BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Knowing that I would be busy on Election Day, like millions of Pennsylvanians, I carefully made out my ballot well ahead of time.
I filled those small ovals with care. And I dropped my vote into the drop-off box inside Bethlehem City Hall. I had done my civic duty, but it did not carry the emotional weight of my earliest voting experiences.
Those took place in the 1970s when, as a child, my mother took me with her to vote in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I grew up. What I remember most was the way that we stepped inside that mechanical voting machine and pulled the big red lever that started the process and also closed a curtain behind us.
It was as dramatic to my young mind as the vast curtain before a theater's stage. I was inside this private space, and a collaborator in the process of casting a secret ballot.
I dropped my vote into the drop-off box inside Bethlehem City Hall. I had done my civic duty, but it did not carry the emotional weight of my earliest voting experiences.
I was young. Too young to remember who was on the ballot, or what the issues may have been. But when her choices had been made, I was given the great pleasure of returning that lever to its original position. It made the most fantastic, complex, mechanical noise ... and OUR vote was cast.
Many years later, I recorded the sound of a nearly identical machine on Election Day in New York City. It was 2008, and I knew that the days of mechanical voting machines were numbered. You can hear those sounds in the audio file posted at the top of this story.
Who did I vote for in that contest pitting Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden against Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin?
It's a secret ballot, and that information remains behind the curtain.
