The big news is that the electronic pollbooks in Franklin County, Ohio (Columbus) provided by the vendor KnowInk crashed due to problems uploading data overnight, according to the Franklin County Board of Elections.
Thankfully all polling places had back-up paper pollbooks when I voted this morning. I was checked in the old-fashioned way.
There was some concern that paper sign-in would be slower, but due to record early voting the lines were nonexistent at the Near East side inner-city Ward 55 at mid-morning.
Election integrity activists, including myself, generally favor paper pollbooks over electronic “black box” pollbooks. For one, it is much easier to match your signature with a pen and paper than with a stylus, which might cause a challenge by election workers. Electronic pollbooks are easily hackable, can be programmed with incorrect information that only shows up Election Day, and often go down at inopportune times – like today.
