This afternoon, at the Board of Elections office for Loudoun County, I was attempting to vote early.

I presented my Virginia Driver's License and the poll worker scanned the license. So far, the process was the same as I have experienced previously.

Then, rather than hand me a pre-printed ballot, an adjacent printer produced a ballot.

A ballot with two separate tracking bar codes printed on it, tracking bar codes indecipherable to the voter. I was immediately concerned that the act of scanning my license directly tied my identity to that specific ballot.

Elections in the United States of America and in the Commonwealth of Virginia are supposed to be by secret ballot. Under the Virginia Code section 24.2-607. Prohibited conduct; intimidation of voters; disturbance of election; how prevented; penalties which states:

A. It shall be unlawful for any person to hinder, intimidate, or interfere with any qualified voter so as to prevent the voter from casting a secret ballot.

A secret ballot is one where an individual’s voting cannot be tied to their identity.

Objecting to the issuance of the instantly printed ballot, the poll worker informed me there was no other way to vote early and I was told I should “trust them.” That response was unacceptable.

After elevating my concerns through three levels, a representative of the Board of Elections spoke with me about my concern. At first, this person tried assuring me these tracking codes were only for identifying the voting precinct. My response was that if that is actually the case, the ballot should have a voting precinct number printed on it, not two indecipherable bar codes. A precinct number can be scanned as easily as an indecipherable code. It was after about ten minutes of discussion that the Board of Elections found a solution to my particular issue.

I eventually voted using a handicapped terminal that is not activated after scanning your identification. I was still less than confident this cannot be used to link my identity to a specific ballot.

I fully support mandatory voter identification. There is no acceptable reason whatsoever for indecipherable bar codes on ballots. Moreover, there is absolutely no acceptable reason for a ballot to be generated immediately after scanning the voter’s identification, a ballot with multiple indecipherable bar codes.

If you vote early in Virginia, DEMAND to use the handicapped terminal and not the ballot printed in response to scanning your license.


I also note that I did not see a single voter among the 40 or so waiting in line take a Democratic sample ballot.

President Trump for the win!

I also voted today in the Mecklenburg County, used my DL also as my ID. My ID was scanned and my ballet was printed I also saw the bar code but to be honest I didn't think anything about it. I did my thing, casted my vote and made sure it registered. I really don't care who knows who I voted for but that just me.

In previous elections in my precinct, the ballot you were provided was specific to your address, with the candidate names that are applicable for that address. This because the voting place traverses electoral districts. So Federal and state-wide races would be the same on all ballots, but magisterial and local district races would vary.

Printing the ballot on demand is probably intended to reduce inventory and uncertainty during this process. It would also provide a second check (in addition to the voting itself) on the number of votes cast. But the presence of indecipherable bar codes or QR codes on a ballot seems very problematic. At the least I would want to be able to scan these codes to see what they contained. I would also suspect there is a backup scenario with pre-printed ballots available should (for example) the printer run out of ink during the day.

I will, as usual, wait until election day to vote, but I'd be interested in what other early voters in VA are seeing.

I think what architect is correct. Our voting place asked for your license so they could scan it to see which of the two districts they were covering you were in. The local and national candidates were different depending upon which district we were in other than voting for president and vice president.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

I would want to be able to scan these codes to see what they contained.

"Fat bar, skinny bar, skinny bar, skinny bar, fat bar, skinny bar, dollar twenty nine."
--
Harry, Third Rock From The Sun

The commonwealth now requires early voting to be counted by precinct that you would normally vote in, those additional barcodes are used to identify the precinct you belong in.

At least that’s my understanding after speaking with the registrar.

I early voted several days ago. I used my Virginia Concealed Handgun Permit as my means of identification. The election worker was perturbed that it couldn't be scanned, but I voted anyway. I didn't notice a bar code on my ballot. If they would allow, I would have taken a photo and used an ap to convert the bar code into human readable text and see exactly what is in that bar code.

Our local state delegate (Mark Early) sent a letter a little while back with a heads up on the new permanent absentee voter list. I hopped online and signed up and my ballot came a couple of weeks ago.
I promptly filled it out and sent it back in. Highly recommend signing up.