically a giant pressure sensitive button, which can be placed under or near a body part that can be moved. It means even if you can't hold a pen, if you can press down with your fist or foot, you can vote. If you can't do either of those, you probably already are using a sip-and-puff for other things -- we just attach our equipment to yours.
1. A blind voter. Previously, this voter had to have another person read the ballot to them, either at home as an absentee ballot, or at the polling place, either a helper or a pollworker. Then the blind voter would tell that person how they wished to vote, and the helper would mark the ballot that way. In this instance, the blind person has no way to verify the helper is marking the ballot as instructed. Whether it's a pollworker, a health care aide, or a family member, there is no guarantee of that. Not only that, but the blind voter has to *tell* another person their voting choices.
Under the new system we have, the blind voter can still do that if they prefer -- and some do. But the blind voter also has the option of coming to the polling place, sitting down at an electronic booth, having the ballot read aloud by the computer, having their choices verified and read by the computer, and having their paper ballot read outloud to them. The blind voter can do this without another person's assistance. Now, you can argue that the voter still cannot be sure that the ballot being read to them is the correct ballot, but in order to do that, we'd have to know in advance that a blind person was going to vote, etc.
2. A voter in a wheelchair, with extreme mobility issues, who has never been able to physically mark a ballot before, because their hands are non-functional. In the past, even if that voter could see and read the ballot, that voter still had to have someone mark the ballot, either at home, or in the polling place.
Under the new system, that voter was able to come in, and for the first time in her life, be alone in a polling booth, read the ballot, and choose ballot options using a sip-and-puff interface. That voter was able to review the paper trail, verify it, and approve it and the final vote using the sip-and-puff. No one had to assist the voter, any more than we assist any other voter. That voter was maybe 35 or 40 years old, and it was the first time in her life she was able enter a polling booth and vote alone.
In both these cases, the voters can still choose to do things they way they did them in the past -- they can vote absentee with help, or come in and be assisted by a helper or a pollworker. They can still vote a paper ballot if they want, with assistance, at home or at a polling place. But now, they have something they didn't have before -- they have the ability to fully exercise the voting rights that were previously available in theory only.
Taking away pencil and paper? Goodness, no! Every voter in my state has the right to a paper ballot. All my voters have to do is ask, and some of them do. Out of 200 voters, I typically get 3-4 who prefer a paper ballot. Some other precincts have higher numbers.
There may be states or locations where paper balloting is being taken away from voters, but I don't serve as a poll worker in one of those places.
Our county doesn't use touch screens. And in fact, each precinct has one voting unit equipped with earphones and screen-reading, as well as other accessibility add-ons.
To be clear, by "everyone involved", I mean that we have to note every pollworker who was involved. We do not EVER note the voter or the voter's name or other identifying information. This is true for any irregularities. If I help someone vote, I have to document that I helped at X time at X booth.
The latter is correct. When this sort of thing happens, we take the physical voter code slip, cancel the booth, and note on the slip the reason why the machine was cancelled. We then have to log exactly the time, circumstances, and everyone involved. At the end of the day, I have to have on file that slip of paper with the access code and the log for every incident like this that happened. The fact that this happens is also reflected in the vote totals printed out for the end of the night. Every step of the way, we document anything unusual that happens.
Because of this, anyone looking at the totals would immediately be able to tell that there was a problem, and my voter trail could then be subject to further scrutiny. That paper trail ballot that was spoiled will be on my secure roll for the evening, but there will also be information on that roll that vote for access code X was spoiled, and is not counted.
I'd love to see you all come and watch in person! Really, it's a lot of very complex stuff to keep track of, and the amount of auditing and accountablility in connection with the paper trail is pretty interesting.
Legally a voter is allowed two spoiled ballots, and on the third try, that's the final ballot they get. This is true also for electronic voting -- they get three tries and that's it.:-)
When you sign your name, if you look at the fine print on the page, you are signing to verify under penalty of law that you are who you say you are. And when you print your address, if you look at the fine print, by printing it you are certifying that's where you live. Because you had to sign a voter registration card at some point in the past in order to be in that roster, your signature is on file somewhere, and should anyone have a question about the votes in your precinct, the signatures in the roster book could be compared to the voter signatures on file.
Just in case you ever wondered. As I've explained elsewhere, ID's are not required because historically, that's been used as a primary way to disenfranchise voters.
