Why, why, when I screw this up every time I vote, have I not learned how to use the voting machines at my polling place?
The helpful older lady who takes my card tells me every time that I must pull the big giant red lever all the way to the right *before* I try to make my selections; there is a sign at the top of the machine telling me that I must pull the big giant red lever all the way to the right *before* I try to make my selections; and I know that the last time I voted, I had to pull the big giant red lever all the way to the right *before* I tried to make my selections.
So did I pull the big giant red lever all the way to the right *before* I tried to make my selections? I did not.
*Sigh.*
I’ll get this one day. However, with my luck, I’ll finally get it just as they retire those big-ass mechanical voting machines and give me some kind of bubble sheet to fill out and scan. At least I know how to do *that* from taking so many standardized tests.
So what does that mean? Did your vote go thru? I’ve never voted on a machine like that.
No, I had to pull the big red lever. At least I remembered that before I asked the helpful older lady for assistance. Like I had to do a couple of years ago.
Practice, practice, practice. That’s why you should vote early and often!
/kidding
My precinct has electronic machines (with a printed record) that are fairly intuitive. I’m just grateful that they didn’t run the videotaped instructions in a loop on a nearby monitor, which they did last election, over and over and over and over until you were ready to run out of there screaming.
(And if it was that bad for me just waiting in line, those poor election judges must have gone nearly insane.)
Yeah, I remember my embarrassment last election when I made a mistake marking my optical-scanner card and had to go back and get a new one…. after spending about five minutes trying to figure out how the heck I was supposed to mark it in the first place. This after a long and successful career taking standardized tests, all kinds of internet surveys, etc. Making me suspect that all of these systems are made to be deliberately confusing.
It’s also hard to “vote with our genitalia”- I’m short and mine won’t reach the handle! ;)
I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same kind of machine but where I vote it was totally 19th century with the curtain and everything. You have to pull the big lever to close the curtain, then you have to push each little lever down and to the right. Last time I screwed up and did the wrong row and nearly voted for Bush before I caught myself. In 06 we switched to diebold types but I miss the old ones. I still think they’re the most error/hacker proof overall.
I’m sorry to get all British-supremacist on you, but why oh why does the US persist in having “voting machines” when they clearly cause far more trouble than they are worth. Here we have a piece of paper, a pencil and a black box to put it into afterwards. Attempts to introduce electronic voting have generally been laughed at. Honestly, is there any advantage? I must be missing something. Do they get counted automatically or something?
A Finnish girl (just found this place) agrees. Although the box doesn’t have to be a black one. It’s a lot more easier to just mark the number of your candidate (or “Donald Duck” if you just want to protest), why use a machine or a optical scanner card if they clearly don’t work?
Do they get counted automatically or something?
Yes. Each vote moves an odometer in the back. At the end of the day, they open the door and read off the totals.
I’ve only ever voted with bubbles!
S.H., the New York State machines are lovely, big, mechanical, very-hard-to-screw-up things. I am so glad this state still uses them.
That sounds complicated…I’m glad I’ve never had to use one of those!
After the 2000 debacle, I felt VERY uncomfortable about the prospect of having to use an electronic voting machine. However, in both 2004 and today, my polling places have “old school” ballots with bubbles. Yay!
S.H. et al.: I’m surprised anyone’s still using lever machines, but no, they are not corruption proof. Back in the day (pre-1970) the lever machines sometimes arrived at polling places with totals already on them. But their layout makes overvoting impossible, and “butterfly ballot” type alignment mistakes very difficult. Note that there is no unique paper ballot per voter.
And smug Britoperson: I have had to vote for over 30 city, county, and state offices, city, county, and state measures, and county and state judges, not to mention school board members (elementary, high, and community college), water district boards, and sewerage district boards. Voting machine complexity reflects the abundance of democracy we have in our country, not like you lot who merely have to tick one box and go.
In LA County, we use the InkaVote system, which is basically exactly like the old chad-based system but you ink it instead of punching it. But every county uses a different system, so what we have in LA County may not be what they have in San Francisco, or even in neighboring Orange County.
