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Today were the New York primaries for the Democratic nominee for President. So I went to vote.
The polling place that we go to is in the basement of a small church that used to, according to the sign out front, cater mainly to the sailors who travelled up and down the Narrows (the narrow sea route that runs between Brooklyn and Staten Island). It's usually staffed for the occasion by a set of retirees who, when they aren't checking your name in their little books to make sure you're registered, gossip and eat doughnuts and go outside for a smoke.
The voting machines are older than I am (which makes me feel better about aging, actually). I remember going into those machines with my parents. They no longer work as well as they used to -- there are long levers which you move one way when you go into the booth, and then move back to register your vote, and the leavers used to open and close the curtains that shield the voter. No more -- you have to push into the threadbare curtains, and try to remember to push the lever one way before you vote, and the other way after.
Still, I like those voting booths, and will be worry to see them go. And as rickety and cranky as they are, I trust them to register my vote. I can't help thinking that if they had been using the old-fashioned voting booths in Florida, we'd be having an altogether different type of election today.
The polling place that we go to is in the basement of a small church that used to, according to the sign out front, cater mainly to the sailors who travelled up and down the Narrows (the narrow sea route that runs between Brooklyn and Staten Island). It's usually staffed for the occasion by a set of retirees who, when they aren't checking your name in their little books to make sure you're registered, gossip and eat doughnuts and go outside for a smoke.
The voting machines are older than I am (which makes me feel better about aging, actually). I remember going into those machines with my parents. They no longer work as well as they used to -- there are long levers which you move one way when you go into the booth, and then move back to register your vote, and the leavers used to open and close the curtains that shield the voter. No more -- you have to push into the threadbare curtains, and try to remember to push the lever one way before you vote, and the other way after.
Still, I like those voting booths, and will be worry to see them go. And as rickety and cranky as they are, I trust them to register my vote. I can't help thinking that if they had been using the old-fashioned voting booths in Florida, we'd be having an altogether different type of election today.
