Artifact NY: A Voting Machine's Long Day's Journey into Night

In New York City, September 11, 2001, dawned cloudless and temperate after a cold front and heavy thunderstorms had rolled through the region the previous evening. The promising weather was an asset for Tuesday's main event and breaking news story: the city's primary election for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, and other offices.

The polls had opened at 6:00 a.m. Many New Yorkers took advantage of the lovely morning unfolding to stop and vote before commuting to jobs and appointments elsewhere. For thousands who worked at the World Trade Center, such minor voting delays spared them from the awful fate that torpedoed into Manhattan's cobalt blue air space around 8:45 a.m.

For Ada Rosario Dolch, principal at the High School for Leadership and Public Service, September 11's arrival represented an exceptional civics lesson for the 646 students under her watch. With lower Manhattan's residential population on the rise, the public high school at 90 Trinity Place was a newly designated polling place. Classes 9 through 12 would be able to witness democracy in action firsthand. It was rumored that businessman candidate Michael Bloomberg, campaigning for mayor as a Republican, might stop by the school. To separate the arriving teenagers from the adult voters, Dolch relocated a cafeteria table to the entrance lobby. The temporary barrier would funnel traffic into two lanes, also safeguarding the Board of Election's earlier delivered "Shoups," the lever-style voting machines (model 3.2) nicknamed for their manufacturer.

After checking the efficacy of the voting set-up, Dolch decided to dash to the shopping complex at the nearby World Trade Center and buy a replacement wristwatch battery. Although crossing paths seemed unlikely, her youngest sister, Wendy, happened to work in the North Tower as a broker's assistant at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 105th floor. A sudden, explosive bang followed by a brief power outage derailed the errand plan. Confused by the sight of people running and screaming on the street, Dolch was informed by a latecomer student that a plane—"not a small piper, a Big One"—had just slammed into one of the towers, further clarifying that the accident involved the twin with the "antenna on top."

Lever-operated voting machine in use on September 11, 2001, at the High School for Leadership and Public Service, 90 Trinity Place, New York City. Collection 9/11 Memorial Museum (C.2014.247.1), photograph by michael hnatov

In a recorded oral history, Dolch later described suppressing her private unease in order to stay razor-focused on the safety of the school community, transient voters, and poll workers under her charge as chief administrator.¹ Confusion spiraled when another ominous tremor shook the premises at 9:03 a.m. Two blocks away, the South Tower was now engulfed in fire, raining glass, metal debris, and flaming papers onto the sidewalk. Undetected at the time, a Boeing 757 engine fragment had landed on the school's roof. An inexplicable blitz was underway, involving planes as weapons.

To defuse the panic rising among the school staff, shaken students, and adult strangers streaming into the lobby, Dolch stood atop the cafeteria table, identified herself as the principal in charge, and insisted that order be reinstated. She then activated a building evacuation, the plan immediately compromised when reports radioed to her walkie-talkie ruled out any prearranged sheltering sites north of Trinity Place. The alternative was to herd everyone south toward Battery Park. Over the next ninety minutes, Dolch and her entourage—including several pupils reliant on wheelchairs—somehow avoided being trampled and navigated through rubble, darkness, and choking dust to the water's edge. From there, most boarded boats to Staten Island, New Jersey, and other ports removed from the warzone of imperiled Manhattan island.

By nightfall, the whereabouts of the scattered school body had been verified; all were accounted for and out of danger. The day's tutorial—demonstrating the reassuring ritual of a free election—had morphed into a test...