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I've never had to worry about lines -- our max wait has been 4-5 people, about 2-3 minutes. One of the ways to prevent them is to make the maximum size of a precint's roster count smaller. In our county, it's 1000 people, which translates to 300 or so active voters, of which almost half are absentee since they began offering the permanent absentee option. Of course, to have smaller precinct sizes, you have to have enough pollworkers and equipment, which can be its own problem.
So? You can still help, by being a pollworker. So, that's one excuse. What are your others? If you care about voting, if elections matter, prove it. Become a pollworker.
So, why aren't you working as a pollworker? If you're truly concerned, get involved.
No, my county has had electronically tallied voting for years, using the Sequoia Optech (Eagle) system. They didn't replace hand-counted paper ballots for ADA rasons. They replaced one electronic tallying system with another. And again, paper ballots are the law here. You come into my precinct to vote and don't want anything to do with a machine, that's absolutely fine -- I will cheerfully give you a paper ballot and a pen, which you can mark to your heart's content, and put into a sealed plastic ballot box, to be counted separately at the end of the evening. You couldn't do that when we had the Eagles!
No, at no point in the recent past has balloting in my area ever been as you describe -- there has never been a point where my job was to certify that voters "take a ballot, fill it out, drop it in a box, then [...] the box sealed up and sent." And to be clear, I'm quite knowledgable about the computer processes involved, even though I haven't discussed them here.
If you think I'm ignorant, that's fine. I know exactly what I have to certify, and I do exactly that. If you haven't been through the process with me, you're just pretending you know what I deal with. Can I control what happens to voting equipment when it's not in my care? No. But if I choose to, I could follow that equipment through the process.
It is not my job to ensure that there is no tampering of computer records. I can't assure that, and I'd be ridiculous to say I could -- which is why at no point in this discussion have I ever said that. I've explained how the processes I handle directly work. I've explained the reasoning behind some equipment choices. I've explained some of the historical reasons for some legal issues about voting. I'm glad to explain those processes to anyone who asks. But you know what? But it is not my job as a pollworker to guarantee to anyone anywhere, including you, that election tampering is impossible in any way in California. I know *exactly* what my duties are. I also know that this is the way I can help. Instead of sitting at home, complaining that voting is fraudulent, I can put my ass in a seat at a polling place and say, "Here, in this place, so much as I can do so, I can work to have every voter I interact with vote." I'm not an advocate for electronic voting. I'm a pollworker. I wish more posters to this thread were pollworkers, too.
So, here's my question. Under your ID-only system, is there no absentee balloting? If the concern is preventing people from voting for someone else, I am unclear how you can have absentee balloting -- because that ballot is in someone else's hands. If you still allow absentee balloting with signature, then my impression is that would be a far greater risk vector.
:-)
Here's the deal: in the precincts I have worked, I have no more than 1000 names on the roster. I get between 25 and 250 voters in person (and another 200 or so are permanent absentee voters). Of those, the pollworkers working in the precinct will know by name and face about 80 percent of the voters. The rest we learn over time. I do have inactive voters in the back of my roster -- voters who have not voted in X number of elections, who may have moved away or died and not yet been removed from the rolls. If someone came in to vote one of those inactive names, we'd know. It would be a big thing, and we'd all have a discussion about it, etc. Because the addresses in my roster are nearby and neighbors of my poll workers, it wouldn't go unnoticed. By the way, so far, I have never had a single inactive voter come in to vote. If I had, I'd remember, because it's so unusual.
Do I think that not requiring ID is perfect? No. But I think it's better than turning away voters, ever.
And I urge you to become a poll worker. Get your hands in the sausage.
We don't have lines, either. Our precincts are not more than 1000 registered voters. Of those, maybe 300 are inactive (have not voted in 10 more elections, I think), another 350 or so are registered to vote permanent absentee voter, and of the rest, no more than 50 percent or so actually vote. So of 1000 voters, I between 25 and 250 actually voting. Our particular polling place is broken up into 4 precincts, so those numbers are repeated in their areas of the room.
:-)
On incredibly busy elections, during brief periods, I can have a 3-4 person back up, creating wait times of 2-3 minutes. That's it. Limiting the total number of voters on a single precinct roster helps with that. The other thing is that because poll workers come from the community, I frequently work at precincts where the poll workers between them know 60-75 percent of the active voters on the roster, by name. It's actually hard to pretend to be so-and-so when the poll worker knew so-and-so for 20 years before he died.
