Mr. Rogers Has a Voting Machine Mishap

Tired of electronic voting machines and all of the new problems they've created?

Take a nostalgic trip back to 1974 as Mr. Rogers demonstrates how to cast a ballot on a 30-year-old mechanical lever voting machine and experiences a little glitch.

Mr. Rogers, for all of our international readers who may not know him, was a popular children's TV show host, whose program ran for nearly four decades.

Lever machines were first used in 1892 and are still used in New York, despite a state law banning them and a 2002 federal law urging states to replace lever and punch-card machines with new voting systems and requiring them to install at least one accessible voting machine in each precinct for disabled voters by 2006. The Department of Justice sued the state for failing to meet deadlines established by the Help America Vote Act for having accessible machines in place. Although many states have replaced their old machines, New York has failed to do so and has experienced numerous obstacles such as partisan squabbles among state officials, disorganization and problems trying to find a voting system that works.

The behomoth machine that Mr. Rogers demonstrates in the video resembles a switchboard with dozens of metal levers that are each marked with a candidate's name or ballot issue choices. To make a selection, a voter pulls down the lever. When the voter is finished, he pushes a button, which causes each lever to return to its place. Here's a description of what happens next:

As each lever returns, it causes a connected counter wheel within the machine to turn one-tenth of a full rotation. The counter wheel, serving as the "ones" position of the numerical count for the associated lever, drives a "tens" counter one-tenth of a rotation for each of its full rotations. The "tens" counter similarly drives a "hundreds" counter. If all mechanical connections are fully operational during the voting period, and the counters are initially set to zero, the position of each counter at the close of the polls indicates the number of votes cast on the lever that drives it. Interlocks in the machine prevent the voter from voting for more choices than permitted.

[Correction: This post was corrected to indicate that HAVA did not require states to replace punch-card and lever machines but simply urged states to do so by offering federal funding to purchase new machines. It was a New York state law that banned the machines. But a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of that law is in the works.]

See also:

• NY: 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed