In 1914, it formed from the Alpha Rho chapter of Theta Nu Epsilon as a coalition of Panhellenic sororities and IFC and NPHC fraternities.

"[7] Over the years, numerous campus political groups have been formed in an attempt to motivate independent students to vote for non-Machine candidates.

Another anti-Machine group was the Alabama Student Party (ASP), which was founded by SGA Senators Fred L. Gibson, Jr. and O. Kevin Vincent in 1985.

ASP intended to run a full slate of independent candidates, but its efforts were temporarily thwarted when the Machine orchestrated a takeover of ASP by flooding its first general campus meeting at Ferguson Center with fraternity pledges and members and electing Neal Orr, a freshman member of a fraternity (Delta Tau Delta) that belonged to the Machine, as its president.

Following the physical assault of Riley, resulting in her fleeing campus, the university nevertheless suspended the Student Government Association altogether, and did not reinstitute it until 1996.

[citation needed] In 1999, African American Fabien “Fab” Zinga, a candidate for the SGA presidency, claimed that he was personally threatened and that his campaign signs were defaced.

[11] [12] [13] [14] Prior to the 2002 SGA election, the phrase "Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine" from Henry David Thoreau's essay "Resistance to Civil Government" was chalked on the outer wall of the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library.

This caused a group of students, calling themselves "The Counter-friction," to interrupt then university president Andrew Sorenson's epidemiology class while chanting words of protest against The Machine.

During the next election in 2004 SGA senate candidate Emeline Aviki, a member of Chi Omega who openly refused to be affiliated with the Machine, detailed the alleged harassment she received for the Crimson White, which used it for an exposé entitled "You don't want to mess with us."

Though Aviki's campaign was successful, "the emotional and psychological toll the event caused" led her to transfer to Duke University,[15] where she went on to serve as class president.

[16] Controversy surrounding The Machine reemerged in August 2013, when sororities and fraternities were mobilized to elect two former SGA presidents, Cason Kirby and Lee Garrison, in closely contested municipal school board races.

[17] Before election day, questions about illegal voter registration were raised when evidence emerged that indicated eleven fraternity members fraudulently claimed to be living in a single house in a specific school district.

[19] As a result of possible voter fraud, Kirby's and Garrison's opponents refused to concede,[20] and University of Alabama faculty have questioned whether The Machine has corrupted the democratic process in the City of Tuscaloosa.

[24] Despite calls for his withdrawal over the article, as well as allegations of campaign finance violations,[25] Hunter won the election and subsequently served until his resignation over a DUI arrest in early 2018.