This morning, I voted using Santa Clara County's electronic voting machine. Here's my brief report.

I didn't know what to expect, since all of my previous voting has been done in Santa Barbara County. That was all optical-scan stuff. My first feeling was shock that I actually had to drive to my voting place! In IV, there are a good half-dozen voting locations within the half square mile region. I probably had a mile or so to go today.

Anyway, when I got there, there was a line! I had never experienced this before. I was accustomed to the voting room with about 10 different voting booths, about half of which were full. Today, there were 5 electronic machines, one paper booth, and a line of 25-30 people for the electronic machines (the line for the paper booth had 5). I signed in and took my spot in line, reaching the machines shortly after I would have if I had chosen to vote by paper. Overall wait was about half an hour.

Voting itself was quite painless. The touch-screen operated flawlessly. It was like a touch-screen PDF document of the ballot. Everything was clear, and all the text of the propositions and such were on-screen. I had no problems whatsoever. I'd just like to see another five voting machines or so!

So, painful or not, go out and vote! That's the most important thing. I hope to have more to report throughout the day from the South Bay.