JAMES LILEKS: How to vote with absolute safety?

Vote from Home! The envelope said. It was my application for an absentee ballot. Absentee? I’m right here! Two blocks from the polling place.

When I read the letter, I was surprised how out-of-touch the government is. If I understand this correctly, I fill out the form, and then I have to mail it. Really? In this GrubHub/Postmates/Amazon world, they can’t send someone to get it? Maybe one of those Boston Dynamic robot dogs you see on the internet, trotting through the neighborhood with pouches full of ballots?

Sorry, no. The first time I voted it was in a church basement. The machine was old and clanky, and looked like something they used in 1956 to calculate nuclear missile trajectories. You stepped inside, pulled the curtains around you, made your selections and pulled a big metal lever: ca-clunk, like flushing a brick.

Someone in the church upstairs was practicing on the organ, big slabs of Bach chords festooned with treble filigrees, and as I pulled that lever I thought: “This is a glorious privilege. Also, I wish I knew more about those judge candidates.”

Now the voting booth is like a plastic TV dinner tray. But I still prefer it to voting by mail.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.™