Yesterday I received Bucks
County's “Special Election Guide.” Unfortunately, in this the most important election of our
lifetime, the mailer is a disappointment. It's a nice list of polling places, provided the voter knows his precinct and ward
number.
On Sept. 30 I attended the Board of Elections
meeting. There was much discussion regarding the anticipated long lines of voters on Nov. 4 and emergency paper ballots in
the event of machine failure. I expressed my concern about the huge number of new voters who would be looking at the Danaher
touch screen for the first time. I suggested the county arrange for the faceplate to be published in the newspapers. The faceplate
that is printed in the county's guide is extremely small and overlaid with information that should have been placed elsewhere.
(Although the faceplate was printed in The Intelligencer's Oct. 30 Voters' Guide, it appears as if the artwork the county
provided you was a multigenerated copy.)
The three sections on the outside of the
county's publication did not have all the information going the same way. It was an annoying process to flip the sheet back
and forth in order to read the material. According to voter advocates concerned about voter disenfranchisement, there is a
misleading statement in the “Greetings ...” section next to that tiny voting machine sample ballot: “Your
vote is recorded in multiple ways, both digital and paper, to ensure the accuracy for tabulation, auditing and recounts”
(italics mine).
I've been told that over $50,000 of our
tax dollars was spent to print this material. No wonder Commissioner Diane Marseglia requested her name be omitted from this
embarrassing failure of governance.
Finally, I am still waiting for an announcement
that there will be sufficient supplies of paper ballots for voters in the event the Danaher machines stop working.
Doreen Stratton
Doylestown
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/320-11022008-1614898.html
