Long-time Westporters Jeff Mayer and Nancy Diamond are downsizing.
Like many residents, they see a smaller home as an opportunity to “Marie Kondo”-ize their lives.
It’s one thing to get rid of the tchotchkes.
But move the voting machine? That’s a different story.
And one they’re sharing with “06880.”
It begins to 2011, when Westport changed from traditional voting booths to electronic cards.
For 50 years voters had stepped into a private booth, pulled a giant lever to close the curtain, slid down tiny levers for candidates or penciled in write-ins, then pulled the big lever again to hide the votes and open the curtain.
Jeffrey Mayer and Nancy Diamond’s voting booth.
The voting machines were made by Sequoia. They were bought by now-famous Dominion Voting Systems in 2010.
In 2011, most of Westport’s voting machines were hauled to the dump.
Except one.
Jeff had been snoozing a few years earlier, when the Westport Library tossed its card catalogues.
He was not about to miss out on another piece of local history.
Kids! Ask your parents how to use this.
Jeff had served on the Board of Finance for 12 years, the last 4 as chairman. For him, voting was personal.
He called the Town Clerk. With the help of Jim Ezzes, chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals, and Jim’s brother Steve, also a former BOF member, one machine found a new home.
A dozen years later, Jeff and Nancy’s new Westport home is not big enough for the voting machine.
They contacted the Connecticut Museum of Culture & History in Hartford. They don’t have enough space.
A Westport friend has offered to store the machine while it awaits a new owner. Jeff and Nancy hope a passionate history buff will step forward.
“At a time when our country is focused on voting rights,” Jeff says, “we can’t bear the thought of the booth ending up in a dump.”
“It would be too ironic,” Nancy adds.
(Interested in Jeff and Nancy’s voting booth? Email jamayer01@gmail.com)
(Here’s a bipartisan cause: supporting “06880.” Please click here to donate. Thank you!)
Today’s machines look much less cool.
Why not put it in the lobby of Town Hall? What a perfect place to show off a piece of voting history!
Convert it into a photo booth and put it in Staples so young people learn the history and importance of voting, plus make it fun!
Believe it or not, that voting booth might be of interest to the Smithsonian. Then, we can all look back on it and remember “voting” just in case 45 returns to the scene of (one of his) crimes.
https://www.si.edu/contacts#:~:text=Each%20museum%20and%20curatorial%20department,trust%20for%20the%20American%20people.
To Nancy & Jeff,
Thank you for preserving this all-American artifact of ballot casting history.
It’s hard for me to believe now, but back in the Stone Age, as a first, second, third time voter, I was so petrified of these big metal automatons with cafe curtains, that I relied upon absentee ballots to cast my votes.
Wouldn’t the most appropriate location for this icon be in the lower level of Town Hall, in the vicinity of the Registrar’s & Town Clerk’s office?
That is so cool that one of these was saved! I remember using those machines – voting felt more ‘real’ with those old machines.