How does that work exactly?

Yesterday, I voted in person for the first time since probably 2006. Here is how it went:

When I arrived there were about ten to fifteen people in line in front of me. When it was my turn, I checked in with an election worker. I gave him my driver license -- that despicable piece of "picture ID" we have been warned about. He confirmed my address and placed my license in a machine to scanned it. Horror of horrors!

He gave me two sheets of paper that were blank on one side. On the other side were an arrow and two black rectangles. He also handed me a green slip of paper with an access number. I went to a voting booth.

In that booth was some sort of computer. I entered my access number. Before I started voting I was instructed to insert one of the sheets into the printer portion of the machine. That sheet just sat there as I voted. 

For every race, whether it was for a political position or a ballot measure, there was one page on the screen. There were eighty-eight (88) such pages. After that there were twelve pages of lists  of races where there were no competing candidates so the lone candidates were considered elected. In total there were one-hundred pages for me to go through. When I was done with the one-hundred pages the screen showed me all of my selections. I confirmed that they were correct.

I indicated I was done. I pushed a button to feed the first sheet of paper through the computer. My selections were printed on the back. When that was done I was instructed to insert the second sheet so it, too, could have my votes printed on the back.

Then I took my two sheets of paper to the front of the room and insert them in the tabulator.

My good deed for the day

Here's why I tell you this: The State of Arizona apparently elected a Governor who campaigned about as much and generated as much excitement as did Joe Biden in 2020. Maricopa County, home of Phoenix -- Arizona's largest city, had problems with their tabulators. I do not know if Arizona uses the same system as does Texas, or at least Harris County. However, if it is not the same system, I am sure it is similar. That means that when the tabulating machines were "not working," voters gave their ballots to an election official -- ballots with all a voters choices printed in plain text. We were then assured that "all legal votes would be counted."

Why is it that Democratic controlled areas seem to have a hard time getting their voting machines to work? A post yesterday on 100percentfedup.com said that exit polling showed many more Republicans than Democrats were voting in Maricopa County and observed:

Early on, there were issues in Maricopa County, Arizona, as voting tabulators went down. Maricopa County is one of the key counties that decide elections in Arizona and across the United States. In precincts across the county, tabulators have either gone down completely or are ‘misreading’ ballots. People have speculated that the precincts where voting machines are down are disproportionately Republican precincts.

 

NBC News says Arizona also re-elected Mark Kelly as Senator.

I hate to say it, but election officials seem to have no interest in assuring people that elections are fair and above board. Is it too much to ask to have honest elections with no appearance of impropriety?

I guess it is.