Modern Technology Amazes Me

Since College Daughter needed an absentee ballot this year, I went ahead and requested one for myself. I've never enjoyed standing in line, and our voting precinct is notorious for long lines and elderly folks manning the voter stations who probably voted for Grover Cleveland at one time. It's painfully slow to me.

But Husband, being a political science major back in the day, loves the whole process and insisted on doing it the old fashioned way. He stood in line. This year, the lines were so long for those waiting to vote in the "secret ballot booths" that many people chose to take their ballots and Bic pens and sit down on the dirty gymnasium floor to color in their dots. Because our county went back to paper and pen. After spending a gazillion dollars on computer voting booths that didn't work a few years ago. You know, tax dollars at work and all that.

I remember when I was 18 and voting for the first time in a presidential election. There were separate booths with flags hanging down as curtains so no one could see you voting. And we had the little contraptions where you inserted the ballot "this side up" and punched out your choices with that little stylo. That was as high tech as you got back in 1981.


Twenty-seven years later, we have laptops, tiny cell phones and i-pods, but we're back to the paper and pen. In the future, I look forward to voting by taking a rock and making a hash mark on a cave wall.