Friday morning all lever voting machines are expected to be at the borough offices of the Board of Elections to be opened once again after being sealed after the tally was taken election night to verify the results. Many lever voting machines are still in poll sites, and the voting machines which have been sealed with nothing more than a plastic Ziplock strip have been left unguarded in most cases awaiting pick up.
I called the Board of Elections to find out that every lever voting machine is expected to be back at the borough offices by Thursday night at the latest. When I asked about the plastic Ziplock strip securing the machine I was told that procedures are in place if the tag is broken. When I asked "what procedures are in place" I was told "procedures".
The reason for the recount is that mistakes can be made in reading the small dials on the lever voting machines by Board of Election poll workers after 15 hours of working the poll site. I have seen this first hand when 300 votes for one candidate were missed when the poll worker did not see the very small #3 in the hundreds roll of the lever voting machine. It was an honest mistake, but mistakes have happened to often on the old lever voting machines.
In the photo above taken Wednesday night only the small plastic Ziplock strip is in the way of tampering with this voting machine or the other to the right of it as both wait to be picked up for delivery back to the Board of Elections.