So, amusingly enough, when we had paper balloting in this county, the voter did what you're suggesting -- used a magnetic pen and marked a paper ballot -- and then fed the completed ballot into a scanner that counted it and tabulated the vote in a secure memory pack. At the end of the night, the memory pack got counted, and the paper ballots were just ... a paper trail.
For this reason, in our county, I'm always privately a little amused when voters talk about how they want to "go back" to paper ballots. We had an electronic system before; it's just that we used to generate the electronic total from the paper. We will provide a paper ballot now to anyone who asks, but that ballot isn't computer read at the polling place.
Wow, your comment makes no sense. We're talking about disabled voters voting with assistance -- not being told how to vote, but having to have someone else mark their ballot for them, because they're unable to see or otherwise mark the ballot themselves.
"Are there rules about voting when high?"
Yes! *laugh* A voter can be challenged for being incapacitated due to alcohol or drugs. I grew up in places where it was illegal to sell liquor on election days, because of that concern.
Except you'd have to change several things. You'd have to change the paper trail, and the electronic record, which is not being store at the voting unit itself. It's possible, but I'll be honest -- it's easier to change/falsify paper ballots.
At no point have I said that voting fraud does not or cannot happen, or that the election system of my county is tamper-proof. NO election is tamperproof. The goal of systems I'm aware of is to make it harder, but the bottom line is that it's not completely preventatble, even with paper ballots.
No, that's not correct. Under recent rulings, police can stop you and ask your *name*, and can arrest you if you refuse to provide it, or charge you if you provide false information. But current legal precedents do not currently require ID. It's a common misconception.
Now, if you are doing something that requires an ID -- driving a car, for example, you can be asked to show that ID, and charged if you don't have it. But currently, it is not a legal requirement for US citizens to carry ID.
I am not a lawyer, but that's my current understanding of the situation. Google it. Further, google the history of requiring ID to prevent voters. It's one of the single most historically common ways that poor and African-American voters have been prevented from voting. Don't let them have ID's, then don't let them vote without ID's -- or make them pay large amounts for ID's, then don't let them vote without them, etc. Right up there with poll taxes and literacy tests.
It doesn't have to be undecided. When we had paper ballots that used magnetic ink pens, if people made a stray mark on the ballot, it spoiled the ballot and the ballot reader wouldn't be able to process it. This would happen a lot with mothers trying to vote and hold children at the same time. Sometimes it would just be a clumsy moment -- you drop the pen on the ballot while getting ready to vote and you could spoil the ballot.
Mmm, I love those tamper evident seals. Not only do I have to track and verify something like 25 of them, but I have to keep logs of them, mark down the numbers, have them double checked and signed, and nothing gets sealed or unsealed without witnesses present. These days, a big part of what I do as a pollworker involves locks and seals. We have an entire certification class in just that subject.
www.shapethefuture.org . There's even a blog! I'm in some of the pictures!
To be more clear, while the law says you can have that, and you're entitled to it, the point of the recent changes is that "separate but equal" isn't. Voters are entitled to be able to vote without assistance, if they want to. To tell a class a voters that they only way they're going to get to vote is with assistance, that's the problem. The ADA says reasonable accommodations, which is what these things are supposed to address. Yes, there will always be voters who cannot be accommodated by anything other than assisted voting, but there are many many more who could be able to fully exercise their rights, if reasonable changes were made.
Ramps and curb cuts don't make every building accessible to every disabled person. But they do make places accessible to many more people than not having ramps or curb cuts at all. This argument for "people have always made due before" could just as easily be used to say, "Hey, for generations, people stayed home if they couldn't get into buildings. Why do we have to make them accessible now? It's always worked before."
Let me be clear. I am not a "pro-electronic voting moron". I'm pro-voter. I'm pro-voting rights. I'm for whatever it takes to have as many people as possible be able to fully and freely exercise their voting rights. In my county, right now, I feel confident that the head of my elections process is someone who supports those goals. I put my energy into making every voter feel empowered and making every vote count. Right now, that means helping voters understand how the electronic system we have works for them, and cheerfully giving voters paper ballots if that's what they want to be comfortable voting.
At no point in this thread have I ever said, "This is what people should do" or "This is why electronic voting is good". My opinions about electronic voting are irrelevant, actually. I ask my pollworkers to leave their opinions at the door. My job -- one I take very seriously -- is to ensure that the ballots and equipment I am responsible for are secure from the moment I sign for them until the moment I sign them into someone else's care, and to make sure every voter who shows up at my precinct gets to vote. I do whatever it takes for that to happen, because that's the bottom line. If my devotion to voting rights makes me a moron, I guess I'll accept the label.
