"Ready. Set. Vote."
This is the catchphrase of Pennsylvania's instructional voting video, produced by the state government in an effort to minimize woes at state voting booths Nov. 7.
In May's primary, 200 machines jammed, leaving voters at certain sites with only one machine to use, Chris Sheridan, public-policy director for the Philadelphia political watchdog group Committee of Seventy, said.
But despite prior election-day setbacks, experts in Philadelphia say they are confident that the city's updated voting equipment will lead to minimal error this year.
Bob Lee of the Philadelphia Voter Registration Administration said that human error was responsible for the equipment malfunctions that happened in May, though, and that "adjustments in processes, procedures and personnel assignments" have been made in order to prevent such errors from occurring again.
Sheridan agreed that, in Philadelphia, "everybody is pretty well set."
He added that most of the voting machines used in Philadelphia have been in place since 2002, with a good track record in nine elections since.
Philadelphia is not alone in the challenge it faces when dealing with elections.
The infamous "hanging chad" debacle of the 2000 presidential election spurred a nationwide overhaul of voting technology.
But along with equipment problems, "long lines disenfranchise voters," Sheridan added. "Anything that increases the time required for a person to be in the [voting] booth can take away from the voting opportunity from other people."
An official report of the May investigation will be released sometime next week, Lee said.
The advantages that the electronic systems have over paper ballots greatly outweigh the disadvantages of implementing the new technology, Sheridan said.
Paper ballots offer "a lot of opportunity for mischief" because they can be easily destroyed or tampered with, he said.
Sheridan added that certain machines include features such as flashing lights that will alert voters to all the races in which they can vote, increasing the likelihood that people will make the most of their voting opportunity.
While he admitted that the current system is not perfect, "the goal is that people have the best system available," Sheridan said.
