Here & There Column 9-21-10

Did You Miss The "Lever" ?

It wasn't complicated and some told me it was an adventure but voting in last Tuesday's primary elections showed what some are calling progress and the electronic-computerized way of getting election results produced without the "lever."
Some criticism was noticed after 11 p.m. primary night when television and radio columnist indicated that they thought the new electronic-computerized system would have produced election results a lot quicker then in the past.
Locally in Sullivan County an elderly woman exiting a polling booth didn't like the fact that she had to use a marker and only fill in the circle after the candidate's name to make her vote count.
"Why couldn't they still have a lever to pull and the vote electronically recorded at election headquarters in Monticello," was another statement from a primary voter.
Another primary voter was overheard saying, "how on earth is paper a step up?.....what about environmental impact?
Other voters we talked to said, "I found it a little confusing and I liked the older lever mechanism better." Another added, "it was all right it just took a little longer to vote as you had to fill out circles versus just flipping levers."
We didn't find it difficult to mark the ballot as instructed by the election inspectors but when we attempted to get the ballot inserted into the new electronic vote-scanning machine the machine would not take my ballot because I had not left enough of the ballot out of the cover of the privacy sleeve (given to each voter to insert the marked paper ballot into so no one could see how you voted) and after a little assistance from an election inspector the scanning machine finally took my ballot and the machine send back a message that my "vote had been counted." These new machines simply read the hand-marked ballot.
The primary ballots were all on separate party (Democrat, Republican, Conservative and Independence) sheets so this made a little extra work for the election inspectors but the November election sheet will have all the candidates listed on one sheet so that should move the process along a little faster.
New York State is actually the last in the Union to implement the federally-required electronic voting process and if it all works the way it should election results hopefully could become more readily available soon after the polls close.
With the November elections just about two months away and with this voting process appearing to take more time to complete this might produce long lines of frustrated voters.
Sullivan County and New York voters have used the "lever" system for some 80 years and it's only right to give the state and county board of elections time to work out all the bugs in our new electronic-computerized voting system.