Swain relies on venerable voting machines
By Becky Johnson
Every October, Joan Weeks lugs her five-pound key chain out of storage — a complex set of keys for each lever voting machine in Swain County and keys to all the voting precincts.
As one of only a half dozen counties in North Carolina still using lever voting machines, the keys may soon be history. Just like every other local government in the country, Swain County will have to modernize its election equipment to comply with federal mandates handed down after the controversy that erupted during the counting of the presidential ballots in the 2000 election in Florida.
But Weeks, the Swain election director, doesn’t want to see the reliable old machines go, despite the fact that they weigh 900 pounds each and require hours of programming before every election.
When an election nears, Weeks has to call in county maintenance workers for a moving day. The machines are wheeled out of her building, up a ramp and onto a flatbed trailer hitched to a truck. A few have tipped over or fallen off the ramps, but the incredibly sturdy machines have held up. Weeks occasionally orders replacement parts from a 1973 catalogue, the year Swain County bought the lever voting machines still used today.
“I’ve always been pleased with them,” Weeks said.
The mechanics of lever voting machines were developed more than 100 years ago in 1896. The back of the machines looks like the inside of a piano crossed with a clock factory.
“The whole back is programmed with straps and pins and blocks and rollers,” Weeks said.
Weeks has been programming the machines for 20 years. Before Jackson County got new voting equipment in 2000, Weeks programmed all their machines, too. She was the only certified programmer in the area.
She had a close call one year. Four days before an election, Jackson County officials realized they had forgotten to program for school board candidates. Once the machines are programmed, another set of candidates cannot be added without clearing the entire set-up and starting over. Weeks worked furiously all weekend to reprogram all the machines.
But ordering paper ballots can be just as nerve racking. One election several years ago, ballots in Haywood County came back from the printer with an error. A replacement order was called in, but the Fayetteville company that prints Haywood County’s ballots is used by most counties in the state and was extremely busy. Haywood election workers had to meet the ballot delivery truck half way across the state to ensure the ballots were on time.
At one point, Swain County considered replacing the machines with the newer punch card ballots that at the time were revered as the best and latest technology. There wasn’t enough money for the new machines, so Swain stuck with the levers. The county leaders congratulated themselves for that decision as they watched the 2000 Florida election hubbub over “hanging chads” caused when the little punch holes did not fully detach when punched. Good ole’ lever machines, they thought.
Weeks sees several benefits to the lever machines, including rock-bottom maintenance costs. Computer technology advances so quickly that computerized machines could require expensive upgrades every few years. Plus, the lever machines don’t require electricity. Weeks worries about what would happen if there were a power outage on Election Day. Would the votes already cast be wiped out? Would voters be told to come back to the polls later that day when electricity was restored? She also worries about the effect of computerized machines on senior citizens who are unfamiliar with computers.
Weeks is also concerned about accuracy. Computer voting machines hold no hard copy of the votes — no ballots, no imprints, no rolling counter visible to all. All that’s there is a number somewhere on a silicon chip.
With lever machines, Weeks can clearly see them processing votes. A counter on the outside of the booth turns over every time the curtain is open and shut. If the lever mechanisms stop working, the counter stops rolling over.
Weeks likes the hands-on simplicity the lever machines offer users. Voters candidates by pulling down little switches next to the names of their choice. They can review their decisions and change a vote if they like. Upon leaving the booth, voters pull a lever that opens the curtain. The lever registers the votes. Each name displayed on the front of the machine coincides with a dial in the back of the machine that rolls over like a counter for each vote cast. At the end of the day, precinct workers unlock the back of the machine, and the counter shows the number of votes cast for each candidate.
Feds slow to move
After the 2000 election debacle, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act. The act established an “Election Assistance Commission” to advise states on how to help counties improve voting methods. The act called for the replacement of lever and punch card voting machines by 2004, with a two-year extension for extenuating circumstances.
Each state was supposed to present a plan to the Election Assistance Commission for approval. But nearly three years later, the federal commission has yet to start functioning, said Johnnie McLean, the deputy director of administration for the North Carolina Board of Elections.
In the meantime, states have submitted their plans to the federal Office of Elections Administration. But the elections administration office is merely filing away the plans until the voting assistance commission gets up and running. The state doesn’t know what to tell counties, McLean said.
“The state feels it is more prudent to wait and see what voting system standards are adopted by the Elections Assistance Commission before instructing counties to buy new equipment,” McLean said.
The two-year extension on the 2004 deadline to upgrade voting equipment likely will be granted, said McLean, especially since there is no federal commission to approve new equipment. And once voting equipment is approved, there will be a big backlog.
“There is probably not a voting system vendor out there that if every state in the nation decided to go with new equipment they would have the wherewithal to furnish them,” McLean said.
Still the same
That suits Weeks fine, and will save Swain County taxpayers the expense of paying for new equipment, for now anyway. The federal law requiring the voting equipment upgrades didn’t come with a check to pay for it. So when a mandate to buy new voting equipment is agreed upon, Swain County will have to foot much of the bill. The little aid that is available will be distributed across the state. How much Swain will get and how much taxpayers will have to fund is not yet known.
“It’s like hurry up and wait,” Weeks said of the situation.
Meanwhile, Weeks will keep her key chain handy.
