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MikeRichardson | 1 month ago

The "no cameras/no phones" rule is absolutely enforced in Harris County, Texas, although as an election worker I have never seen this escalate beyond "Please put away your phone". Workers are to ask the voter to put it away and if not done so immediately they are to notify the election judge (top official for that location/precinct). Judge will approach and ask again and cite the actual Texas law and show the voter a posterboard with the law printed in at least 4 different languages.

At this point, if the voter has not checked in yet, we can refuse to do so. Either way, if the phone/camera is still out after the judge has asked and shown them the law, judge is to immediately call the constable's office (police), who have been positioned nearby (but never directly at any vote center, due to possible intimidation). The constable can and will remove the man from the vote center. (It's never escalated that far!) (arresting that voter for any length of time might be problematic on election day for obvious reasons).

The most common complaint is "but I wrote up all my selections on there!" and for these voters we can provide a paper "sample ballot" and even a pen and they are free to mark their selections outside of the room and then come back to vote on the machine. One location was a church that was even gracious enough to allow a gentleman to AirPrint his notes.

Also of note, we do not have any kind of a "booth", however, the machines are typically placed rather far apart, and no one is allowed to queue at or near the machines, or linger there after voting, so I believe that privacy is effectively maintained. (Workers including judges are not even allowed to linger there unless assisting a voter who has specifically asked for help, and even then, there's more rules - if the voter needs help actually making the selections for candidates, now you need at least one judge and one clerk, one of whom must observe and ensure that the voter's selections were made correctly.)

We also got rid of the problematic "digital only" machines several years ago, but this post is too long already.

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