Our local precinct gave us a choice of voting medium: touch-screen machine or optical scan ballots. When I say touch screen machine, I mean "machine," as in "ten people in line for one machine, no curtains, no cubicle, nothing." I went with the optical scan ballot. Also, the process just feels more official when you physically cast your ballot, rather than just tapping "cast ballot." This was probably the last time in my life I will be able to actually drop my ballot into a ballot box, even if the ballot box was an optical scanner.
While I was pondering my ballot tonight, I watched a mother congratulate her daughter on her first vote--using a touch-screen computer. In 20 years, we could have people running for president who have never dropped a ballot in a ballot box in their lives.
Yes, I'm waxing nostalgic. I cast my first vote by mail, punching my little numbered squares off on my friend's dorm-room floor. Back then, I lived in Oregon just as that state was considering going to the current system of all vote-by-mail. People lamented the demise of the polling place, which has since gone extinct in Oregon. Now, we are seeing the death of the ballot as something you can actually touch. That is the price of progress, and progress is necessary. However, it will mean our last tactile connection with the democratic process is gone.
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