Old Machines Die Hard
It may be Clarie Ryan’s last watch over New York’s old manual voting machines
She had short, wispy red hair and a quick staccato laugh, which betrayed years spent smoking. Claire Ryan had been at Hayden Hall since 5:30 a.m. and talked while taking a short break in the corner.
It was late afternoon and a fellow poll worker slumped over on a nearby sofa. Ryan lobbied the Board of Elections to provide at least one sofa for the workers, anything but the standard-issue, metal folding chairs. This polling station was steady all day with the clanging, grinding hum of New York’s 800-pound, Shoup voting machines. Ryan fondly referred to them as relics.
Luckily, none of the manual-lever machines broke down at that location. On Christopher Street in Chelsea, Arlene Cassarino, the voting coordinator there, said only one voter-machine breakdown occurred before noon. Cassarino said the problem was repaired within 15 to 20 minutes. None of the other ten machines had been affected. Near Union Square, at the 215 E. 15th St. polling station, there was a crowded voter turn-out during the early hours and all three voting machines had run smoothly. In Brooklyn, widespread problems were reported in at least eight locations, which included Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Green, East New York and Flatbush.
“The more you have, the more there is to break down,” she said. That was Ryan’s answer to the idea of new, electronic-voting machines. New York was the last in the nation to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was designed to provide states with better, more accurate vote-counting capabilities.
This Legislation was passed after the contested 2000 presidential elections. In January, the Justice Department sued New York State for non-compliance. One step toward coming in line with federal guidelines was set for Super Tuesday. In that, New York had to provide at least one electronic voting machine at each borough office poll site for disabled voters.
By next September, New York will have to replace all of the mechanical-lever voting machines in time for the 2009 presidential elections. New York State still has $190 million in federal money available in order to come into compliance with the election-modernization law. A skeptical Ryan said, “They would have to find something really good.”
Ryan had been the voting coordination at 33 Washington Square West for the past five years. Before that, she spent a number of years at another area polling station. When machines broke down, poll workers called the Board of Elections. Ryan said that someone was dispatched and problems were fixed pretty quickly.
In the meantime, paper ballots were given out, which, at the end of the day, had to be counted. When poll workers had to manually tally the votes, it made for a long day and longer evenings. Ryan said, “So, we don’t let the machines break.” When asked to clarify what she meant, Ryan said, “I have become the machine mechanic.”
She said that sometimes the red stick had gotten stuck. When that happened, there are different things done to fix it. One of the ways included getting a little rough. At her polling station, a swift and determined back-and-forth of the lever sometimes solved the problem. With the new machines, Ryan said there would be problems. Someone would have to change the printer cartridges.
Working the poll sites during elections made for a long day, but Ryan has kept coming back. Ryan said it was for the $300 the Board of Elections paid. She said, “I do it for the money honey.”
There was her landlord, the veterinarian, smoking and other necessities. But, just as quickly, Ryan shifted directions. “Everyone took offense to what Bill Clinton said about this being a fairy tale election. But think about, a women and a black man,” she said. This year she was excited no matter the outcome.
When asked what would happen to the old Shoup machines, Ryan said she did not know. She was skeptical about the reliability of new, electronic ones. She said she did not know if she would be back next year. “I smoke and have had cancer twice,” she said with a laugh. “I might walk out of here and get hit by a garbage truck.