The pen is mightier than the lever.
That’s what I learned when I gave the new Election Systems & Software DS200 voting machine a test run, after the city Board of Elections chose it over a rival model to replace the city’s antiquated lever machines.
The experience was cool — but about as satisfying as filling out forms at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The machines are bringing voting in the city into the 21st century — or even just the 20th century — after decades of lever pulling.
The sleek, touch-screen system has a huge display screen and lets voters feed in paper ballots that look like standardized tests. I was flooded with memories of the SAT.
A scanner in the machine reads the votes but saves the paper ballot.
High tech? Sure, but why couldn’t the machines give some kind of proof I voted? At least the DMV hands out receipts.
The paper-ballot design looks a lot like the display on the old lever machines, but it took me a second to get oriented.
When the machine gave me the “go” sign, I pressed a green “cast ballot” icon. I fed a mock ballot in with two hands. The screen read, “Ballot scanning, please wait.”
Five seconds later, I heard my paper ballot fall into the locked collection area under the machine.
The screen read: “Thank you for voting. Your ballot has been counted.”
For the sake of future voting, I really hope so.