Sip-and-puff, or giant button. We have a voting entry option which is basically a giant pressure sensitive button, which can be placed under or near a body part that can be moved. It means even if you can't hold a pen, if you can press down with your fist or foot, you can vote. If you can't do either of those, you probably already are using a sip-and-puff for other things -- we just attach our equipment to yours.
Sure, two examples, voters I have had:
1. A blind voter. Previously, this voter had to have another person read the ballot to them, either at home as an absentee ballot, or at the polling place, either a helper or a pollworker. Then the blind voter would tell that person how they wished to vote, and the helper would mark the ballot that way. In this instance, the blind person has no way to verify the helper is marking the ballot as instructed. Whether it's a pollworker, a health care aide, or a family member, there is no guarantee of that. Not only that, but the blind voter has to *tell* another person their voting choices.
Under the new system we have, the blind voter can still do that if they prefer -- and some do. But the blind voter also has the option of coming to the polling place, sitting down at an electronic booth, having the ballot read aloud by the computer, having their choices verified and read by the computer, and having their paper ballot read outloud to them. The blind voter can do this without another person's assistance. Now, you can argue that the voter still cannot be sure that the ballot being read to them is the correct ballot, but in order to do that, we'd have to know in advance that a blind person was going to vote, etc.
2. A voter in a wheelchair, with extreme mobility issues, who has never been able to physically mark a ballot before, because their hands are non-functional. In the past, even if that voter could see and read the ballot, that voter still had to have someone mark the ballot, either at home, or in the polling place.
Under the new system, that voter was able to come in, and for the first time in her life, be alone in a polling booth, read the ballot, and choose ballot options using a sip-and-puff interface. That voter was able to review the paper trail, verify it, and approve it and the final vote using the sip-and-puff. No one had to assist the voter, any more than we assist any other voter. That voter was maybe 35 or 40 years old, and it was the first time in her life she was able enter a polling booth and vote alone.
In both these cases, the voters can still choose to do things they way they did them in the past -- they can vote absentee with help, or come in and be assisted by a helper or a pollworker. They can still vote a paper ballot if they want, with assistance, at home or at a polling place. But now, they have something they didn't have before -- they have the ability to fully exercise the voting rights that were previously available in theory only.
Taking away pencil and paper? Goodness, no! Every voter in my state has the right to a paper ballot. All my voters have to do is ask, and some of them do. Out of 200 voters, I typically get 3-4 who prefer a paper ballot. Some other precincts have higher numbers.
There may be states or locations where paper balloting is being taken away from voters, but I don't serve as a poll worker in one of those places.
Our county doesn't use touch screens. And in fact, each precinct has one voting unit equipped with earphones and screen-reading, as well as other accessibility add-ons.
To be clear, by "everyone involved", I mean that we have to note every pollworker who was involved. We do not EVER note the voter or the voter's name or other identifying information. This is true for any irregularities. If I help someone vote, I have to document that I helped at X time at X booth.
The latter is correct. When this sort of thing happens, we take the physical voter code slip, cancel the booth, and note on the slip the reason why the machine was cancelled. We then have to log exactly the time, circumstances, and everyone involved. At the end of the day, I have to have on file that slip of paper with the access code and the log for every incident like this that happened. The fact that this happens is also reflected in the vote totals printed out for the end of the night. Every step of the way, we document anything unusual that happens.
Because of this, anyone looking at the totals would immediately be able to tell that there was a problem, and my voter trail could then be subject to further scrutiny. That paper trail ballot that was spoiled will be on my secure roll for the evening, but there will also be information on that roll that vote for access code X was spoiled, and is not counted.
I'd love to see you all come and watch in person! Really, it's a lot of very complex stuff to keep track of, and the amount of auditing and accountablility in connection with the paper trail is pretty interesting.
Legally a voter is allowed two spoiled ballots, and on the third try, that's the final ballot they get. This is true also for electronic voting -- they get three tries and that's it. :-)
When you sign your name, if you look at the fine print on the page, you are signing to verify under penalty of law that you are who you say you are. And when you print your address, if you look at the fine print, by printing it you are certifying that's where you live. Because you had to sign a voter registration card at some point in the past in order to be in that roster, your signature is on file somewhere, and should anyone have a question about the votes in your precinct, the signatures in the roster book could be compared to the voter signatures on file.
Just in case you ever wondered. As I've explained elsewhere, ID's are not required because historically, that's been used as a primary way to disenfranchise voters.