Industrial Products from Jamestown, NY: Voting Machines

[blackstone]

These mechanical voting machines were manufactured in Jamestown, NY; same city in which Blackstone products were made. The voter would move a big lever sideways to close a curtain. There were rows of small levers. The voter would push down on a particular lever to cast a vote for that person. When finished voting, move the big lever back into its original position, which would both open the curtain and reset the levers.

I remember using these machines for voting here in Springfield. The system was replaced by paper ballots about 20 years ago.

 

[vacerator]

"can perhaps prevent

permanent damage"?

 

[arbilab]

Those got wheeled in and out of my 50s schools.  Never actually used one.  What was the output?  Punched paper roll?  Counter for each lever?  Both?

 

[polkanut]

Rick,

Yes, a punched paper roll was produced, and these were taken to the city clerk's office to be read.  Next to no tampering was possible with this type of ballot.  Our town was still using them when I turned 18 in 1969.  I think they were only around another year or two before being scrapped.

 

[blackstone]

I did not know about the paper output. I just assumed that the levers advanced a mechanical counter, to be read at the end of the day.

 

[arbilab]

There would have to be a counter for each lever.  That's a lot of counters.  Then there's the matter of dishonest counter readers and jiggering.

 

[firedome]

Jamestown NY...

was once the 2nd largest furniture manufacturing center in the US, behind Grand Rapids Michigan, until most of the industry moved South to NC &c, and then, unfortunately, much of it now to China and Vietnam. Crawford Furniture, since 1883, was the last hold out in Jamestown, and closed the last of their 3 factories there about 8 years ago. We have several of Crawford's solid maple bedroom pieces and it is very well made furniture, on par with Ethan Allen. This article was written just a couple of years before Crawford closed, just one more sad example of misguided US industrial policy:

https://www.wnylabortoday.com/news/...es-union-made-right-here-in-western-new-york/

 

[blackstone]

1954 Table from Jamestown

I have this table, manufactured by Elite Furniture, Jamestown, NY. The newspaper ad is from May 1954 (the year I was born). Apparently, my father got the table as part of a sales promotion for Blackstone appliances in his store, and saved the table.

 

[polkanut]

Correction to my earlier post:

I turned 18 in 1987.  Typos like this happen when your typing and reading under the influence of narcotic pain meds.

 

[lordkenmore]

I recall these--or something similar--used when I was growing up. My elementary school was used as a polling place, so I remember those machines showing up every so often for an election in the late 70s/early 80s. I'm not sure when they stopped using them--1990s sometime, I think.

 

I like the idea of the machines recording the data on paper. There is a lot to be said for a paper trail when it comes to elections. It may not be 100% guaranteed accurate and secure, but it's probably the best hope we have.

 

 

[polkanut]

Our neighborhood elementary school was the polling place when I was a kid.  The voting machines were set up on the north end of the gym, and the cafeteria tables on the south end.  My great-aunt Adela was a poll worker in our precinct.  When she would take her lunch break she would come and sit with me.  I felt so special.  She always smelled of Avon Cotillion perfume.

 

[lordkenmore]

One thing I wonder about is what the investment was like to buy these machines. And whether in retrospect that investment was worth it. (One of the big issues I see is how they'd have counted the votes recorded on the paper roll. If it was done by another machine in the auditor's office, it would potentially long term save money in requiring fewer election workers. And it would have better accuracy. But if the votes were still added up by hand, there wouldn't be those cost savings.)

 

As I said, these machines probably vanished in my area during the 1990s. I recall a move to paper ballots, and there was at least one election when they had some machine to take the ballots. I don't know that the machine actually counted the votes at all, but it check to make sure the ballot was acceptable. If the machine took the ballot, you know your vote would be counted.

 

I wonder if part of the reason for the machines going away in my area was partly due to increased voting by mail (which eventually became the standard).

 

 

[cornutt]

These were used where I live, from the 1960s up until about 1985. I'm not exactly sure when they stopped using them as I was not living here when it happened, but I voted in at least one election on them.

Back in the '60s, some of the higher-traffic polling places would have one set up, away from the other machines and with fake names in the candidate labels, for children to play with while their parents voted.

 

[polkanut]

The votes were punched onto the paper roll, and then when they were taken to city hall where they were fed into a reader.  This was very much like the old IBM punch card computer systems.