Voting in Cook County, IL District 8-2

I voted. I said I would and I did! But here is a little story!

Cook County has changed over from punch card "hanging chad" style ballots to optical cards, the kind you fill in the circle. That meant new equipment etc.

You have to options with these cards, make a clear x through the box or fill in the box completely. I opted for the X as it seemed more efficient with a pen.

I finish my ballot and stand behind an African American man, yes, that fact is important. They are inserting his ballot into the reader and it gets spit back out. They try again, it gets spit back out. Again, the same. They call tech support. Open the back, hit a reset button, insert again, it gets spit back out.

All the while we are making small talk like, nice new machine, this should work nicely, have they tested this new equipment?

So he says to the election judges, try the white guys ballot! I said that would just be embarrassing if mine worked and his didn't. We asked each other did you skip any, did you use the X method or fill in the circles, just trying to do some laymen trouble shooting as the judges all scurried about trying to make the machine work.

Finally a judge said let's try your (my) ballot. It went into the machine beeped and was accepted! The other man and myself just looked at each other and laughed. He said it was just like voting in Alabama! They then went back and tried his ballot, again, it was rejected.

I waited a couple more minutes to see if his ballot was going to be accepted. The machine was not accepting it. I shook the man's hand, wished him luck and left. The last thing I heard was them saying he may need to fill in a new ballot.

I walked home shaking my head.