Report from the Polling Station

PS 150 is a fantastic place to vote. It's a Queens neighborhood, so of course it's totally diverse, loaded with translators and old people manning the various booths.

The woman in charge had shiny falsies, severed bangs, and a silvering mullet, everything you would expect from a life-long Queens resident who volunteers to work the local polling station.

When the missus and I presented ourselves, Bangs announced, "You'll have to fill out an affidavit ballot. Some Republican broke our booth. Oh, are you Republican or Democrat?"

"Democrats," we both exclaimed.

We were escorted to a table so that we could fill out our affidavit ballots "secretly." There's a part of the affidavit that says, "You MUST check one of the boxes below," to explain your reason for using the paper ballot instead of the lever machine. There was no option for "broken booth." At this point I was losing confidence in the process.

A Korean immigrant leaned over to my ballot like a kid cheating in class who really doesn't care if anyone sees him cheating. I hadn't yet filled out my ballot. He pointed at his, a vote for Hillary, and said, "OK?"

He had checked it. The paper ballot should be filled in like an SAT bubble sheet. I pointed at the example, and said, "Like this." He corrected it. Then he showed it to the missus, "OK?" He hadn't voted for the delegates. She explained.

Now, the missus and I are honest people. It would've been very easy to let him screw up his ballot and have it discounted, especially since he was supporting a candidate I'm not particularly excited about. But we didn't. We helped him honestly. But it does make me wonder how often people get hosed that way.

By the time we filled out our ballot and returned to our District 32 booth, it was working again. Somehow I trust the lever machine (even a sometimes broken one) than the confusion around the paper ballot affidavit. I'm fairly convinced it would've ultimately ended up chucked.

So Bangs tore our ballots up and we voted in the booth. The SCHUNCK! of the lever machines is very satisfying, and I will miss it indeed once New York updates its system, something required of the state because of the Help America Vote Act.

Go, Democracy!