This is a commentary by Marianne Heimes, a member of the Chatham County Board of Elections.

Recently, as I cleaned out my old files to make way for new (to also be thrown away in a few years). I came across a news clipping from years past. The clipping is old and yellowed and bears the headline "Voters have pleasant surroundings." The accompanying photo shows voters waiting at a Spokane, Washington polling place surrounded by a battery of full-blooming chrysanthemums.

Several things struck me about this piece.

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First was the addition of flowers to a polling place. I wonder if the Bamboo Farms and the Botanical Garden might wish to adorn some of our precincts with flowers - oxygenate them, so to speak, and calm participants.

Second, I noticed a well-dressed man entering the voting booth in the picture. People dressed for elections in those days. Suits on the gentlemen and dresses on the women. Don't worry I am not going to recommend that, but it is a reminder to comb one's hair and brush one's teeth at the very least. Being able to vote was something that was cherished back then. not something considered on demand.

The next thing that stands out is the machine with the curtain. When my husband and I started working at the polls a good many years ago, these were the machines we used. You pulled a lever which opened the curtain. When finished marking your choices by machine, you opened the lever to cast your vote.

I cannot recall anyone ever questioning whether their vote had been cast when they exited the booth although that is not to say it never happened. Back then, and all through the reign of this machine, people trusted the system. Unfortunately, that machine died a slow death because parts were no longer made.

Many people are calling for all paper ballots which sounds like an easy answer but unfortunately is a little more complicated. In the years since I have been on the Board of Election I have been amazed at how many voters are either unable or unwilling to fill in the bubble adequately thereby causing the ballot to go to adjudication. Fortunately there aren't many because the machines so many dread do it accurately and that is the majority of the ballots.

When it comes to paper ballots, you have huge stacks of paper going in and coming out and an inability to mark correctly. Then there's the expense of trashing an expensive system and buying into a new one. 

Your Election Board is open to suggestions and we will do whatever the state deems proper. Without question. I forwarded the picture and some of my ideas to our chairman, Tom Mahoney, and here was his response. "We need kinder and gentler times. Elections unify us. We come together to exercise our right to vote. We may vote for different candidates, but we are united in the elections process."

Any takers on providing flowers?