Today I Voted The New-Fangled Texas Paper Ballot Method

I voted this morning, and got my shirt stamped, indicating such.

Voting in Texas is so much more involved and entertaining than the type voting I was used to whilst living in Washington.

I do not remember what the year was when last I voted at a polling place in Washington. It would have been some point in time in the 1980s. By the 1990s I was voting via the mail-in ballot method. I do not know if Washington still has polling stations on election day, or if it is all mail-in ballots now.

In Oregon you are automatically registered to vote when you turn 18. You have to opt out if you do not want to be mailed a mail-in ballot.

If I remember right, the first time I voted in Texas it was the Bush/Gore general election year of 2000. Again, if I remember right, at that point in time you cast your votes by punching holes in a paper ballot.

I do not think Texas had early voting back in 2000. I remember it was a long long line.

The last several times voting in Texas has been via electronic machines. You entered a code via spinning a dial, then kept spinning that dial to make your voting selections. It seemed very video gamish. And sort of confusing to us elderly folks.

But, now, today, once again, a totally new way of voting. 

First off, in Texas you have to show your voter registration card, and a photo I.D., then scribble your name on a touch screen. You then go to the next station where you are given a blank paper ballot and your ballot code. 

My ballot code today was 53435. I'm looking at it right now.

You then go to the next station, where you do the actual voting. You enter the code, via touch screen. Which then instructs you to insert the blank ballot into the printer. When proper insertion is detected, you begin voting, via touch screen.

When you are satisfied with your choices, you touch a button that causes the printer to print your ballot. You then take your printed ballot to another machine, where you insert the ballot into another insertion point, which sucks in the ballot and the screen tells you that you have successfully voted.

You are then given the "I VOTED" stamp.

I asked what the purpose was of this more convoluted process.

So as to have a paper ballot record of each voter's voting.

Oh.

So, some states in America, like Oregon and Washington, just mail voters their ballot, with the voter either returning the ballot by mail or dropping the ballot in a ballot drop-box.

Whilst another state, Texas, uses an entirely different, more complicated method.

Today, some of it seemed totally pointless. Like the signing your name on the touch screen. The stylus used to do so did not render it possible to make even a remotely legible signature. I watched the guy ahead of me do his signature and thought he must not know how to write. And then it was my turn and I saw it was not possible to make a legible signature. So, what was the point of the signature?

And now I wait a week to see if anyone I voted for won...