I turned up yesterday to let me voice be heard. Apparently, it wasn't enough.
This was my first time voting on the east coast, and I was really surprised at the crazy-looking voting machine I was asked to use. The mechanical lever machine was used by 20% of the voters in the 1996 election. I have a feeling that my previous residencies in newer western cities explains why I'd never seen one until yesterday. The machine has a giant level that you pull to one side. This closes the little curtain. You then turn all these little screws to choose your candidates. There's essentially no information about the candidates. Then at the end, you pull the lever back and your vote has allegedly been counted.
I have to admit that, despite my disapproval of the detail of candidate and initiative descriptions, there's something pretty cool about casting your vote with a giant lever. In some parallel universe yesterday, trains were being switched onto all sorts of crazy tracks. There are a few resources on the web about voting machines. I found this page to be the most interesting, and it has a picture of the lever machine. This article has pictures of some other voting systems.
Why don't we have a standard system? Surely it would save us some problems.