I VOTED

I voted. I put my two kids in the car and we drove over to our local elementary school so I could vote. The parking lot was full, but they are also holding parent conferences today. It turned out I was number 343 ( of the second half of the alphabet) to vote at my precinct. I showed my driver's license and got a little ticket which I gave to the man who was monitoring the computers. He inserted an access card and the screen changed to show me the first item on the ballot. I voted by touching the screen. After I had made all of my selections, I got a screen that summarized my choices and then I touched the word VOTE to make it final. Then I got my sticker and I was done. It was easy. Maybe too easy. Something about those punchballots just felt more secure. I know all about hanging chads, but at least there was something to recount! The computers feel unsafe to me. I'm not certain that my vote will be counted. What if the computer crashes? Will it lose all of the votes that were made on it? I don't know. How do they do a recount? Computers aren't wrong. I guess I just liked the paper trail of the old way. Maybe it's because that's the way I first learned to vote, but it just leaves me feeling more certain.