Tried and tested voting machines will be the mainstay at Onondaga County polling places on Election Day.
“Some of these lever machines are thirty or forty years old. They’re no longer even manufactured.” (Edward Ryan, Democratic commissioner of Onondaga County Board of Elections)
Tuesday, over 510 venerable gear-and-lever voting machines will be spread across about 200 polling places in the county for the general election. The machine has been the official voting method of New York since 1920.
Jillian Ryan, a worker at the Board of Elections, says that despite their heavy use over many years, the lever machines are reliable.
“It’s straightforward. They haven’t been a problem.” (Jillian Ryan, worker at Onondaga Board of Elections)
The gear-and-lever machine on display at the Board of Elections looms large and clunky. But it’s fairly easy to use. Voters step inside. They pull a large lever that activates the machine and closes a curtain behind them. A series of smaller levers are set in columns and rows. The columns indicate the office or the proposition being voted on.
The rows represent the different political parties – listing every party from Democrat to Republican to less popular third-party choices like the Working Families party.
To vote for the candidates of their, voters pull the small levers near their name. When done voting, voters pull back the large lever that tabulates their votes, opens the privacy curtain, and resets the machine for the next voter.
Commissioner Edward Ryan says that he doesn’t expect the machines to have many problems come Nov. 4th. He cites repetitive pre-election testing as one of the reasons Onondaga County hasn’t had many difficulties with the machines.
“All these machines are tested two or three times. We’re always trying our best, but sometimes we still have snafus. They break down. They’re mechanical. So we have 14 or 15 spares on trucks ready to disseminate them to polling places that may have a problem.” (Edward Ryan, commissioner of Onondaga County Board of Elections)
But Commissioner Ryan says this may be the last time the gear-and-lever machines are used. The New York State Board of Elections is considering a new “Scantron” voting machine in March. If approved, Commissioner Ryan says, the new machines would be implemented as early as the next election in fall 2009.
In addition to the old-fashioned machines, Onondaga County elections board is also offering what are called “ballot-marking devices.” Those are alternative voting machines for disabled or disadvantaged people. For the first time, special-needs voters in the county will be able to use a computer-based machine that even allows for handicapped voters to cast their ballots by “sipping and puffing” through a tube.
Commissioner Edward Ryan saysat least one of these new machines will be at every polling location. But he recommends that only disabled voters use them because the devices take longer to operate than the gear and lever machines.
For more information on the ballot-marking devices, manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems, click here. (http://www.sequoiavote.com/400c.html )
The Board of Elections is expecting heavy turnout this Tuesday, so they recommend voters arrive at polling places early. To find your local polling place in Onondaga County, click here. (http://www.ongov.net/Board_of_Elections/pollingplaces.html)
For Democracywise, I’m Boris Sanchez.
(Boris is a senior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and international relations.)
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