2/05/2008

Fifteen minutes ago in Red Hook

This is what it looks like when you make the right choice

Went down to the polls after bagels and lox. Just around the corner on Van Brunt and Lorraine. I was glad to see they are still using the old-school voting machines in the old school gymnasium. These require you to pull down mechanical metal switches next to the name of the candidate of your choice and then yank across a massive lever sticking out of the floor, as if you were a lineman diverting a train. They are solid, antique devices from the pre-computer era that make satisfying clicking and clanking noises, the sound of democracy expressed, in response to one's performing one's functions as a voter. Manufactured in an era when this country actually manufactured things. None of this absurd nonsense of flawed and hackable software and the notion, already introduced in far too many states, that we are somehow better off e-voting.

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