Automation needed for counting absentee ballots

As this is being written, the county of Ventura is still counting absentee ballots by hand to determine who's been elected to the Board of Supervisors in the 4th District.

We can only assume the covered wagon that carried ballots from the wilderness of Simi Valley and Moorpark was attacked by a tribe of renegades somewhere between the Norwegian Grade and the county seat.

It's impossible to understand why an election remains undecided a week after ballots were cast.

Are we Florida? Has Ventura County returned to horseandbuggy days? Who decided that absentee ballots in Ventura County would be so cumbersome and poorly designed that automation was eliminated?

Is this the 21st century or are we in some kind of "Twilight Zone" time warp?

The night of the election, one of our reporters noticed that the county's election returns were consistently lagging behind those from other areas.

We don't have to be the fastest, but it would be nice not to be last.

On a positive note, we like it that our ballots ensure a "paper trail" for verification. The absentee ballots, however, must be redesigned so they can be counted quickly and accurately. More people are voting absentee for two primary reasons.

First, it's far more convenient to select a City Council member in the comfort of your own living room than in a high school gym. Second, this ballot was heavy with candidates and propositions. For many residents, absentee voting was the only way they could give their full attention to the deep ballot.

The turnout in Camarillo this election was a far cry from what it has been in the past. Although city officials said they haven't seen a final court, about 40 percent of Camarillo's voters turned out to cast ballots. In some elections here, voter turnout has been as high as 80 percent.

It's worrisome to think how long it would take to count the ballots if this had been one of those high-turnout elections.

Two years remain before the next general election. Even in the world of government bureaucracy where there are two speeds, slow and stop, that's enough time to find a system that works.

The days of counting ballots by hand should have ended 50 years ago.