When New York voters cast their election ballots today, it is supposed to mark the last time they use mechanical lever machines.

Over the next few months, the New York City Board of Elections will have the formidable task of complying with the Help America Vote Act, which requires that updated voting machines be installed for the 2007 elections.

With many states already using varying types of the new machines in today’s election, the New York City Board of Elections, which has created an evaluation team, will no doubt be looking around the country to help determine a game plan for next year.

The board has already faced criticism for its failure to implement the voting machines for this election, but some experts say the delay could actually pay off.

“I think on one side of the coin, it’s a good thing that we’re not the guinea pigs,” the executive director of the Citizens Union and the Citizens Union Foundation, Dick Dadey, said.

New York failed to meet the deadline imposed for the Help America Vote Act, and was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice. The suit called for the New York City Board of Elections to implement a token amount of disabled voting machines for 2006 and to be fully compliant with all new voting machines for 2007.

The board plans to hold a public referendum on voting machines next week. Four vendors will make presentations at La Guardia Community College in Queens and Hustos Community College in the Bronx where the public and commissioners for the board can test the proposed voting machines, a spokeswoman for the New York City Board of Elections, Valerie Vazquez, said.

The board is considering two types of voting machines: an optical scan device that reads a paper ballot that is filled out in a private voting booth, and a direct-reading electronic machine that functions like an automated teller machine with a push-button screen. The two technologies leave a paper trail.

In Ohio during the September primaries, the optical scan voting machines received criticisms. About 18,000 ballots were deemed unreadable by the scanners due to subtle paper variations. The optical scanners were manufactured by one of the same vendors that the city is considering, Diebold.

Also, voting experts have deemed the direct-reading electronic devices corruptible. “There have been horror stories of the possibility of computer hackers,” Mr. Dadey said.

Funding for the new voting machines will come from the state, and it is uncertain whether New York will receive federal funding because of its failure to meet Help America Vote Act guidelines by this year, Ms. Vasquez said.

Although the New York City Board of Elections has not estimated the total price for the new machines, it has requests for information filed with four private vendors who have offered quotes. The prices, which include hardware, software, and service, range between about $37 million and about $80 million.

The board also will address storage issues. Currently, the city’s 7,080 lever machines are stored at warehouses in all five boroughs. With the assistance of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the board plans to keep the lever machines on hand in case the new machines malfunction in 2007, meaning new storage space will be required, Ms. Vasquez said.

Major concerns were already raised about a federally mandated mailer that the board sent out to every registered voter in the city prior to the September primaries, explaining accessibility to new voting machines for the disabled. The mailer was considered misleading, and it was originally sent to 200,000 incorrect addresses, a senior staff attorney for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Dennis Boyd, said.