CA: Counties Return to Central Count to Save $.

[Wilms]

Elections looking a little old-fashioned

By Sam Womack/Staff Writer [e-mail]

Posted: Friday, June 18, 2010

snip

To save the cash-strapped county some money, elections officials decided to “go back to the future” with ballot-counting methods, according to Joe Holland, Santa Barbara County clerk-recorder-assessor.

snip

Rodewald agreed, saying, “It not only saves us money with all the pre- and post-election testing, but it gives us better control over the process.”

The counties save money by not programming more than 100 voting machines, testing them, sealing them, maintaining an audit log, hiring staff to distribute the machines, and then paying an extra poll worker to be responsible for each machine on election day, Holland said.

snip

A few years ago, poll workers could transfer the results electronically by modem from their precinct’s voting machines to the election office at the end of election day.

While it was quick and painless, the Secretary of State released revised guidelines that prohibited collecting ballot results by modem, Holland said.

In 2008, both counties kept the voting machines at precincts, then had the memory cards driven to an elections center.

snip

http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_5fde8c48-7b68-11df-9458-001cc4c002e0.html

[tabatha]

1. And there was no difference in time.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. central counting of precinct cast ballots

opens the election up to fraud.

In NC, if a ballot is cast at polling place, it is supposed to be counted there.
Before getting hauled off to election office.

[Stevepol]

3. Counting at the polling place is better than in the article,

But it is better that they're carting their ballots to the central place and not the modem. It at least removes one layer of possible fraud, though of course the ballots are put thru optiscans at the central site and there's probably no audit to ck so it's essentially also an un-verified, totally secret election. Not a lot of difference.