DAYTON — If you want your vote to count today, Election Day, take your time to make sure you vote properly, whether you use an electronic touch screen machine or paper ballot.

Montgomery County Board of Elections Director Steve Harsman said voters can make sure a mistake isn't made by carefully reviewing the paper record on the electronic machine before finalizing their vote.

On paper ballots, fill in the dots fully and make sure you don't vote more than once in a particular race, or your vote in that race won't count.

Voters who have any problems with machines, ballots, partisans, observers, pollworkers, other voters or anything else should complain immediately to pollworkers or call the board of elections. The Miami Valley Voter Protection Coalition will have lawyers on hand throughout Election Day to help voters for free, and can be reached at 294-7335.

There may be official "observers" on hand from political parties and other groups inside the polling place. They are not allowed to speak, touch or in any way intimidate voters, and should be reported immediately if they do, said Ellis Jacobs, of the Voter Protection coalition and lead attorney for Advocates for Basic Legal Equality.

Harsman wants people to know they have a right to vote. No one is to be turned away, even if there is a question about their identification.

Harsman said persons whose information is questioned can vote using a provisional ballot and the board will determine if they are valid voters after the election.

On Election Day, the only person allowed to question a person's right to vote is a pollworker, Harsman said.

Harsman is hoping voters have confidence in the electronic machines, because tabulating those votes is a much quicker process than tabulating the paper ballots that will also be available. His nightmare scenario is that Montgomery County will still be scanning and tabulating paper ballots well into Wednesday morning, Nov. 5.

Jacobs, whose group identified problems in Montgomery County with voting machine calibration in 2006, said he cannot recommend one method over the other. Harsman put into place numerous safeguards in an effort to prevent machine problems in subsequent elections, and he has confidence in them.

Jacobs said Ohio's elections process has improved in the last four years.

"It's transparent and secure," he said. "It's not perfect, but they've done a pretty good job of getting transparency and security in the election."

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(937) 225-7455 or contact lhulsey@DaytonDailyNews.com.