With election day right around the corner, most people already know who they’re going to vote for, but with a lengthy ballot and unfamiliar technology, sometimes the voting process can be confusing and mistakes can be made.
Early voting is in full effect, and voters are swarming the polls ahead of a highly anticipated election-keeping poll workers busy.
”We use a ballot marking device called an express vote and you take basically a blank thermal card and the voter puts it in there. It’s activated when they check in,” said Fort Bend County Elections Administrator John Oldham. “You have review screens and we really want, we really encourage people to review their ballot before they print and after they print.”
Even with up to date technology, issues can arise.
”If anything’s wrong they can give that ballot to the poll workers and they can get a new one and start over again,” Oldham said.
He says that recently happened with one voter who noticed his intended candidate had not been selected after he printed his ballot. He was able to get the issue resolved before he cast his vote. While its unclear how the error was made, Oldham says the machine that voter used was recalibrated.
”Again these are touch screens so like anything else sometimes they have calibration issues particularly because they’re transported in trucks,” he said.
While you can’t change your vote once its cast, from the comfort if your own home you can log on to VoteTexas.gov and track your ballot. You can also double check and fix clerical errors.
”If there’s something wrong, in other words, if they submit a ballot application or if they submit their ballot and they leave off, for example, the section where they have to put down either the last four (digits) of their social or TDL (Texas Driver’s License) and they leave that off they can go online and fix that.” Oldham said.
The deadline to register to vote was October 7th, but if you already registered you have until October 25th to apply for a ballot by mail. Election day is November 5th.
