I just voted and the election official offered to override my vote

[procon]

I've been voting at the same California location for over 30 years and this has never happened before. First, we have a very long ballot, and you have to read carefully as in some judicial offices we can vote for more than one candidate while others are for just one. I had dutifully marked my pre-ballot at home so it was just a matter of inking in the correct dots on the ballot, but unbeknownst to me, I made an error.

When I went to turn in my ballot the machine spit it back out and identified the line error. Now, in the past they tore up the old ballot if you made a mistake and gave you a new one to complete. Tonight, however, the election supervisor gave me the option of having him push a button to override my one mistaken vote, or filling out a whole new ballot. I never knew this was even possible; to say that I was shocked would be an understatement!

Several other election officials assured me this was quite routine, and maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I chose a new ballot. Now, the more I ponder about this "option" to override votes, the more I see opportunities for abuse or vote switching. Has anyone else in Calif ever had this experience?

[Baitball Blogger]

1. Thanks for providing the info.

[dlwickham]

2. I've never heard of that

and I worked the polls a couple of times when I lived in Cali

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

3. Not that problem, but I went to my polling place with the letter saying my precinct was closed.

After I had mailed in the ballot they had sent me I found my polling place was open...

[Joanie Baloney]

4. I have voted in California since 1972

And I have never beenoffered that option. I too am surprised that that IS an option. May I ask what county??

I would have asked for a new ballot, although I wonder what the process was and if you had to validate it.


-JB

[procon]

5. I'm in Los Angeles country.

I've been searching and I can't find anything that describes a process for overriding a vote.

[Ms. Toad]

8. You're overriding the error, not the vote.

It is the same thing that happens automatically if you mis-mark an absentee ballot. That's actually one of the perks of voting in person - the machine checks for certain errors which you can correct (or opt to just let it be counted without that race - by overriding the error.)

[Ms. Toad]

6. It is routine.

Scanners can be set up two ways: To accept all ballots - even those including more votes than permitted in a race, or to spit out overvotes and give the voter a chance to correct it.

Sometimes the voter doesn't want to be bothered, in which case the override option allows the ballot to be read as if it had never been spit out in the first place.

The equivalent of pushing the override option happens with all overvotes on absentee ballots, since you never get a chance to fix those.

[denbot]

7. Happened to my wife about an hour ago.

She made a mistake and voted yes on the doctor drug test initiative. Realizing her mistake she also marked the no slot thinking it would cancel out the mistake.

When she turned in her ballot the machine caught the error and the polling official gave her the choice of nullifying that particular proposition vote or re-voting with a new ballot.

She chose just to nullify that proposition vote!

[procon]

9. Exactly!

I completely understand what happened to your wife. The official did not make it clear that an override means it nullifies that particular vote... and POOF! It's gone forever. It was only by shear luck that I asked the right questions about what happened to my vote, otherwise, I too would have taken the easy way out and let him use his dang override without a second thought.