Invisible Ink Pens

I did my civic duty and voted today in the California Primary. (I'm an Obama supporter.) I noticed that at my polling station they had gotten rid of the electronic voting machines used in previous elections and had returned to paper ballots. This meant I had to color in the bubbles with a bic pen that was given to me by a polling worker. I didn't get a chance to use one of those fancy new "invisible ink" pens that were seen in Chicago. KSLA reports:

A Chicago Board of Elections spokesman says voters filling out paper ballots at one precinct today were given styluses used for touchscreen voting instead of ink pens.
The spokesman says when the voters indicated they couldn't mark their ballots with the pens, they were told -- incorrectly -- that the pens used invisible ink.
The spokesman says after 20 people experienced the same problem, somebody noticed that there were 20 ballots on which nobody had voted for anything.

Politics

Posted on Tue Feb 05, 2008


Comments

OF COURSE the pens used invisible ink. It's a SECRET BALLOT! Sheesh.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Wed Feb 06, 2008  at  01:52 AM
At least you get to vote for Presidential candidates. Texas holds its Primaries in March, and all but one of the candidates have always dropped out of the race by then. In the General Election, candidates don't bother campaigning in Texas because it's considered a walk for the Repubs. I'm thinking of moving to New Hampshire or Iowa just to get a little attention from the politicians.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Wed Feb 06, 2008  at  08:05 AM
CHICAGO ELECTION

Your spotless ballot
in clear invisible ink
will count in heaven.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Wed Feb 06, 2008  at  08:59 AM
And should anyone be surprised that this happened in CHICAGO? You know, the place where the dead vote and ballots are counted only after the proper number have been fixed? Although a few other states, such as Missouri, are doing a damn good job of taking over from corupt Chicago.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Wed Feb 06, 2008  at  11:22 AM
Could someone explain me why, in America you cannot settle on a unique voting method ?

When Election Canada (or EC), (an independant government organisation in charge of supervising the election process) organize an election. We always use paper ballots and cardboard boxes to put them into. Note that all EC workers are volunteers.

During election night we all patiently wait in line, and when its our turn we pull out our ID card (driver licence or other official piece of ID) so the worker can verify if we are allowed to vote. Then they give us a ballot and a pen and off we go to the booth. We draw an X right up next to our candidate's name. We fold the paper along the dotted line and put it in the box , under the eye of an EC worker.

Its the same process for all provinces and teritories. By midnight we have a new prime minister.

So what is it ? Is it because your population is bigger ? Why does it always seem complicated. We always hear about electronique voting box , or new type of ink, etc. Why not keep it simple ?. We keep it simple and it WORKS!
Posted by Phiu-x  on  Wed Feb 06, 2008  at  12:19 PM
>>Could someone explain me why, in America you cannot settle on a unique voting method ?<<

It's because every state has their own system. Which is also why we don't have standardized driving licenses, marriage laws, etc.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Wed Feb 06, 2008  at  04:22 PM
Plus, it's pretty easy to round up all 100 Candadians & get them to do something. 😛
Posted by Maegan  on  Sun Feb 10, 2008  at  06:23 AM
Isn't the ballot suppose to be secret and no one know the count until it was over.
If they realized after 20 people voted that the ballots were empty wouldn't that mean they were looking at them at the polling station?
Posted by Confused  on  Thu Jun 11, 2009  at  01:38 PM
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