(NYT) — In the September primary, civic-minded New Yorkers will be greeted with new ballots and voting machines. The familiar quaint curtains and squeaky levers have been relegated to antiquity. In their place are multiple-choice ballots evoking SAT bubbles and A.T.M.-like stations that will scan your votes and retain hard copies of them.
In her City Critic column this Sunday, Ariel Kaminer tests out the new voting procedure. Election officials hope the new machines will improve the way votes are counted and make lines at the polls shorter. But City Critic is worried about the ballots’ confusing design and the possibility of “overvotes,” the scourge of the presidential election in 2000.