TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2002 -- Innovation in Brighton. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the Alexander Hamilton School to vote in the special election (realtor Jerry McDermott is squaring off against advocate for the elderly Mark Ciommo) to replace the late Brian Honan on the Boston City Council to find a radically revamped voting system. Gone were the massive metal turn-crank voting machines. In were optical scan machines. Welcome to the future.

It appears that city officials selected the low-turnout final election to phase in the new machines. Complaints about the old machines have been rampant for years. Some voters have mechanical trouble with the cranks. Others pull the crank back without having voted. Sometimes the small levers don’t push all the way through. One additional benefit is that under the new system officials will be able to count votes much more quickly.

It’s fortunate that at least something is new about this Brighton City Council race. I’ve received plenty of personal mail from both candidates -- most of it bereft of the positions of either candidate. The basic message from both of them was: I’m from Brighton and have been here for a long-time.

Given the transient nature of many of the neighborhood residents, it probably makes sense to hype such longevity. In such a low-turnout election the only voters who bother to show up are the ones who feel a long-time attachment to the neighborhood and the Russian immigrants who understand what political clout can bring them. I noticed that when I checked in at the polling place a little after 9 a.m. today, I was the only person from my Cleveland Circle-area building to have done so. No surprise there in this all but issue-less race.

Finally, as a footnote, I noticed that a tenant activist group had placed a flier on the Boston Phoenix box right in front of the Boston College shuttle bus stop on Chestnut Hill Avenue advocating Ciommo, who has endorsed the return of rent control (which the Phoenix has editorialized against). If this means that Ciommo is relying on a Boston College vote to win then things probably don’t look good for him.