Apr 27, 2023 2 min read

If you remember when Lynyrd Skynyrd was in its heyday, Winky’s Hamburgers and bell-bottom pants, you remember when it was time to vote, you voted on a mechanical lever machine.

These 800-pound monoliths of democracy were in service for quite a long time. They were simple to use — just walk up to the machine, grasp the handle and slide it to the right. That closed the curtain and you were ready to vote. You would then place your index finger into a plastic lever with an arrow and push down. When you were finished voting, you grabbed the handle and moved it to the left, which would open the curtain and record the votes.

These machines were deemed obsolete by the federal government upon passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Since then, a number of electronic voting machines and vote-scanning devices have been used. The days following an election produce articles published from across the state of “glitches and irregularities” in the process, from no bar codes on ballots and bar codes that cannot be scanned, to an insufficient number of paper ballots at polling places. Let’s not forget ballots that were mailed and not received, to malfunctions of voting machines with votes cast for one party being changed to the other.

When did the problems start? Look no further than the introduction of COVID-19. Voters were allowed to vote from home. The Pennsylvania Constitution lists the reasons a citizen can vote by absentee ballot — an individual’s duties, occupation or business that requires them to be elsewhere, illness or physical disability or observance of a religious holiday. Nowhere does it say a virus.

There should be no glitches or irregularities after an election. The year is 2023, and we have successfully landed a rover Mars that has been traversing the planet’s landscape and sending pictures back to Earth, but we cannot have an election free from doubt?

Edward Zadylak

Connellsville