Primary Election Day: A Debut of New Voting Machines

25 years ago, half of all 18-24 year olds voted. Today it's 25%. 18-24 year olds represent 33% of the population but only account for 7% of the voters. Think government isn't about you?

How many of you have student loans to pay? How many of you have credit card debt? How many want clean air and clean water and civil liberties? How many want jobs? How many want kids? How many want their kids to go to good schools and walk on safe streets?

Decisions are made by those who show up. You gotta Rock the Vote!

-CJ Cregg (The West Wing, "College Kids")

It's here! It's here! Primary Election Day is here. Today is the day where we pick our parties nominees for office. It is also the formal debut of the new voting machines in New York.
Being a good voter, I was at my polling place bright and early today. I felt that I was well-prepared with the new voting machines since I had been to a demonstration over the summer and I would be in and out in a few minutes. I was wrong. So, I have a few tips for all of you. This is not meant to be a reference on how to use the new machines, for that, please go to the Board of Elections website. This is just some helpful hints based on my experience this morning.

• After you get your ballot, take a moment to look over each of the offices listed. Since the paper ballot has to be a fixed size, the offices are no longer limited to single columns. You may have multiple offices grouped into one column. The grouping is not as intuitive as you may think.
• Read the instructions! Under each office, it will say how many votes you may cast for a single office. For example, my ballot said, under Delegate for Judicial Convention, to vote for any 11 candidates and for Attorney General, to vote for any 1 candidate.
• DO NOT FOLD YOUR BALLOT! You may think that you are protecting your private vote, but if you fold it, your ballot will be ruled invalid. If you want to keep it secret use the "privacy sleeve" (a manila envelope). When I picked up my ballot after I signed in, I was told that they did not have any privacy sleeves available. I said I wouldn't mind taking and casting my ballot without it. The poll worker, while handed it to me, began to fold it over. I nearly screamed at the poll worker not to fold it since I knew it would be invalidated if she did.
• Flip it over. Candidates are listed on both sides of the paper ballot.
• When in doubt, ask for help. Since this is the first time most of us have used the new voting machines and used the new ballots, you may not know how it all works. If you need help, ask a poll worker.

Make sure you get out an vote today. If you care about the air you breathe, the water you drink, the streets on which you drive, you have to do your duty and had to the polls, otherwise your voice is silenced.