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Opinion: Ticket Replay: Houston man refuses to vote electronically, goes home, complains electronically

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As the holiday season arrives, our thoughts on The Ticket turn to working not quite so hard for a few days. So we are re-publishing some of our favorite or most-read items from 2009. This item originally appeared on Nov. 5.Could we even call it election day without a completely absurd poll story?

Here’s the best one the Ticket has found so far: A Houston man named Rad Rich shows up at his neighborhood polling place, expresses discontent with the philosophy of electronic voting and is told he can’t log his votes without using a computer, according to the Houston Press.

Naturally, Rich’s distaste for voting on computers led him to lodge a public complaint -- using a computer.

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‘I was told I cant vote because I refuse to use the computers so I was denied the right to vote,’ Rich wrote on the Hands Up Houston message board, according to the Houston Press. ‘I have filed a complaint.’

In a follow-up with the Press, Rich said his protest wasn’t due to a computer allergy but instead because he is skeptical of computer voting.

An absentee ballot would have eased his worries, but voters must swear they will be out of town on election day in order to receive a paper ballot.

We realize this story might seem a little ridiculous, but it raises an interesting question. With polls increasingly going digital, should election officials be required to offer a dead-tree version for the computer-phobic? Tell us what you think.

-- Mark Milian

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