The new E-Slate voting machines are pretty slick. They would be even slicker if they used touch screens, but it was pretty simple anyway, sort of like working an I-Pod, and the company says their system is more accurate than touch screens. Paul Witt said earlier in comments that Knox County would have these installed in time for the August elections.

It doesn't have a paper audit trail. And there have apparently been some problems with the machines, mostly due to election workers not understanding how to set them up.

That wasn't the case over here in Blount County. The machines worked fine, and they were easy to use. The Mrs. even "wrote in" her own name for one of the county commission seats where there was no Democrat running, and even that was pretty simple. You just dial in the letters of the name you want to write in. Some seniors did seem to be having trouble, but poll workers were there to assist and a special "training" area was setup to give anyone instructions on using the machines.

The only drama occurred at the master voting machine station where you get your "pin" printout that assigns you a ballot for your primary and your district. And it had nothing to do with the machines.

Read more after the jump...

The poll worker looked at the Mrs.'s form, and noted that she had requested a ballot for the Democratic primary. The poll worker said "You know there's nobody to vote for, right?" We both were a bit, uh, taken aback to say the least.

The Mrs. replied that she was there to vote for the Democratic candidates for county mayor and county commission in her district, along with some judges, and understood they were running unopposed if that's what the poll worker meant.

The poll worker said something like, yes, that's what I mean, your votes don't really mean anything, so a lot of people are voting in the Republican primary because there are more candidates to choose from, and the poll worker could void the Mrs.'s sign in sheet and get her a Republican ballot if she wanted. (!)

The Mrs. told the poll worker that she was there to vote in the Democratic primary and could she please be allowed to do so. I was next in line, and the poll worker asked me if I'd heard what she told the Mrs. about there being nobody to vote for. I told her I was there to do my civic duty and that I was a Democrat and that I was voting in the Democratic primary. The poll worker told me she was a Democrat, too (!) and that another man earlier in the day had told her the same thing and that he had never voted for a Republican and wasn't about to start now.

Anyway, when we got outside the Mrs. was fuming. She says "can you believe that?" I told her it was probably illegal. Apparently they picked the wrong day to be screwing around with the Mrs. She was already having a bad day after struggling with a weird and frustrating programming problem all morning. She said "should we go back in there and say something?" I said I didn't want to get anybody in trouble, and the Mrs. said well, I can at least tell this one poll worker to stop doing that. I told her go ahead if she feel that strongly about it. She went back and told the poll worker that she shouldn't be telling people "there's nobody to vote for." After some discussion, the poll worker agreed and apologized.

The Mrs. wonders how many people this morning went to vote in the Democratic primary (as pointless as it may seem to some but it isn't really because the number of votes sends a message and its a show of support for Democratic candidates) but ended up voting in the Republican primary when they were told "there's nobody to vote for."

Good question.