Lever Voting Machines Will Return For Primary Election

A deal has finally been struck between the New York State Senate and Assembly in the effort to bring back lever voting machines. The New York Daily News is reporting that the old machines will be brought back just for the upcoming mayoral primaries.

We’ve previously reported that a series of disagreements between the Senate and Assembly over the best way to bring back the machines had stalled a decision. The Senate wanted to bring back the lever machines for all non-federal elections while the Assembly just wanted the machines only for this year’s upcoming primary and possible runoff election. The new deal brings back the lever machines just for use in the primary and and potential runoff elections, and not for the general in November.

The machines would replace the optical scanning voting machines, after Board of Elections bungling in past elections caused concern that they would be unable to reprogram the machines in time for a runoff.

The legislation also pushed back the date of any special mayoral runoff to three weeks after the primary instead of two. Governor Andrew Cuomo has not yet decided to throw his support behind the measure, despite heavy support from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and bipartisan support in the Senate and Assembly.