Voting

I listen to the radio news while I work out early, early in the morning.

Probably it's not good for me because most of the news these days, rather than "just the facts, ma'am," is designed to elicit maximal emotional response from the listener.

And as I am somewhat of a cynic, and as I am someone who hates being manipulated, it frustrates me at times.

And this morning: they were talking about voting machines. New spangly touch-screen computerized voting machines. And there was someone frothing on the radio about it - about how teh TERRORISTS or CHINESE PEOPLE could screw up the voting, that they could disrupt the machines, and I suppose, vote some terrorist-friendly write-in candidate in or somesuch thing. In fact, according to this chap, the CHINESE PEOPLE could CONTROL the machines without EVER LEAVING CHINA.

(The capital letters are to give you an idea of the urgent emphasis in his voice).

And this is the kind of story that frankly pisses me off. I have no idea how "risky" the new internet-based voting machine things are. I suppose someone somewhere could game the system. And in this day and age, it seems that Your Candidate Losing seems to many people to be grounds for claiming someone is gaming the system, because, you know, Your Candidate is so wise and so wonderful and is going to cut taxes on 'families' while taxing those "fat cats" who "won't feel it." And he's pro-schools and pro-recreation and pro-four-day-work-weeks and pro-minimum-wage-being-$15 and all that - so no one in their right mind would not vote for Your Candidate.

But like I said: I have no grounds to evaluate how secure touch screen voting is, and I'm sure someone will make hay with concerns over security, even if it's double secret super secure.

But I was thinking about the various voting methods I've used. Where I live right now, we use optically scanned ballots: they hand you the ballot and a black marker, and you complete a line next to the candidate or the yes/no on the issue you're voting for. You have to be pretty inattentive to mess up this kind of ballot. And if you do, there's a mulligan: you can go and tell a judge and they'll give you a new one.

They're easy but boring.

I've also voted using the infamous butterfly ballots (no, not in Florida though). Yeah, you have to pay at least minimal attention to what you're doing and make sure the thing's properly aligned with the voting booklet. And frankly, the method kind of irritated me - the little stylus and all.

My favorite way to vote ever - which was how I first voted, back in the day, and which for me will always be the Platonic ideal of voting systems - were the big old literal "voting booths." I lived in Michigan when I turned 18 and registered to vote. The first election ever that I voted in, they had those big old giant booths. You stepped in and closed the curtain, and were faced with a wall of little levers. You flipped down the levers for the candidates you wanted, or for the yes/no on issues. You could check yourself and unflip or reflip levers easily if you realized you had made a mistake.

Then came the best part - the part of voting that made it real to me, far more real than sticking my little drawn-on ballot in the ironically trashcan-shaped optical reader will ever be - you pulled down a big honking lever. I remember it as being like the lever on a slot machine. There was something very physical and very satisfying about voting that way - you KNEW you had voted; you KNEW your vote had registered.

There was also something very patriotic-70s, very Bicentennial, about those voting machines to me (even though it was the 1980s before I was old enough to vote). Perhaps it was my vague memories of being taken along by my mom when she went to vote when I was a small child. Or perhaps it was having seen cartoon versions of the machines on Schoolhouse Rock. But I loved those machines and I miss them now. I guess they've all been sent to the scrap heap.

Which is sad. I think voting should feel like something. Or rather, feel like something more special than filling out the "what did you think of your food and service" card at an Applebee's, which is what the complete-the-line ballots always feel a little bit like to me.

I've also heard reports that people won't vote if it's raining, or if they have to wait more than a couple minutes in line. And that makes me sad. Maybe I'm a big geek, but voting is important to me and it's still special, even if the ballots are kind of anticlimactic. I guess it's because I had suffragist ancestors. I guess it's because I've read too much about dictatorial nations, or had junior high school teachers tell about how in the Soviet Union, you got to "vote," but there was only one choice on the ballot, and you were in trouble if you did not "vote." (I have no idea if that story was true or just designed to inspire patriotism in us: "Hey -we can vote. And we have more than one choice!")

But I think of that when I go to vote. I usually go early in the day. There's almost never a line. But it's important to me.

I still miss the big old impressive voting booths, though.