But John Kane, the ageless Republican who holds the minority seat on the Board of City Commissioners, says that the problems with the voting machines are a nonstop headache.
"We've got serious problems with the voting machines, and nobody seems to want to do anything about it," John Kane said the other day.
"It's such a grave problem that I worry that someday we're going to have an election, and there won't be an election.
"Why? Because we won't have enough voting machines in operating condition to man all the divisions and a lot of voters in Philadelphia will be disenfranchised.
"It could happen and if it ever did, you know who would get all the blame - the city commissioners, who else?"
John Kane says that the voting machines are in trouble, but it's a physical problem, not a political one.
He says that every time it rains or snows, the voting machines are even money to take a bath. He says that the roof of the warehouse where the voting machines are stored, leaks - leaks badly - and every time there's a heavy rain, hundreds of voting machines get drenched.
"During Hurricane Gloria last September, 400 machines were seriously damaged," John Kane said. "The 400 machines got wet, thanks to the leaky roof and flooding. And when voting machines get wet, the parts tend to rust.
"So we had to dismantle the 400 machines, check out the wet and damp parts, dry some parts and replace others, then reassemble each machine and check each one to be sure it was operating properly.
"That's what we had to do, and it cost money - lots of money."
But commission chairwoman Marge Tartaglione says there's more to the problem.
She says that if Hurricane Gloria had veered into Philadelphia, as some meterologists feared it would last September, the warehouse might have been wiped out and all 3,600 voting machines damaged or destroyed.
"We need a better warehouse and we need it now," the chairwoman says.
The voting machines, all 3,600 of them, are stored in the old Philco-Ford plant in Nicetown. But the plant is as old as God. The roof leaks. The floors, John Kane says, are in dreadful shape and the heating and air conditioning system leave much to be desired.
But moving out of the old plant presents a problem, too. It's owned by the Council of Labor and Industry, an arm of organized labor. And since the annual rent is in the neighborhood of $500,000, any attempt to move into better quarters is sure to get mired down in backroom politics.
Yet, the commissioners are wearing out shoes looking for a better warehouse. And, as of the moment, the old Keebler Plant, at G and Hunting Park, looks like the best bet.
It has 300,000 square feet of space, more than enough for the city commissioners' needs. It's a modern structure with modern loading platforms, a parking area for 400 and, they say, the roof doesn't leak.
"But the Keebler plant has drawbacks," Marge Tartaglione says. "There's no heat in the area where the Keebler ovens were located. The ovens provided heat when they were operating. So that may be a problem.
"Ideally, we'd like to build a warehouse from scratch, one designed to accommodate voting machines. But that will take time.
"Meanwhile, we still have a serious problem with the machines."
The chairwoman says that Mayor Goode and the Committee of Seventy have been supportive, but, so far, nothing has been done about the problem.
"We're not crying 'wolf,' " John Kane says. "The need is real and we want voters to know about it. If we lose hundreds of voting machines because of a storm a week before an election, the commissioners don't want to be the punching bag.
"We're in trouble. We know it, and we want everybody to know it. We need help - before our luck with the weather runs out."
It's a reasoned analysis of an old, old problem, but, unfortunately, one that seems to draw media attention when there's a snafu on an election day.
