My mother taught me how to vote when I was 5 years old.

[JohnnyRingo]

She's gone now but I'll never forget the lessons I learned from a lifetime FDR democrat.

One of those lessons occurred the Tuesday that she took me to the fire station to vote. Voting machines were different in the early '60s. There was a curtain and a wall of small switches next to each candidate. flipping that switch would put a red X aside the name you voted for. I remember my mom reaching up and pulling a big lever that drew the curtain for privacy. The machine was now ready for voting.

My mother pointed out the small switches and explained how they would cast her vote to those candidates. Or I can flip this bigger lever at the top of the row, she said, that put red Xs in the box of every democrat on the board. She pushed the big handle back up to record the vote and open the curtain. "And that's how you vote" she said.

Republicans did away with straight ticket voting by the time I was able to cast my first vote, so I had to do a little more work.
Notice the lever at the top of every row here for each party:

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[Turbineguy]

1. Voting is like driving a car

Put in "D" to go forward. Put it in "R" to go backwards.

[erronis]

9. Love that. Haven't heard it for a long, long time.

[Turbineguy]

13. Senator Byron Dorgan taught me that one.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. I learned the same way.

In 1960, she let me flip the JFK switch. She was an election judge at the local polling place, so I guess it was ok.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. I remember those!

Mom voted at the fire station and then later on at my elementary school.

[JohnnyRingo]

4. I especially recall the sound that closed the curtain.

It had a serious sound of authority and command. Not unlike what I imagine putting a battleship in gear would make. haha
Somehow we knew that vote was going to be counted.

[Diamond_Dog]

6. Unfortunately when my parents voted

It was always for the Republican ….

[JohnnyRingo]

19. No worry. My parents cancelled them out. haha

I like to find a republican friend and tell him I'm going to vote and think of him when I cancel his vote.

[erronis]

8. I think that big curtain-closing lever also reset all of the prior selections

Probably also reset when the curtain was opened.

No hanging chads back then!

[jaxexpat]

15. The chads would have been a problem then, too, but there were people smart enough and who cared enough......

to make sure the machine was maintained properly and that meant emptying the stupid chads holding box before it filled up, packing so tightly that the pins that were supposed to punch holes in the cards would bend because they couldn't penetrate the ancient hard mass in the full box. Thus, the immortal f...ing hanging chads and ballot dimples. How could no one notice, for decades, that the little pieces of paper weren't littering the floor? It's a clear sign of a deteriorated society. Did they think they simply disappeared from the material plain into the ether? To add insult to injury they called the IT guys to remedy the problem........ so now all our votes depend on electronics, electronics vendors, programming and programmers. When they go down, they call in the same mind-set of incompetent clowns who sold them the crap to fix their screwed up and expensive system. Then no matter the outcome, the repair or disrepair, there's a squabble about fair elections where the goddamned Republican con artists convince everybody the system's been rigged and we need a strong loudmouthed leader to fix it. Lazy, crooked and/or stupid elections officials in south Florida in 2000 were able to do what 2 world wars, a Great Depression and armies of Confererate traitors had been unable to do. Install an unelected executive who would unwittingly usher in a neo-con disaster. Of course it was done unwittingly, he was/is witless.

Chads

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. I brought my younger son into the voting booth with me

when he was 5. It was 1992 and he helped me vote for Bill Clinton. He was totally thrilled to do so.

[hunter]

7. My parents always took us along when they voted, as we took our own children.

They also took us to anti-war protests and union picket lines... which may have been a bit much. We saw some things.

We took our own children to a few anti-war, labor, and civil rights protests but we always hung out on the periphery, just in case things got ugly and we had to make a hasty retreat. My parents were never so cautious.

[Warpy]

10. All my parents taught me at that age

was how to play the nickel slot machines when the bouncer wasn't looking.

[Golden Raisin]

11. My mom (gone 43 years now) did exactly the same thing with me.

She also instilled in me the concept that voting was a privilege and duty; something quasi-sacred and not to be taken lightly or omitted. To this day I always vote in EVERY election, national/local, big/small. I like to say I even vote when the election is for 'dog catcher'.

[JohnnyRingo]

14. I remember learning about Hoover Dam in grade school.

My mom had a fit when she saw that report. It's Boulder Dam!, she said. Then I got a short and scathing history lesson about that no good President Herbert Hoover.
I think she may have called the school. haha

My mom died 44 years ago as well at 53. Her heart got her, probably because it was so big.

[dflprincess]

12. My dad took me into the voting booth

To show me how to vote for Mr. Kennedy. I was 7 and, as I recall, it looked very much like the photo.

[Brother Buzz]

16. I learned to vote down at the penny arcade

Actually, my mom ran our Podunk polling station for years, so I kinda learned everything from the inside out on voting.

Voting is not just a right or a privilege, but an obligation. - Mom

[Harker]

17. My racist, bigoted, narcissistic republican father thought he was controlling my mother's votes...

by telling her what she ought to think, and saying, "don't cancel me out."

I saw that little hint of a smile on her face, though.

[JohnnyRingo]

18. Hahaha That's how democrats get elected in the south.

The old man will be complaining to his buddies that it doesn't make sense because "we all voted for (the republican), isn't that right honey?" "Yes dear".

[Harker]

20. It's a good thing that there's a curtain on that booth! n/t

[Wonder Why]

22. I wasn't allowed to vote at 5. The election officials said to come back in 16 years. (It was 21 back then).