Roosevelt instructs how to use new voting machines

Nassau County enlisted Theodore Roosevelt to show voters how to use new voting machines set to debut in next Tuesday's primary. In a five-minute video posted at nassauvotes.com, TR impersonator James W. Foote of Sea Cliff traces the history of voting, from paper ballots and wooden ballot boxes to levers and electronic scanners. Ragtime music plays; images change from black-and-white to color as new overtakes old. Once he feeds his completed ballot into a scanner, Roosevelt declares, "That was easy enough. Actually not much different than was done in 1904" when he was re-elected president. SOE Software Corp. of Tampa, Fla., produced the video at no cost after winning the contract for an instructional video for poll workers, said William Biamonte, Democratic elections commissioner. - James T. Madore in Albany