San Franciscans might not know their November election results
for more than 20 days after the fact, but Gilroyans can rest
easy.
Gilroy – San Franciscans might not know their November election results for more than 20 days after the fact, but Gilroyans can rest easy.
This is because Secretary of State Debra Bowen has said no to optical-scan systems manufactured by Election Systems & Software, the Nebraska company that sells its voting machines to San Francisco.
Instead, Bowen wants to play it safe by ignoring the speedier machines’ tabulations and instead count all of the city’s paper ballots by hand, meaning that only absentee ballot results will be available election night.
As part of Santa Clara County, though, Gilroy will continue using Sequoia Voting Systems touch-screen machines, not ES&S optical-scan kiosks, according to Elma Rosas, spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Office.
This means Gilroyans won’t see a change in voting practices this November and will continue to use one of the five Sequoia machines at every polling location when they vote on a utilities measure and for City Council and mayor Nov. 6.
Come February, though, Gilroy will see something new, according to Rosas.
“The change will come in February,” Rosas said, referring to the fact that the second month of 2008 is when the county will introduce the optical scan machines Bowen seems to distrust. A single touch-screen machine with optical scan technology will be at each polling place, replacing the five regular touch-screen machines, she added.
An optical scan ballot is basically an old-fashion paper ballot that the machine scans for the voter’s darkest bubble or circle on a particular candidate or issue. The average voter won’t be able to tell the difference between the new machines in February and classic paper ballots, Rosas said.
While polling places can use the optical-scan technology to show voters electronic copies of their ballots for inspection and then tally those votes on site, Rosas said the county will still gather all the paper ballots for counting in San Jose for safe measure.
In her decision, Bowen expressed concern that ES&S ballots not marked with a No. 2 pencil or a particular pen found in the voting booth might record improperly. Hence the massive counting camp she’s ordered in downtown San Francisco.
Even when the county does change over in February, Gilroy’s small population compared to San Francisco means its election results won’t take more than 20 days to calculate.
San Francisco Election Chief John Arntz has said ballot inspectors won’t be able to count more than 10,000 votes a day. 209,723 residents cast votes in San Francisco’s 2003 election.
Last November, 9,350 Gilroyans actually went to the polls, albeit there were 17,040 registered voters, according to Rosas.
