When I was a kid they actually took the time to teach civics. I doubt they do that anymore and if they do it is probably unrecognizable to the civics lessons I was taught. We were taught the fundamentals of government and the citizen’s role in the functioning of that government. Free elections and a person’s right to vote were emphasized as being everyone’s responsibility.
As in most places in the USA, schools are used as polling places so just before Election Day the lobbies and hallways would fill with the machines used in the voting. Back then in my little corner of the Eastern United States, they were standalone booths. You stepped in and pulled a giant lever to one side causing the curtain behind you to swoop shut and the small flip switches that actually record your vote to all flip upright like a giant circuit breaker panel in front of you. These switches were how you voted. You went along the switches flipping the one next to your selection down. At the end when you moved the giant lever back to its original positon, the curtain would open, the small switches would all flip down and your vote would be recorded. The switches all flipped down so that when the curtain opened, people couldn’t tell how you voted. Genius!
You learned at a very early age that voting was for adults only, voting was secret and sacred, and hence you could not go into the voting booth with your Mom/Dad or whomever. You were a kid and wanted to know what was going on behind that bloody curtain, but rules actually meant something and were enforced. So because they still taught civics and voting was held in high esteem and not thought a bother, there was a certain point in Elementary school that you were brought to the lobby where the machines were and actually got to see what went on behind the curtain! FUN! Levers and switches and curtains! What’s not to love?
The voting booths always reminded me of those photo booths at arcades; the ones that printed four pictures of you on a strip of photo paper. In fact the only thing missing from that voting experience was a huge flash of light at the end and a picture of you having voted to record the event like a game show.
When I was an adult and had moved to Hawaii I was surprised at the whole laid back air of a Hawaiian polling station. Really I shouldn’t have been. One of the things I loved about the place was that “hang loose” vibe. But here there were booths with no levers, just a small shelf for you and your ballot and hole punch. There was a curtain that you had to pull closed yourself and barely went halfway down from the top and often had a festive printed pattern. The curtains on the voting booths of my youth were uniformly heavy, dark green/grey and most definitely opaque. Most interesting of all to me was you could bring anyone into the booth with you. I said it was laid back.
Every Election Day I am reminded of my libertarian minded father. He hated having to register to vote and be assigned a polling station and then showing ID once you got there. He always felt it was a little too “show me your papers”. And, he reasoned, that if his ballot was secret why did they need to actually record that he voted and in what booth he did so? As an American he felt it was his right to vote plain and simple which meant he should be able to go to any polling station at any time and vote, registered or not.
My father loved this country. LOVED IT. And to him this country was the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and he didn’t need a bureaucrat reigning in his God given right to vote. So when he voted it was tense! Would he start arguing or just go with the flow? It really was like a game show! If only there were cameras.
The Fat of Now 