Voting: Still A Confusing Mess

I was reading the NY Times blog about scattered voting problems in NYC, when I read some alarming comments-

"The Cooper Union polling station was a disaster. The voting rules were not clearly printed anywhere, that you were only supposed to choose 1 candidate and 5 delegates. Obama and Clinton had more than 5 delegates listed. If you chose more than 5 delegates than you over-voted and apparently that disqualifies your vote."

I was starting to freak out, but further down, there was this other person-

"Also, to correct any earlier post of misinformation, you are allowed to vote for SIX delagates and ONE alternate. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama all had FULL SLATES OF DELEGATES. So if you voted for all the delegates, you’re FINE. #1, you were misinformed if you were told otherwise, and on behalf of those of us poll workers who know what the heck they’re doing, I apologize!!!"

And another adds to that-

"OK, someone called me from the Board of Elections NY- they said the machine wouldn’t allow you to vote for more delegates - the machine wouldn’t work if you did."

Obviously I was concerned-- the ancient woman working my station this morning didn't mention any of this-- so I just called the Board of Elections myself. The woman I spoke with told me the latter two people were correct... you would be fine if you selected all delegates under the candidate's name. She assured me my vote was counted, and there was no problem here. So that's good.

Still, it's discouraging that in 2008-- almost 8 years since the Florida debacle that left us with The Decider-- voting is still this confusing for so many people. The old machines are too hard to work. But new electronic machines are too easy to hack. Etc. We really can do better than this, but (like everthing else) we keep putting it off.