The old voting machines could be coming back to life, in the form of new kiosks to speed up the vote counting process.
The Board of Elections unveiled a prototype kiosk in Lower Manhattan Wednesday that would be outfitted with screens and a USB drive that can transmit data from memory sticks from each voting site within minutes.
The current system requires results to be taken to police precincts before being released to the public.
"Running the sticks out to the precincts takes a lot longer. They have to box them up, they have to package them, send them to the precinct. Someone has to take it out, read it, package it up again and send it on its way. This, basically, all you have to do is walk across the room," said John Naudus, the director of the Electronic Voting System Department. "So 9 o'clock, polls close, hopefully by 9:30 they're walking in front of this machine with a stick in their hand and they're sending us results."
The project comes at a cost of $15 million and funding would need to come from the City Council.
The BOE is hoping for a trial run in 2014.