The California Presidential Primary is exactly one week from today but the polls are already open in LA County for the March 3 Presidential Primary. We stopped by the Senior Activity Center at Pan Pacific park Sunday afternoon to check on the voting center and see how the early voting is going. According to poll worker Robyn Kofsky, it was going much more smoothly than on Saturda,y when some key equipment to check in voters was not in place.
“We had some frustrated people on Saturday, but fortunately, they all came back on Sunday and were able to vote,” Kofsky told the Buzz.
The new machines are pretty cool and the voters we saw were really happy with the process.
It starts with checking in with the poll workers, who use an Electronic Poll Book, essentially an iPad that replaces the giant books that poll workers used to use to find voters’ names. If you have a sample ballot, the iPad scans your name and prints out the appropriate information on a thick paper ballot that will record your vote. The completed ballots can be kept for up to 25 years, explained Kofsky, who – along with Lead poll worker Frank Leone – gave us a tour of how the new system works.
Once you have the ballot, you go to the Ballot Marking Device (BMD) where you insert the ballot and make your selections using the touch screen. When you re finished, you can review your selections and then cast your ballot.
If you want to mark you ballot at home before you go to vote, you can go online and use the Interactive Sample Ballot to mark your selections prior to arriving at the Vote Center. Using a computer, mobile phone or personal device, voters can review their ballot information and make their selections. After going through the selection process, the Interactive Sample Ballot creates a Poll Pass QR code – like on an airline boarding pass – that is read by the BMD and transfers your selections to the ballot, so you don’t have to repeat the process at the polls.
If you have a vote by mail ballot you can drop it off anywhere, or you can surrender it and cast your vote in person. If you forget to bring it and you want to vote in person, your vote by mail ballot will be canceled when you sign in.
The whole process is designed to make it easier to vote. There are more days to cast your ballot and you can vote at any vote center. But take note of where you vote, because most likely your old polling place is not where you will vote this year. In the past there were more than 4,000 polling places, but with the new system, there are approximately 1,000. However, unlike in the past, you can vote in any vote center in LA County, not just a single neighborhood polling place. To find a polling place, look on your sample ballot or click here to find a vote center near you.
For more information visit LAvote.net.
