End of an Era, To Be Sure

R.I.P. - The Old, the first Presidential Election in New York City without the old lever voting machine...

Those New Yorkers who grew up on the experience, know, there was just somethign about the mechanical voting machines. They were massive. Like voting on a huge soda vending machine.

The New system using coded sheets and scanners seems like low tech under the guise of high tech, since, while the numbers can be more effectively crunched on the other end, I guess, it relies on Joe Shmo the voter to perform the manual data entry which may have contributed to some of the delay. Plus one poll worker observed that, maybe duye to the heavy number of voters in NYC, the system was down intermittently. 

But in the old machines, you did your gentle little click and then went on your way...and somehow that sense of “massiveness” translated into the voting process….can’t explain it, like the little lever click that combines with the heavy interior gears and everything and somehow is translated into the body politick of the American scene.

The New

--Anthony Napoli