Reflection: I love voting

     I love voting on the old mechanical, lever operated machines they still use in New York, but that are an endangered species.  I realized this as I cast my absentee ballot at the Brooklyn Board of Elections Office yesterday.  Somehow having to bubble in the oval for the candidates (they must be using optical scan) was not the same.

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    I guess my affection for the old machines arises because they are the only ones I've ever used, and I learned how to use them in grade school about 50 years ago in Michigan.  My school, like many then and now, was a polling place, and just before election day they brought the hulking black machines in.  I remember our teacher showing them to us and teaching us how to vote.  

    It was easy.  You went into the booth, and closed the curtain by swinging the big red handle across, activating the machine.  Then you pulled down the little lever next to each candidate's name, and an X clearly showed there.  You couldn't double vote, because the machine wouldn't allow you to pull the lever for two candidates for the same office.  Marking each candidate was quick and easy.  And when you were done, swinging back the big red bar recorded your vote with a satisfying "Chunkk."

    There were really only a couple of ways you could screw the whole thing up.  The most common, sternly warned against by our teacher, was to come out of the booth to ask a question before you had voted, swinging the red bar to open the curtain.  That would record your non-vote, and you couldn't vote again.  If you wanted to come out, you just couldn't move that red bar.  The only other problem was that sometimes, if there were minor offices or propositions to vote on, they could get tucked in an obscure corner of the machine, and might get overlooked.  But aside from that, it was clear and easy.    

    I guess they don't make the machines any more, parts are hard to get, and their days are numbered.  But I think they worked well, and I'll miss them.