Posted on 08/11/2014 12:07:11 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
A pilot project at 25 Pima County polling places will have workers asking voters to scan their driver’s licenses with an iPad.
The goal is to replace the signature roster books currently used at the polling places, Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson said.
Poll workers will use the iPads to scan voters’ driver’s licenses and verify their identification. Voters will then sign their names on the iPad screens with their finger.
The information scanned will be matched to data already contained in county databases that’s filled out when a person registers to vote, Nelson said.
An Arizona driver’s license is not the only type of identification accepted at the polls. Other acceptable forms of identification include any U.S. federal-, state- or local-government-issued identification or a tribal identification card.
The state also allows a person to use two pieces of non-photo identification at the polls, like a bank statement or a utility bill, provided the ID has correct and current information.
Only about 10 percent of the county’s 248 polling places will be participating in the pilot project using iPads.
A second pilot project will have voters put their finished ballots into a secure ballot box instead of an electronic scanner.
Those ballots will be counted at the end of the evening in the county’s elections department.
If the second pilot programs is successful, county officials hope it will save an estimated $1.8 million.
The county is currently in the process of evaluating how to buy new election equipment, as the equipment used in polling places is outdated and breaks down regularly.
By putting the ballots in a secure box rather than scanning them on site, officials hope to cut down on the number of optical scanners it will need to buy for the next election cycle.
My precinct (in Michigan) use laptops for voter registration information.
Their 2nd suggestion sounds like they are going backwards, although I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be more accurate. But SLOW!
I don’t know about anybody else but I know that my “finger” signature on a tablet looks nothing like my real signature. This sounds like more slippery slope stuff.
What could go wrong?
Sounds good! I’ll never forget the time I showed up to vote in NYC, which still had the hand written ledgers with your many past years of signatures, and the poor soul behind the desk didn’t even know the alphabet well enough to be able to find the first letter of my last name.
When I pointed her to it, she offered me the first unsigned line. It was a name nowhere like mine, bur since she had been hired through a welfare program and was functionally illiterate, I just asked her if I could look and found my name and signed there. Heck, I could probably have voted for a lot of people that day all over NYC.
I’d tend to agree. A stylus, however, would look like the real thing. I’m election judge for a precinct of over 1500 registered voters. The log books and other stuff that I carry back to the courthouse at the close of each election are heavy.
Not on an iPad, but I did this years ago at an early-voting station here in Alachua County, FL. I scanned the driver’s license, then used a “stick” to sign on a sensitive pad. The signature was compared to what is stored on the license. Nothing new.
Whenever I sign anything electronic, it’s not even close.
Most signatures aren't even names, just a line and a loop. How can that be legal?
-PJ
Since “cursive” writing is being eliminated from school curriculums, do children still learn to do their name in cursive for legal signatures?
My best friend has the line and the loop. Drives me nuts.
They want to ID voters? Racist scum!
Since damn near anyone from an illegal Mexican to an illegal Muslim to a pet gopher can get a drivers license in AZ. this ought to really boost the Democrat/Marxist party results.
“Those ballots will be counted at the end of the evening in the county’s elections department.
. . .
By putting the ballots in a secure box rather than scanning them on site, officials hope to cut down on the number of optical scanners it will need to buy for the next election cycle.”
I can tell them from experince it will take all day to run 5,000 ballots through a scanner. This is done every election in Portland, ME for the absentee (early voting) ballots. They start running them through the machines on Monday and finish on Tuesday afternoon and then run the final 100 or so on Tuesday night (ballots that have come in during the day via mail or walk in).
I can’t completely remember what I had to do just last week, but I do remember having to produce a driver license...and there was an electronic device that scanned a code on it, and my name and address info popped up on a screen. The poll worker asked me to cite my address. What I don’t remember is whether or not I had to sign anything - I vaguely believe it was a stylus on the I-Pad like device. This was Kansas.
“By putting the ballots in a secure box rather than scanning them on site, officials hope to cut down on the number of optical scanners it will need to buy for the next election cycle”
I think LBJ won a Texas senate seat, when one of these ‘secure boxes’ was lost.
Sure, while we’re at it, why not just vote by phone, like American Idol?
Mark Twain - If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.