What Happened to Voting in Private?

Dear Editor:

The new voting procedures in the recent local elections in Mahopac were neither technologically sophisticated nor private. Instead of pulling a lever, we had to bubble in our choices with a thick black magic marker, on a very large paper ballot. I don’t know what the procedure was in the event of an error: ... crossing out? Asking for a new ballot?

Rather than voting in the privacy of an enclosed booth, we were directed to raised platforms with partial partitions, similar to some fast food restaurants where about four people could color in their paper ballots unseen by each other but in full view of everybody else in the room. Then we had to carry our newspaper sized paper ballot across the room and feed it into a machine where the nice man supervising assured me that he wasn’t peeking at my choices. The machine did inform me that my ballot had been counted.

I hated the smelly magic markers and hated even more the lack of privacy and safety that comes with pulling a curtain around a booth. I also missed a lever that I could press down or lift up if I wanted to make a change and that would not become official until I pulled the lever that opened the booth.

My neighbors in Westchester did not have to use such a primitive system; neither did my colleagues in New York City. Until we have a system that guarantees accuracy and true privacy, we should return to what has worked well for so long.
Sylvia Philip
MAHOPAC