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I had my training this morning as an election officer for a precinct in Santa Clara County (northern CA). Prior to attending the training I had received an email from Pollworkers for Democracy stating that, in response to citizen concerns, the Sec of State's office issued a memo to all counties that paper ballots WOULD be made available to anyone who asked for them and if the machines/power should malfunction.
At today's training however, the county Registrar of Voters staff issued the dictum that we, the election officers, are to strongly DISCOURAGE voters' use of paper ballots. Tom, the trainer, in addressing the very large crowd of election officers was very dismissive of the concerns of "a handful of people who made a lot of noise," thus prompting the Sec. of State's office to require all counties to make paper ballots available. He further issued the dictum to all election officers that "you do not, should not, and WILL NOT encourage a voter to use a paper ballot." He said paper ballots would be, in fact, sample ballots and that each precinct would only be given 20-25 sample ballots for that purpose. When I asked how the sample ballots would be counted, he said they would NOT be hand counted, but that Registrar of Voters' employees, at the election close, would transfer the info on the sample ballot onto an absentee ballot, which would then be read via an optical scanner. So, in other words, people who vote via paper ballot will not only risk their votes being possibly corrupted by an optical scanner, but also by the person who "translates and tranfers" those paper ballot votes onto an absentee ballot.
I also found out the DRE voting machines being used Santa Clara County are delivered to their polling locations DAYS before the election and just left there, with no one to monitor them for security. For example, the five DREs for my precinct were delivered by a county truck to my precinct polling place on Wednesday, Nov. 1st. The DREs were left in the recreation room of an apartment complex which presently has no manager on duty. The rec room is supposedly locked, but any maintenance person or person filling in for the absent manager can get the key to gain entry to the rec room and, hence, the unsecured DREs. These DREs will remain in the rec room, unattended, from the time the were delivered (Wednesday, Nov. 1st) until the polls close, Tuesday, Nov. 7th at 8 p.m.
I'm utterly appalled at the laxity of security shown by my county of residence, and at the scoffing, derisive attitude they displayed with regard to the Sec. of State's mandate that paper ballots be made available at all precincts, to anyone who asks.
Un-fucking-believable.
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