Manatee voting machines fishy

To Mr. Mike Bennett, Supervisor of Elections:

I early voted on Oct. 24 and I’m a little angry about these new voting machines.

Please tell me why my votes are not displayed for my confirmation before being officially tabulated? When I vote a stock proxy online, I get a confirmation screen. When I pay a credit card online, I get a confirmation screen. Even when I order a product online, I get a confirmation screen.

When I vote for president of the United States with the new “improved” voting machines, I get nothing. Oh yes, an “I voted” sticker (but who did I vote for?).

How on earth could an honest person of normal intelligence design and sell voting machines that record something, the details of which the voter does not know. A presidential election is no time to be “hoping” my vote was recorded correctly. Who is responsible for this travesty and why?

Can these machines ever make a mistake? How dark must the mark be to be read? Does the ink color matter? Does the pen matter? Is the machine working? Did my vote get recorded correctly?

Guess Manatee County voters will never know. Does the Supervisor of Elections care?

As charges of voter fraud swirl, we are expected to simply trust this system? This system invites suspicion and mistrust. Can’t Manatee County do better than this? It makes punch cards and hanging chads look like the good old days.

I hope the paper ballots are retained. You will need them for the lawsuits. Nobody is going to trust this system. Can’t believe you didn’t see this problem coming.

This story and others are why voters are concerned. At least they were shown the vote before it was recorded.

This story was originally published November 1, 2016 at 3:39 PM with the headline "Manatee voting machines fishy."