At today's Poll Worker training class, the instructor said that 80% of us volunteer election clerks would never see a ballot marking device (BMD) in action. That's too bad, since my curiosity about these devices is part of what drove me to volunteer in the first place. You might remember that when I volunteered back in '18, I was disappointed that nobody wanted to use the B.M.D.; and I chalked this up to the neighborhood's hilly nature. (Surely, I reasoned, anyone who lives in this hilly place must drive; and thus wouldn't need voting assistance from this device. All potential users would move to better neighborhoods.) But apparently, it's not just that neighborhood.
To satisfy my curiosity, I guess I could use a B.M.D. in the upcoming election. San Francisco has new devices, now with big printers. So it's plausible that the "marked ballots" it produces are actually legible. So I could double-check that it actually, y'know, marked the choices I wanted. And the upcoming election is relatively short—just a couple of sheets; so double-checking it wouldn't be such a chore.
