Automation needed for counting absentee ballots

As this is being written, Ventura County 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 Moorpark and Simi Valley was attacked by a tribe of renegades somewhere between 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 horse and buggy 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 because of convenience. Why not standardize the ballots so that absentees can be counted with conventional votes?

The turnout in Moorpark was light-see chart on page 6. If there had been a huge turnout, we may be waiting until Christmas to learn who won the City Council seat.

There are two years 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 been gone years ago.