I got the creeps when I voted yesterday.

I thought the ballot was designed to stick out of the cardboard sleeve just enough to be fed into the vote-counting machine. That guarantees your vote remains private.

Instead, the man making sure my paper ballot registered correctly had told me to remove the ballot from the cardboard. And, call me paranoid, as he glanced down at my sheet, he could see how I voted.

At the machine at my ballot, he said slowly, “Wait, wait, wait,” and when the machine indicated my vote had been counted, he said, “Go home.”

Maybe he didn’t really look at which circles I’d darkened. But he easily could have. Even by accident. It could be intimidating.

I admit I liked the old machines. I liked the clicking sound of selecting candidates in a private booth and the schwing when you yanked the lever to register the vote and open the curtain.

However, I am in favor of ways that make it faster, easier and more efficient for people to vote and for votes to be recorded. But election workers need to be trained to help the voter feed the ballot from the sleeve into the machine. No peeking.