Zuzu, you’re not a doofus at all- these folks in Virginia are doofuses…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23015871/
I’m with Katherine (#8). Pen and paper work nicely. And counting isn’t exactly time consuming. I’ve worked as an inside scrutineer. It’d be pretty impossible to cheat. At least at that level. I’m not usually a luddite, but in this instance… :)
Cute.
I didn’t know democracy could be measured beyond “have” and “don’t have”. In that case, I suppose Switzerland (and I almost wrote the name it has in my country, but Firefox didn’t agree it was right…) has the most democracy by this count, as the citizens can challenge any law and so on. Direct democracy and all that jazz.
S.H., the New York State machines are lovely, big, mechanical, very-hard-to-screw-up things. I am so glad this state still uses them.
Sez you. :) I normally love the NYS machines, but I realized after I voted on one today that I most probably invalidated my ballot. I had to vote for the candidate, then the delegates. There was a nice little row of delegates along the same line, I dutifully flipped every lever, then you know how things hit you a few minutes after the fact? Once I hit the exit door I had a brain flash on a little instruction on the machine that said “Vote for 5 delegates” and an image of the number “7″ next to the last delegate name. Poop. Usually those levers are set so that you can’t vote for more than you’re supposed to, but I think that’s down a column, not across a row, so the stupidity fail-safe didn’t work for the primary setup.
Hahaha! zuzu, I have the same problem every election. I’m glad it wasn’t just me tapping that little Obama knob for a minute and wondering why it wouldn’t move.
I used to live in NY and loved the old style machines. It’s fun and you feel like you’re voting! Since then, I’ve lived in WI and NC and using the scantrons makes me feel like I’m taking a test.
Although, I guess we shouldn’t choose voting machines based on how much fun it makes voting.
I am SO glad I’m not the only person who has problems with the red lever every single election.
My very first voting experience today was in Paris, with Democrats Abroad. No machines, no booths, nothing– just slips of paper (with Edwards, Biden, et. al. still on) and a box.
I have to admit, I was kind of looking forward to a lever!
I almost completely screwed up the very same thing this morning, so don’t feel bad. At the very last second I stopped before flipping the little candidate levers, probably because the crotchety old dude outside was yelling “Flip the lever first, the LEVER, miss!! Flip the LEVER!” I wouldn’t have gotten it without him. Thanks crotchety old polling place volunteer man! I love you.
I have to read the instructions every time because I’m scared I’ll accidently pull the lever at the wrong time and vote “null.”
You’re okay. It was six delegates, not five, and the candidate appears on line 1, the delegates on 2-7.
Nice to know I’m not alone in my lever-deficiency.
I hate disillusion my fellow NYers who love the large, old, voting booths but by either the November elections or next year we will be using Ballot Marking Devices or BMDs. Check out the Board of Elections (through http://www.nyc.gov) for picures and a faq about them. Two things have conspired to take those machines from us: The 2002 federal election law which mandates electronic machines and the age of the machines means they are getting harder and more expensive to fix. (You know that while it would make sense for the government to find people to create the parts, they won’t.)
And Zuzu, even though I know I’ve moved the bar correctly, it stills makes me crazy to wonder if I have. (And it’s bothered me for 30 years.)
zuzu – That makes me feel better! And when I first moved to NY, I had only done scantrons and punch cards before. I stood there at the booth, having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to do. Finally the voter person came over and showed me how to move the big lever to close the curtain. Then I wasn’t sure what to do to get out. :)
Hector: I don’t know about the Brits, but in the last Federal election I had no problem numbering 54 boxes below the line on my pencil-and-boxes Senate paper. I believe other states had up to 79.
And yet we still seem to get the vast majority of our votes counted within a few hours of close of polls, without anything like the drama and shenanigans of the US voting systems.
Hey Hector, I did apologise for getting all Brit supremacist. That does explain it somewhat – ie number of choices to make. That an the automation. The UK paper votes are counted by hand.
Although, it must be said that UK elections don’t always just consist of one set of boxes and one choice. For European elections, for example, we use a form or proportional representation, which involves large voting cards and many choices of preference to make. European elections usually occur on the same day as some other local elections too, so there are frequently several pieces of paper involved.