With the voting line an hour long 15 minutes before closing I asked for a paper ballot thinking it would be faster. "Sorry, we don't have any more in English, how about in Chinese." "Ok," I replied, "How does that work because I don't speak Chinese? "Well the sequence matches the electoral guide and there is some English on it - you might give it a try." Well, tonight was a first... I turned in a Chinese language paper ballot and it was a lot quicker than waiting an hour to use the machine! As I left my firehouse polling place hoping I checked the right boxes I kept thinking that someone somewhere might have figured out there just aren't all that many Chinese citizens in Menlo Park lacking the ability to speak English...

How can people become citizens without knowing enough English to vote?

At my 2 Nov 2010 voting place there was no awareness that they were serving more than one precinct. This was significant, in that the electronic ballots presented to the voters from the (at least) two precincts being served should have been different (different district school boards), but were not - the sample ballot mailed to me prior to the election was correct. Since the voting place personnel were unaware that they were serving more than one precinct, voters were not asked for their precinct numbers, so could not be assigned access codes that might have brought up diffent electronic ballots, if, indeed, they were available within the machines.

I am not in a position to know how wide-spread among precincts this issue was. I am aware that at least one other voting place had the same problem, and that, furthermore, the same problem presented itself in the previous election.

Additionally, The “Precinct Tracker” Web Link at the San Mateo Co. voter site, Web Link lists neither my precinct, nor the precinct that was problematic at the other voting place.