This is why I like to vote in New York

[taylweaver]

There is something very satisfying about grabbing a big red lever and pulling it across the voting booth in one big, sweeping movement. It makes you feel like your vote has truly been tallied.

It is also nostalgic for me, as it brings back memories of when I was a child, and my mother took me with her into the voting booth. In NJ - at least where my family voted - they used the same machines with the levers - a little lever by each name, and a big red lever across the bottom. In NJ, the big lever also controlled the curtain - when the vote was cast, the curtain would open, and then it would close again when the next person pulled the lever back. When I was little, my mother would cast her votes with the little levers - I either couldn't or didn't care to read the names, but I remember the little levers. Then came the best part of all: when she was done casting her votes, my mother let me pull across the big red lever. Maybe this happened a few times; maybe it only happened once. But it made me really excited about voting. My mother, through that one simple act, made voting seem like a very cool thing to do.

When I went to vote for the first time as an actual voter, I was away at college. I will admit that i did not vote when I was 18 - I was in Israel, and since it was not a Presidential year, I didn't follow what was going on from overseas. I also made a conscious decision not to vote when I was 19. That was because it was an off-year - only local elections, and I was voting at school, where I was not really part of the local community. College students could have swayed that election - but what right did we have, as transient residents in a more permanent community? So I voted for the first time when I was 20. And I have voted every year since, as far as I can remember.

When I went to vote at college, there was no big red lever. True, the machine was almost the same - but a more updated version. Where the machine from my childhood had levers, this one had touch-sensitive boxes. If you pressed once, a green "x" showed up. If you pressed again, it disappeared. And I was disappointed to see that there was certainly no great big red lever - only a great big button to press when you had finished. Yes, I voted, but it just wasn't the same.

So when I moved to New York, I was very excited to find that the voting machines where I vote are like the ones from my childhood. I hope they don't rush to update them to the computer ones - because there is no more satisfying way to vote than by locking it in with the pull of the big red lever.

Comments

[greenwitch.livejournal.com]

Dude, today was the first time we used the new electronic ones in Montclair, at my polling place. I was all freaked out when I walked into the booth. I never voted around New Brunswick, I always used absentee ballot.

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

Were they computer screens, or were they more like the ones with the levers, only touch screen instead? In New Brunswick, you pressed down on the square and you could feel an actual button press. And then you pressed an actual button to finish. Those did not freak me out - because they were just the more updated version of the lever machine. But the new computer ones? Those worry me.

[greenwitch.livejournal.com]

I think they were the latter. It wasn't really a screen, it looked like a large peice of paper at about waist height, and you'd press the square, underneath was a button and the lights would light up next to the person's name. Then you'd push the button on the bottom right to finish.

I don't like 'em either way. I want a receipt, dammit.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I've heard that our ridiculously archaic voting machines are actually some of the most reliable. :)

[flintknappy.livejournal.com]

I've heard that too. Apparently a professor and a bunch of grad students from Princeton found a way to hack the electronic ones. The company had no comment.

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

Which electronic ones? The computer ones, or the ones with the green x's?

[flintknappy.livejournal.com]

That's so nice for you that NYC has the old nostalgic ones. You're making me nostalgic talking about it. :) I always enjoyed assisting my mom when I was a kid- all the nifty levers and such. Then, when I was old enough to vote myself, they changed them! Now they have the ones here that have the x's you press and they light up. So totally not the same.