Election Day and Kids: A Question

[mabfan]

I have memories of going with my mom when I was a kid to the polling place on election day. Back then, the voting booth was an actual booth, with a curtain that closed. Mom would let me move one or two of the levers, and then pull the large handle that opened the curtain and sent her vote to be recorded. It made a nice KA-THUNK sound.

I am pondering bringing Muffin and Squeaker to the polls on Tuesday for their first presidential election. But I'm not sure if it is worth it, as they are only 3 years old and there's no voting booth. They'll get to see Mommy and Daddy fill out bubble sheets and feed them into a scanner. (Perhaps they could do the feeding.) Any thoughts on whether or not it's worth bringing them to the polls? Will they remember this election years from now? Or is it not worth the bother?

Comments

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

I have the same memory of going into the booth with my mother. I don't think I ever got to vote in the same kind of booth.

In NJ we have a different kind of machine. Rachel took the kids with her a couple of time, and at least once one of the kids pressed the big red button to cast the ballot before she was done. It doesn't sound like that's a risk with the scanner sheets, so I would say yes, it does sound worth it.

I heard of a study once that found that the most important determinant of whether kids grow up to be readers is not whether their parents read to them, but whether they see their parents reading. I don't think it's much of a stretch to extrapolate that to voting.