Election 2006

New York City has 7,700 voting machines. On Election Day, 7,000 of them, each weighing 800 pounds, are deployed. Before the election every machine has to be serviced and programmed, a process that takes more than two hours for each one.

John O’Grady is responsible for all of these machines. During each election, he and his crew of 75 staff members make sure every machine gets serviced, delivered and retrieved.

Programming the machines takes about three months. Mr. O’Grady, the Chief Voting Machine Technician for New York City, and his crew start in early July and as the election nears, work 10-14 hour days, at times seven days a week.

This will be Mr. O’Grady’s 16th year working on the machines. From 1987 to 1991 he worked on installing the first computer system in the City Clerks office. In 1991 he was hired by the Board of Elections, where he helped the city attempt a previous switch to electronic voting machines. That plan was aborted when questions were raised about the tabulation software the machines used.

The voting machines the city uses were purchased in the early 1960’s. Known as mechanical lever machines, they are operated by first pulling a big lever at the front of the machine all the way to the right, then switches are flipped on the board next to the candidates’ names, and then the big lever is pulled back to the left, resetting the board and recording the votes.

Mechanical lever machines record votes on an accumulating tabulation for each candidate; no individual voting record is kept. In contrast, electronic voting machines keep a running tabulation and a random individual record of votes. For example, when two consecutive people vote on an electronic machine, their votes will not be recorded in that order. However, concerns have been raised about the potential for tampering with electronic voting machines.

After over 40 years of service, this will be the last year mechanical lever machines are used in New York City elections. Beginning next year, the city will switch to electronic voting machines in order to comply with a new state law requiring voting machines that keep a verifiable paper record of all votes. The city is considering a few different machines and has not decided which model it will purchase. The new machines cost between 5,000 to 9,000 dollars each.

As Election Day nears Mr. O’Grady tells all of his staff to be ready. “Anything that can go wrong does, and when it does, everyone; managers, supervisors, everyone has to get out and do whatever they can,” he said. His staff has had to deal with candidates being put back on the ballot at the last minute — at times the day before the election — which means that 7,700 machines have to be reprogrammed overnight. They have also had polling places closed and moved to a new location at the last minute and have had trucks break down while delivering the machines.

The machines are transported by private contractors. After they go out, Mr. O’Grady’s staff waits at the warehouse in each of the five boroughs, ready to respond to any problems. When the election is over the trucking companies bring the machines back. Then, by law, they must sit in the warehouse, untouched, for 30 days. Afterwards, the machines are disassembled for servicing. Following a short break for Christmas, the crew begins putting them back together and programming them for the next election in February.

Mr. O’Grady laughs at his friends who think his job amounts to little more than two days a year of work. There may only be two elections, but there are a lot of machines, as well as countless unforeseen obstacles and surprises.

Occasional referendums and small elections also require Mr. O’Grady to prepare about 600 of the machines for use. “Some of my friends upstate who do this think, ‘wow, 600 machines, how do you do it?’” Mr. O’Grady joked, “I can do 600 machines in my sleep, but that’s a full election for them.”

Mr. O’Grady said he doesn’t know what will happen to the voting machines after this year and despite his computer background seemed distinctly reluctant to let them go, “I hope they let me buy one,” he said, “maybe I’ll buy two.”