New life for the lever voting machine?
A lever machine at an Albany polling place last November.
Last November was supposed to be the final "ka-chunk" for New York State's lever voting machines. But NYT's City Room reports there's a movement to keep people pulling the lever:
In the last several weeks, three counties -- Dutchess, Ulster and Columbia -- and the Association of Towns have passed resolutions urging the New York State government to enact laws allowing the lever machines to stay. In addition, the city's Board of Elections held a hearing last week to hear lever supporters make their case for keeping the machines in New York.
"We're where lever machines were born, and if I have my way, it's not where they are going to die," said Andrea Novick, founder of the Election Transparency Coalition, who has been litigating on this issue.
We admit that the gzrrr-CHTHUNK of democracy is a satisfying sound -- but it's not like these machines aren't without their problems. They don't provide verification of whether a vote was actually cast -- and there's some evidence the machines have had trouble counting.
Earlier on AOA: Farewell, lever voting machine
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Comments
I wonder what's wrong w/a simple pen and paper voting system? You can count/re-count the votes easily, write-ins aren't a problem, etc.
Why, oh why can't our legislators ever make the simplest things... simple?
... said Kim on Mar 10, 2009 at 4:05 PM | link
They had better not get rid of them! They'll have to take my voting lever.... FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!
... said Ryan on Mar 10, 2009 at 4:34 PM | link
Last night Schuyler County joined the quest to keep our levers. If for no other reason, we should keep them because of the costs that accrue when we change.
Op-scanners have to be housed in a climate controlled warehouse; reprogrammed for every election, maintained by skilled computer technicians. The technicians have to be on-call for every polling place for every election. Schuyler estimates these costs at $100,000 every year.
Broome County estimates 65cents per paper ballot -- $107,000 for their 116,000 voters per election.
And just a note to all of you advocating paper ballots -- it just took a Staten Island NYC Council District four days to count 11,000 paper ballots. Imagine how long it would take to count Albany.
Anyway, between annual maintenance and paper ballots, that's $200,000 for small counties. For taxpayers.
In this economy, it seems like this is a budget reduction we could all get behind.
... said Ruth Wahtera on Mar 10, 2009 at 5:04 PM | link
I say we go back to the good old days of the electorate toilet-flush.
... said Lucy on Mar 10, 2009 at 9:59 PM | link
If the only reason for keeping the lever machines is "they've always been here," then someone should come up with a better reason.
"Cold, dead hands?" Um, whatever.
... said zenzele on Mar 11, 2009 at 7:44 AM | link