Sam the Voting Machine Man
On November 2, nearly 2,000 voting machines will be stationed all over Manhattan, awaiting droves of citizens, eager to fulfill their civic service. It takes teams of workers more than a week to move all of the massive machines, each more than six feet tall, to every poll site in Manhattan’s 1360 election districts. Stored in rows 30 deep on three floors of a warehouse on 12th Avenue and West 40th Street, the machines wait like Chinese terra-cotta soldiers, dormant all year long until they’re called to service. But this Tuesday, these soldiers will be expected to perform with perfection.
Their commander-in-chief, Sam Cunningham, 53, has been caring for them for 22 years. Formerly the head technician over the voting machines, Cunningham is now turning over command to a new generation. Planning on retiring later this year, the jovial, wide-smiling guardian speaks of the 40-year-old machines with an endearing respect.
“I ran the whole place … by myself,” he said, referring to the years when he started working at the warehouse. Now there are a number of other technicians who work for more than four months prior to each election to perform the necessary maintenance and preparations for a fair election. In the earliest stages of preventative maintenance, which began in February, a two-man team can only do between 10-14 machines a day, he said. But by October, the warehouse staff works mandatory overtime.
“We work 9 to 9, seven days a week,” said Celebes Stevenson, 34, from Manhattan. He normally works with voter registration and absentee ballots at the Board of Elections office on 200th Street. In the weeks immediately surrounding election day, however, Stevenson was tapped to alleviate some of the urgent crunch at the warehouse. His job is to record the protective number counts on each machine, and attach serial cards to the back.
Essentially, the technicians lose any chance of summer vacation. Cunningham had to miss out on two different cruises this year with his family. And it’s not like they have a long hiatus after the election. “People don’t realize that there’s an election every year,” he said.
The antique devices, to put it euphemistically, require a barrage of tests and coddling to ensure proper functioning on election day. Then they have to set all the roll counters to zero, blow dust out of the internal workings and set up the schematics of the counter system.
“It’s just like a Coke machine,” he said. The same technical principle used to set up a snack or soda vending machine is used to program the internal mechanical system in the voting machines. The machines used by New York City are of a very old model; so old in fact, that the City Board of Elections purchases their replacement machines from other states and counties who are updating. Cunningham said that they just received a batch of “new” machines from Georgia.
After setting them up, each machine is tested 10-20 times. Adding to the complication of the preparations, each election district may have a different ballot. Because the city is divided up into different assembly, state senate, and congressional districts, a machine used at an Upper West side church polling outpost will have several names on the ballot that do not appear on the machine in a Chinatown polling site. These different ballots are then set up with candidates’ names appearing in an alternating order, as not to give preferential treatment to any one candidate. Some districts with predominantly ethnic minority populations will have special machines with ballots in Chinese, Korean, or Spanish. This means that the technician team must set up a number of different lots.
“It’s very tedious work,” said Cunningham. But it’s worth it, he said. The technicians work to ensure a fair election. Before sending the machines out to the polling sites, they are open to inspection by each candidate. Teams from their campaigns are escorted through the rows of machines to ensure that their candidate’s name is indeed on every machine to be set up in their district. They also note the base count number, and note that all the roll counters are set to zero so no one gets an unfair advantage.
“It takes some of the guesswork out of the process,” said David Friedman, 31 of Manhattan. He was at the warehouse inspecting machines for the Emily Csendes State Senate campaign. He wanted to guarantee that “there’s no finagling.”
In his first exposure to the New York voting machines, Friedman was disappointed to see that they were so ancient. “I figure if I can already own a third generation PlayStation, why am I voting on dinosaurs?” he asked.
However, it is important for the campaigns to check the machines before Election Day, because if a machine is discovered to be faulty after the fact, it is too late. Campaign manager for the Csendes for State Senate campaign, Stephen Evans III, 37, had to ask to change five machines. He noticed that the placards bearing the candidates’ names was crooked and the last letter of his candidate’s name would be cut off once the final template was affixed to cover the roll counters.
Cunningham and the technician team, however, worked hard to make sure that there were no mistakes.
“We made sure everything was on the straight and narrow. All t’s were crossed and all i’s were dotted,” said Stevenson. The machines began their journeys to the polling sites at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, October 26.
Despite the criticism of New York City’s “ancient” machines, Cunningham praises all the checks and balances involved in testing them before they go to the front.
“To me, it’s the most legitimate system that they have today,” he said. With dual counters, one individual vote “public” counter, and a control “protective” counter, he said he feels that they are impervious to the cheating flaws rumored with the new electronic computerized voting systems.
“There’s no room for fraud like with the chad system,” he said. The machines are sealed at the end of the inspection period, with plastic zip-ties on the front and every other opening, including the panel covering the access to the schematics grid in the back.
Despite endless hours of the tiresome work and mandatory overtime put in by these technicians, Cunningham points out that they are grossly underpaid. He described it as if his difficult job was done in a closet, where no one notices how vital it is to a successful election. “We’re still below federal poverty line,” he said.
So why keep doing it?
“It’s an addictive type of thing,” Cunningham said. The uncommonness of his job, the camaraderie, and the knowledge that he is a part of the election make him stick around.
“The election spirit,” he said, “it gets in your blood!”
