The Florida balloting meltdown is riveting attention on how we vote, and for the first time in generations, many decision-makers are willing to start at square one and rethink the entire voting experience. Across large swaths of Nassau and Suffolk counties, a third or more of even registered voters failed to turn out on Election Day, and it's long overdue that we consider what might entice the public to participate in its own republic.

Balloting is a subject in which people of good faith can disagree. As with many well-intended reforms involving campaign fund raising over the past 30 years, efforts to plug loopholes can create even worse unintended loopholes. New York's introduction of mechanical voting machines in the late 1920s practically put an end to ballot box fraud in many locales. However, the machines use party-row ballots, once seen as an evil because they encouraged the straight party line voting required by corrupt political machines. For nearly 20 years New York had used a "reformed" ballot which grouped all the candidates for the same office together. That reform ballot had the unintended consequence of killing off a slew of small parties, including Progressive, Prohibition and Farmer Labor parties.

The voting experience has changed radically over time, and not just because the right to vote has been greatly extended. For New Yorkers, voting by secret ballot was introduced in bits and pieces over half a century, starting during the Revolution. Our Long Island towns still used some voice voting by the public until the turn of this century. In New York, voter registration was intended only for cities and a few large villages as a way to thwart fraud by local bosses; many Long Islanders never had to register to vote until just before World War II.

"As Maine goes, so goes the nation," we used to say, because Maine always voted for president in September. So when Landon beat Roosevelt in Maine, everyone knew that there would be a Republican landslide in 1936. Given the shenanigans of Florida's legislature, I'd suggest that New York increase its national influence by voting for president a month before everyone else next time around. Until 1917, we had two election days; one for local officers in the spring, and one for everything else in November. Because Long Island Democrats usually did well in springtime, Republicans eliminated the April election, helping to consolidate their local dominance.

There will now be consideration of new options, like instant voter registration. Would you like to vote at the mall or the supermarket, where election inspectors could walk around with portable voting stations? Some ideas are trickier. Allowing voters to rank candidates, counting second choices if no candidate gets an initial majority, can eliminate the idea of wasted votes inherent in a winner-takes-all system. Heck, in Australia, Turkey and Brazil, voters are compelled to vote by law. More likely, we might vote using ink stamps like in India, so that the kids could collect the stampers.

We're only limited by our imaginations and prejudices. We have a voter participation crisis and everything, including the selection of reading glasses offered at Cambodian voting booths, should be on the table.

Michael Miller was formerly Director of Public Affairs for the Town of North Hempstead. He is a public relations consultant.