I went to the polls a little later in the day this year than I typically do. When I arrived, the local NBC affiliate was outside interviewing a Hispanic guy in Spanish -- probably over the Escondido mayoral and council races and their recent ordinance that prohibits renting apartments/houses to illegal immigrants. By the time I excited, they had packed-up and left.

When I went in, I was the second in line. The guy in front of me, another Hispanic (I'd say he was in his 20s or 30s), asked for a paper ballot. It appeared that he wasn't the first one who had asked for one.

I used the touchscreen with its built-in paper ballot verification. It worked flawlessly. And the printed version matched what I had selected on the screen -- no evil GOP/Halliburton/Diebold/Rovian-plot here. One middle-aged white woman stepped up to the electronic voting device as I was stepping away.

I get the feeling that the Democrats may be hurting themselves with their conspiracy-mongering when it comes to electronic voting. The electronic voting machines reduce the incidence of voter error spoiling ballots (undiscernable marks, voting for too many people in school board/city council/water district races, etc. -- the electronic machines won't let you do these things) yet they've encouraged their voters to use a less user-friendly system that will probably result in fewer Democratic votes being counted.

That says nothing about the invidious nature of the constant conspiracy-minded attacks on the integrity of the voting system. Witness the 2004 Ohio vote. President Bush won Ohio by more than 110,000 votes, yet the loony left claims that Ohio was "stolen" by the GOP. At the same time, Kerry won Pennsylvania by about 140,000 votes, yet there were no allegations of funny business there.