BoingBoing.net has a nice little piece today from Jeremy about the voting experience in New York City. However, it doesn't quite capture the essence of the event. First, a little back history. New York City was once like everywhere else. Only with a lot more fraud. About 50 years ago New York City invested in the newest and most secure voting technology of the time: GIANT ASS mechanical lever voting machines. (Sorry for the poor images, I could not take one when I voted, but the NYC board of elections has a nice video that shows you how to use the machines). New York hasn't looked back since, even though the technology has been outdated since 1975. The voting process involves finding the right line for your machine, signing the voter registration book, and then being directed to a booth by a volunteer falling over themselves to teach you how to use the Best Voting Machine EVER. Some booths have curtains that close after you pull the magic Big Red Lever, others (like the one I used today) have the curtains drawn all the time, and you just have to snake through them. None of this namby pamby crap like I went through in Michigan, with flimsy tabletop stands and cardboard or plastic privacy screens that you're afraid of tipping over. This mother of a Buick stands at least 7 ft. tall, 4 wide, and could probably beat up your best vending machine and take it's lunch money to boot. It's drab, it's green, it exudes steel and security. And then you get to meet the best part of the whole thing. The Big Red Lever. It's like some mad genius was sitting at the lab thinking: "How can I get more people to vote on my machine?" "Include dancing girls? Nah the suffragettes would go nuts." "Dispense candy? Nah, Boss Tweed already gives them plenty of soup and bread." ... "I know! I'll make it into a giant slot machine!" You grab the Big Red Lever (and maybe indulge a bit in the nice feel of heavy steel, much like an engineer might do on an old steam locomotive), and then you slam it to the right. The sound you get it magic. It sounds just like a giant steel vault, the very heart and soul of voting democracy, opening up. If you've ever seen an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien when he had the Walker Texas Ranger clip lever, it sounds just like that. Only a million times better. Then you do that dull voting thing. You flip some switches, a nice black "x" pops up just to let you know who you are voting for, blah blah blah. What is nice is that the booth is well lit, and there's plenty of room for every candidate's name to appear. And the machine will not accept a half flip. You either flip the switch or you don't. You take your time, you vote, you even take a few pictures, and then comes the best part. You get to pull the Big Red Lever again. This time it counts, LITERALLY. It's counting your vote and resetting the machine for the next guy or gal. You get a little sad. You won't get to play with the machine until next year. Ya take a deep breath, you grab that Big Red Lever with authority, and you slam it back to the left. The vault closes with a wonderful mechanized cla-thump. The machine even shakes a little, so powerful does your vote count (plus you give it a little extra heft to make sure it pushes the dial over from 999 to 1,000, sometimes it gets a little jammed between the two sequences of numbers), and it feels like maybe a truck hit your booth (and didn't survive the impact with big steel). You part the curtains. And you fight the urge to run back in and jam that lever again, all while pitying those poor poor saps that have to use a punch-o-matic or a Diebold or a scantron some other loser technology. Sure the machines are old, occasionally lose votes, are not tamper resistant, break down often, do not have an auditable record of who voted for what, and are impossible to service or store or transport (the last one was originally a plus, as ballot boxes were frequently being stolen at the time). But you swear you'll never vote any other way. Ever.