…the ones where you pressed a button that closed the curtain, then pressed down the appropriate levers, then pressed another button to lock in your vote (even that phrase sounds cool) and open the curtain again.
My first time voting was my first clearly defined rite of passage. My virginity didn’t go till the next year, and it was even longer before I got a driver’s license. I’d been chipping around with alcohol, without actually getting drunk, since I was fifteen, so voting was the first thing I did that had a definite sense of before and after. I pressed that button, and it was just me and the ballot. My parents weren’t in there, telling me how to do it, my so-called friends weren’t in there belittling me, and no teachers were in there judging my performance. I pressed the first lever (Sen. Paul Simon, IL-D, 1988 primary), then whatever others there were, pressed the button again, and stepped out as an adult. Or at least, less of a child.
Now they (at least in CA) have these wooden partitioned booths that look like urinals, and a stylus to poke at the ballot, making it little different from picking an All-Star team. (Hmmm…they say a chimp could fill out an All-Star ballot…). And most importantly, there are no curtains to block sound! There’s so little privacy any more, and this is one act that should be carried out in privacy. I don’t want to hear the volunteers’ chitchat. Sure, I’ve made my decision beforehand, but since I’m in CA, I have twenty or so propositions to deal with, and I don’t want to pierce the wrong option. (Oh, I know someone’s going to be unable to let that one rest!)
I guess I’m just better off living with my inner tensions.
—Snoopy
Rilchiam, I know what you mean. I don’t even know what voting booths look like back in my state now, I have been voting absenteee for so long. Filling out a form and dropping it in the mail just doesn’t have that same “here I am, being a responsible citizen, now leave me to make my decision” kind of panache that stepping into a booth and pulling a curtain does.
The precinct where I used to vote still had the lever operated booths. I agree that those “feel” more like voting than the “urinals”. When I moved back to my hometown I was faced with the punch card and stylus ballots. Not nearly as satisfying. After a contentious mayorial race earlier this year, where it took until 9:00 the next morning to get all the votes counted (for a city of about 20,000) we were promised a “new, updated” voting system for future elections. Sure enough, in the primary yesterday I was exposed to the new technology. You see, you get your ballot from the registrar, go over to a desk with a 1 foot partion on three sides, and then, using a felt tip pen you fill in the circle next to your candidate! Wow, what will they think of next?
“Please be sure to completely black out the circle, or your vote may not be counted.” Who knew taking the SAT low those many years ago would double as voter training?
Sig! Sig a Sog! Sig it loud! Sig it Strog! – Karen Carpenter with a head cold
I’ve still got booths like that in my district!!!
[rubbing it in]HA! Think I’ll vote a few extra times, just to hear the ka-chunk of that lever as it records my votes.[/rubbing it in]
And they still make me sign the Big Book and check that against my old signature! Bet that!
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!
[briefly stops the “I rule” dance]
Uh, that’s “Beat that!” Sorry.
[continues the “I rule” dance]
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!
Good grief, DrJ! So if you’re elderly and your hand shakes, they don’t count your vote because you (gasp) colored outside the lines? That’s awful.
I imagine it changed for the usual reason: the old machines were too expensive and difficult to maintain. But they should still have the thick curtain, to muffle sound. Hey, there’s a proposition I could get behind!
I guess I’m just better off living with my inner tensions.
—Snoopy
I thought filling in the circle was faster, but what blew me away, I’m SO used to folding the old ballet, tearing the little piece at the end and putting them in separate places. Yesterday, putting the paper face down, and feeling the machine suck it out of my hand was weird!! AND I got no sticker with a peach on it saying that I had voted, I vote that was NO FAIR!!
“It’s hard to avoid reading because ever wheres we go, reading is there.”