I’m not talking about accuracy or hanging chads.  I’m talking about the voter experience.

First let’s talk about the polling place.  In New York State, no one is allowed to campaign for a candidate or ballot measure within 100 feet of the entrance to a polling location. At least six states, Maine, Montana, New York, Vermont, Virginia, and Kansas prohibit wearing campaign buttons, stickers and badges inside polling places.  In New York, people can’t even wear campaign Tshirts.  I think that’s fair.

But in Pennsylvania, it’s a free for all.  There were signs lined up, guiding my way to the entrance of my polling place.  The signs were mainly for judge candidates.  It’s a lot different than in New York, where judges are appointed, not elected.  I think I like having this option.  Should I ever have the misfortune to appear in front of one, at least I know I had the power to influence that person earning that position.  It wasn’t just the result of a favor or cronyism.

So we’re about to enter the Ardmore Methodist Church to vote.  I’m greeted by two women.  I think, like in New York, they are local League of Women Voter representatives, available to answer any questions, explain the voting machines, etc.  I explain how this is my first time voting in PA and zoom–they both pounce!  One is Regina Balinski, running for County Commissioner for Ward 8 in Lower Merion Township, where I live.  The other is Carole from the local Democratic Party.  It must have been like a 6th sense, (or my past working for Bill Clinton) but I immediately gravitated towards the Dem.  She was very helpful in showing me how things are done in the Keystone State.

I walked down the hall to the Music room of the church school and there was my neighbor Wally manning the voting machine with a few other people I did not know.  Wally could be at any polling place in the nation.  He has been in the neighborhood his entire life.  He knows everyone and every nook and cranny worth knowing.  He even knew me and I’ve only been around for 6 months.  (In full disclosure, he lives across the street from me.)

New York State is known for old, creaky voting machines.  According to “The History of Voting Machines” on about.com:

The Old Fashioned Voting Machine

The first official use of a lever type voting machine, known then as the “Myers Automatic Booth,” occurred in Lockport, New York in 1982.  Four years later they were employed on a large scale in the city of Rochester, New York, and soon were adopted statewide.  By 1930, lever machines had been installed in virtually every major city in the United States, and by the 1960s, well over half of the nation’s votes were being cast on these machines.

About 11 years ago, I worked the polls.  Write-ins were actually written in with pencils on these rolls of yellowed paper.  You enter the machine,and pull a lever to close the curtain.  That pull makes a loud noise, not unlike the sound of a bicycle grinding its gears.  It’s actually a lovely noise that to me, as a child, was the sound of voting.  The sound I could not wait to make when I was 18 and could pull the curtain closed.  Once you are inside, voters pull small levers which mark each candidate choice with an “X.”  Very low tech.  They get the job done, but you can’t help but wonder if the maintenance costs for these monsters in Albany has already eclipsed the cost of making the whole thing computerized.

I had high hopes for Pennsylvania.  But then again, this is a state where Weight Watchers just recently computerized their processes in the state’s largest city.  (Only about 4 years after New York. )  I guess if they’re slow to network within a company that’s probably better funded than its Board fo Elections, I can’t expect much from the BOE.  I signed my name in the book, took my voter number (#133 at lunchtime–pretty low turn out).  I turned around to give my number to Wally and what awaited me?   A giant Lite Brite they called a voting machine.  It was a little newer than the NYS voting machines.  But that’s not saying much.

The “Sequoia AVC Advantage” has been in use since 1988.  The description explains how the priorities for this device are to be 1) easy to set up 2) easy to use, especially for people with disabilities.  All well and good.  If this was the only way to vote I knew, I’d probably trust it more.

Seeing that there are so many different systems to make some very important choices, I want to know:  why is this something that is not standardized nationwide???  Yes, only every 4 years are we all voting on the same thing from coast to coast.  But if attention is put on getting that right, then every other race that gets counted, whether it’s for Congress, Senate, or Sanitation Commissioner, we would know we could trust the results.  (I’m REALLY trying NOT to mention Florida from 2004.)

Now I hear NYS has tried to update with some of Sequoia’s newer systems. But last year, half of 1500 machines had some major problems. (The company is now known as Dominion.) Currently, NYS is considering a Dominion system and one from ES&S.  And we’re worried about corrupt elections in Afghanistan?  It’s shocking that more cities have not gone the way of Chicago over time.  And we seem to tolerate it from Chicago–and just laugh it off like the electoral corruption is a crazy aunt.

Yes, we have wars to fight and an economy to fix.  But through all this, we have elections.  We have idealists trying to make things better and a populous who gets to choose which ones deserve the honor.  And we deserve to know that 1) we can cast our votes without any pressure in the seconds before we press the buttons and 2) that the buttons we press will count without question.