For any first-time voters among the few Boston University students who went to the polls yesterday, things might have been a bit confusing. Compared to simple punch-card or optical scan ballots in many students’ home states, Boston’s mammoth machines can be challenging to navigate. Their confusing nature and less than perfect accuracy records, as reported yesterday in The Boston Globe, and the tightness of this year’s gubernatorial election are why the city of Boston must push to update its voting machines as quickly as possible. Better voting machines are the only way to ensure that every voter’s voice is heard in future elections.
The city’s current machines are inaccurate for several reasons, not the least of which is that they are outdated and the company that manufactured them is now out of business. Poll attendants, who work 14 hours for a relatively meager $100 to $150, must count ballots by hand after arduously working from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. to make people’s voting experiences as smooth as possible. According to the Globe, 470 votes in the 2000 presidential election were lost. Many areas throughout the state that have updated their voting apparatus in recent years have seen significant increases in accuracy and plans to update Boston’s infrastructure are currently tied up in the city council, according to The Globe.
As one of the first locations of democracy in the world and as the largest city in Massachusetts, it is almost embarrassing that Boston lags behind many cities in the state and throughout the country in updating its voting machinery. Boston should be a model of properly functioning democracy. City officials must make available the resources necessary to update Boston’s voting apparatus and minimize the possibility of tallying inaccuracies.
Eventually, federal officials should push to make the entire country’s voting systems compatible and modern. Americans in each of the 50 states should be assured that their votes are counted fairly and equally and that debacles, like Florida’s poor performance during the 2000 presidential elections and again during this year’s primary elections, are avoided.
It is time for Boston to bring its elections infrastructure into the 21st century, ensuring the fairest elections possible in one of the birthplaces of American democracy.
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