So, how long do you have to live in a city before you can start longing for the "way it used to be"? Apparently, a little over twenty four months.
Yesterday, the city of New York announced the passing of its old voting machines. I had the odd joy of using these machines in two elections, one to elect Obama and one to re-elect Bloomberg. The old metal behemoths felt special. After, all when else do you step into a full sized machine like that? When you registered your vote by pulling the very large mechanical lever, the machine would heave and whirl like a mystical metallic prop from a Harry Potter movie. I really felt like I was doing something different than anything other activity in my life, and I felt like my vote was captured, recorded and counted.
Like nearly every other state, though, New York finally traded heavy metal for silent 0's and 1's, and went to digital voting. Don't get me started on the fact the new digital voting machines don't print out a confirmation of your vote, or even let you see your vote after it is recorded. What I will really miss is the uniqueness in the experience of the metal voting machines. They showed me that voting was special. Now, with the digital machines, voting is more like making an ATM withdrawal or rating an online video.
Needless to say, I will continue to vote. I will have to trust that my votes are going to be captured, recorded, and counted with these new machines. Nonetheless, I will miss my short romance with New York's mechanical voting booths. Glad I got here before they became the equivalent of a 1998 Ford Explorer in the government clunker program.
