A Creaking Apparatus Counts the Votes

The scene inside the New York City board of elections office in Manhattan would have looked the same 60, 70, perhaps even 100 years ago.

Thousands upon thousands of paper ballots were stacked along card tables.

Some two dozen political operatives--several of them puffing on cigarettes--counted ballots, one by one, trying to determine who won a Manhattan race for the New York state Senate. They kept the tab in stick figures: Four vertical lines. One slash. Four vertical. One slash.

The election took place Nov. 7, yet a month later, all the votes still have not been counted.

Broken voting machines caused nearly 1,000 voters to cast “emergency” paper ballots in this race between Republican state Sen. Roy Goodman and his Democratic challenger, Liz Krueger.

Thousands of other voters arrived at the polls to find themselves unlisted in the registration books. They too voted on paper ballots, and they signed affidavits swearing they were properly registered. It is taking weeks to verify each and every one.

The rest of the paper ballots are absentees.

The board of elections bought scanning equipment this year for all of the paper ballots. But neither Senate campaign trusts the new system, so they agreed to a hand count. But that is no guarantee of impartiality, either. It merely throws the process into the laps of human beings who are part of a system of political patronage that has existed for decades. From hand counters to the technicians who maintain the voting machines, one and all owe their jobs to patronage.

This is the election business in New York City, where the ideals of democracy take a beating at every turn. Jammed machines, long lines and hidden allegiances cloud the integrity of the count. Poorly prepared poll workers spread misinformation to confused and often irate voters.

In the room where the state Senate ballot count was taking place, Richard Wagner, a machine technician, leaned the weight of his body into a voting machine. It screeched and rattled as he wheeled it away from the wall.

He opened the back door and reached into the fragile metal innards, a dizzying patchwork of rods, clips, bolts and straps. Much like an old Chevy, it takes arcane knowledge to keep the voting machines going.

Technicians have a key that locks in the vote count at the end of the day. Some workers knock the machine out of commission by using the key before the voting starts.

“They think it’s an ignition key,” Wagner said.

In theory, hundreds of emergency paper ballots are stuffed into the back of each machine in case it breaks. But when the ballots are not there, poll workers sometimes tell voters to return later in the day.

Voters delayed or turned away by broken machines are often upset. Many refuse to use paper ballots.

Frances Moore, a Brooklyn caretaker for the mentally disabled, refused to use a paper ballot when she learned on Nov. 7 that her machine was broken at Public School 149.

“They said it’s been called in; somebody’s going to be here to fix it,” she said. “I went back in the afternoon. It was still busted.”

She took a third crack a few hours later.

“I feel that’s the only guaranteed way to know your vote counts,” she said.

At the election agency, every worker is chosen by--and is loyal to--a specific party leader. The Republican and Democratic leaders of each of the five New York boroughs choose the 10 commissioners who oversee it.

Wagner, the technician, does campaign work for Sen. Goodman--who is also the Manhattan Republican chairman. In the 1960s, Wagner was a Republican district leader in Yorkville on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

“I happen to be a strong believer in patronage,” said Danny DeFrancesco, the executive director of the board of elections. He would lose his job in an instant if he wasn’t. “I think civil service is a detriment to government.

“I think motor vehicles, the post office, the courts ran better when you had patronage.” He gestured toward his office full of workers on a Saturday evening. “If this was civil service, what would you get? Five o’clock, goodbye.”

Every task at the board of elections is supposed to be done by a Democrat and Republican in tandem. That goes for ballot counting too. Employees refer to the agency as Noah’s Ark.

“You think anyone could steal a ballot or change a ballot? Not in a million years,” said Martin Connor, state Senate minority leader and one of New York’s leading election lawyers. “There’s two Republicans, two Democrats, and lawyers galore watching.”

As the counting continued, DeFrancesco presided.

“Next batch,” he called as a pile of ballots was tossed into a cardboard box.

He leaned his considerable girth into the table. His reading glasses were perched low on his nose. He waited while an aide shook the box containing the next batch.

Finally, he started to read.

“Goodman, Republican,” he growled.

“Krueger, Democrat.”

“Goodman, Republican.”

“Krueger, Democrat.”

Four vertical strokes. One diagonal. Four vertical. One diagonal.