A “paper trail” for early voting

Wow, I’ve fallen way behind here…

One piece of recent good news is the report that Anderson and Roane Counties, along with two other East Tennessee counties, will be using optical-scan voting machines for early voting this year. The optical scan system uses electronic technology to record votes, but because voters mark their choices on paper, a paper record of the vote is retained and is available for auditing in case of challenges to the election for results. Also, by bringing in extra machines for early voting, election officials will free up several of their “regular” eSlate machines for use on Election Day.

For me, the existence of an audit trail (and not having to use the annoying eSlate device) will be just one more incentive to vote early. Early voting in the August election starts July 18.