Voters at East Syracuse Fire Department Share Earliest Voting Memories
By Ryan Bridges
Syracuse, N.Y. (DIA) – As Election Day continues, many voters who have come to the East Syracuse Fire Department remember what it was like to vote in their first election.
One local voter, Donna Zapalla, can think back to a time when you had to work a machine in order to vote.
“We still had mechanical voting machines, and they brought one into the high school to show us what it was going to be like, to flip levers and do all that,” Zapalla said. “Then, I went into the military and I had to vote absentee.”
Voting is a tradition that has been passed down to many people heading to the polls by those who came before them. Bryan Smith, another voter at the station, says he can think back to when his parents took him to the polls for the first time.
“I do remember sometime in the 90s going into the voting booth with my parents though… that was cool. I got to pull the handle to close the curtain.”
Many voters know the power that voting has and that it’s an essential part of the democracy of the United States.
