Local polling site problems anger voters

While local politicians campaigned on 97th Street during the city primary elections on Tuesday, voters half a mile north on 109th Street had a much harder time executing their democratic duties.

At the 109th Street polling place—the second largest site for voter turnout in Manhattan—the scene quickly unraveled into frustrated confusion when impatient voters were faced with multiple broken poll machines, two of which displayed incorrect names of candidates.

Though voters and candidates agreed that the day was typically slow at these popular voting sites, registered residents at 109th said the day began fast and furiously at P.S. 165 when the first batch of voters quickly realized that two of the voting booths were missing the corresponding district council members to the neighborhoods they were supposed to represent.

Others complained of broken curtains, windows, lights, levers, and wheels on the booths—making the process all the more difficult and strenuous for voters with limited time to spare.

Curtis Arluck, a district leader and member of the Broadway Democrats who volunteered for much of the day at P.S. 165, said that one booth set up for district 8 residents did not include incumbent councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito’s name and another nearby booth for residents of district 9 did not include councilmember Inez Dickens’ name. In fact, they were swapped.

Arluck said that around ten voters came and left before the mistake was brought to the attention of the volunteers. While a technician from the Board of Elections tried to correct the error for nearly two hours, those working on the site switched to the emergency paper ballots until the problem was solved. 109th Street is the exact border of districts 9 and 10, which could have contributed to the unintentional switch.

“It is a little harder to accept when it is totally wrong,” Arluck said. “As opposed to a machine breaking down, this was a real human error.”

Arluck said many were extremely skeptical of paper ballots, several arguing that their votes would not be counted. He also said he saw some arrivals leave without voting because of impatience.
New York City Board of Elections Director of Communications Valerie Vasquez explained the error in an interview, noting that there are over 6,000 machines, most of which are over 40 years old.
“We have 350 employees working for five million voters in the city of New York,” Vasquez said. “We try to do the best we can, but at times mistakes happen.”

She added that once the runoff is complete, the board plans to analyze the actual state of the machines. She suspected the error in candidates’ names came from a mishap when initially logging the information.

According to Rosanne Farkas, a Columbia Teachers College graduate and a longtime resident of 111th Street, this was one of many bloopers. Farkas said that due to broken lights, she practically needed a flashlight to read the names of the candidates, and she added that one machine lost a wheel and ended up toppling over.

“I’m very concerned,” she said. Farkas said that she sees the same deteriorating machines in worsening conditions every election.

“Especially since it happened now twice in succession, I’m wondering what is going to happen at the runoff too.”

Farkas said there have been issues previously with jammed levers and decaying curtains.

If New York state follows suit with most other states, by 2010, Vasquez is hopeful that here in the city, they will be able to implement electronic systems, which would make these kinds of errors and difficulties less likely.

Arluck said that he expects nothing will change come the November elections, and Farkas—unconvinced that this would happen—said that she and her fellow voters deserve a fully functional system come November.

She asked, “Is that too much to hope for?”