<p>I either just voted or took the SAT again. Not sure. If it’s the SAT I hope I did better this time…</p>
<p>:D, Vitrac.</p>
<p>I miss the old machines, too. My kids were fascinated by them when they were very little. They loved to go inside the booth with me and watch me pull the levers.</p>
<p>Ditto. I don’t see why they had to change. They were easy to use and, as far as I know, accurate. </p>
<p>At least I am in a state where there a piece of paper that could be counted if need be.</p>
<p>S2 was so disappointed this summer when he was home and able to vote in person in the state primary (he’s only voted by absentee ballot in November). He remembered the voting booths from when he tagged along with me when I voted and expected to have the experience of closing the curtain and pulling the lever. Filling in the bubble was very unsatisfying to him…it was like every standardized test he’d taken since elementary school.</p>
<p>We have a touch screen that is kind of fun to use and it is in a booth with a little drape. Not as satisfying as pulling a lever but it still feels real.</p>
<p>We also have the touch screens, which I’m fine with. If having the old machines with the levers means ever having the possibility of another hanging or pregnant chad, please put them all in museums.</p>
<p>BI - the hanging chads had nothing to do with lever machines at all.</p>
<p>I just had this same conversation with my neighbor this morning. She works the polls, and she said the new slates and paper ballots that we use make it much easier to count after the polls close. Having worked the polls once in 2004, I can attest to the tedious work involved in counting the votes with the old machines. But I agree, that I liked those machines much better as a voter.</p>
<p>The lever voting machines malfunctioned on a regular basis, but not because of hanging chads. We have SAT type ballots, after my son did all the research they seem to me to be theoretically the safest, since if there seems to be funny business in the computer you can count them by hand. According to my son, spot checking random machines should be part of the deal. Computers are just too easy to hack.</p>
<p>For some reason, those levers made me nervous.</p>
<p>The touch screens are very intimidating to my 79 year old mother, and I can understand that. She said this weekend that she preferred the privacy and ease to the lever machines.</p>
<p>Did I ever tell you guys about the time my lever got stuck and when I pressed really hard it flipped me onto the floor in the next booth? Fun times!</p>
<p>I’m laughing, zm! </p>
<p>I miss the old machines, which we had until recently. There was nothing quite as satisfying as the solid chunking sound when the big lever was moved, opening the curtain and registering the vote.</p>
<p>I miss those old voting booths also. We used to bring the kids along and let them pull the lever to open up the curtains.</p>
<p>When my S was about 4, he used to hide behind the living room curtains and say he was “voting.” :)</p>
<p>CT has the lever machines, but my understanding is that they were no longer manufactured and difficult to get parts for, etc. When I first moved to Maine I was startled by being handed a paper ballot to bubble in, but quickly grew to realize that the paper ballot combined with optical character reader is a MUCH better way to conduct elections, since it provides both an automated count and a paper trail if need be.</p>
<p>Touchscreens seem like the worst possible solution to me. Touchscreens are extremely unreliable in every other application, and the results so easily manipulated via software. The conflicts of interest and other issues surrounding Diebold are not confidence-inspiring, nor is the fact that Tagg Romney is financially involved with providing voting machines in Ohio, of all places. (Talk about a clear conflict of interest!)</p>
<p>For those who vote by touchscreen: does it give you a chance to confirm all of your choices before registering them? Does it print out a receipt showing how you voted? Is there any way to ensure that it registered what you thought you entered?</p>
<p>Consolation, cute story about your kid “voting.” 
</p>
<p>We don’t have touchscreens, but we have screens where you turn a dial and then hit enter when you get to the right box. At the end, it shows all your choices, and you can go back and change them. Today while I was voting, a woman had to get help because she apparently had marked a straight-party ticket but when she was on the last page she realized her mistake and wanted to go back and make changes. I’ve never voted straight-party ticket so I don’t know how that “looks” on the machine. Does it just jump down to the propositions? Go to races where there isn’t a candidate in whatever party you first marked? Just not sure …</p>
<p>But, no, I don’t get a paper confirmation of my choices.</p>
<p>I’m in Georgia. After we showed ID we got a card with a magnetic strip that we inserted into a terminal next to the touch screen. You do get a review screen that shows your completed ballot before you officially vote. Then your card pops out and you give it to the sticker guy and he throws it into a pile on the table.</p>
<p>The touchscreens were against a wall, open to the room but they were quite separate from the line and each other. </p>
<p>Much less satisfying than the old school voting booths. My elementary school was a voting place and I always thought of the Wizard of Oz when the big curtain came open. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”</p>
<p>I can remember going to the old voting booths when I was a kid. My mother would make me stand against the wall in the gym while she went into the booth. For some reason I was always afraid she wouldn’t come out again.</p>
<p>I am so old that I remember the rubber stamp with an X for your vote.</p>
<p>I was about 3 when I went with my parents to vote. I went into the booth with my father. And yes, it was a stamp. The women who were running the polling place had to count every ballot by hand.</p>
<p>We had the chad ballots…I am assuming that that what we have again. Perhaps because we are a small town, and residents run the polling place…I have never been asked to produce an id. But I generally know at least one worker.</p>
<p>This morning we had a choice – either have your driver’s license scanned and sign the form or fill out a paper affidavid (your name address and signature) and then they give you the ballot. In the time it took for them to process one driver’s license, about four of us went through the line filling out the paper affidavid. H said when he went to vote about an hour later they did not even give him the choice – he just filled out the paper and he was through. Took about 30 secs.</p>