The university administration did not respond to repeated inquiries about its view of the Machine’s role on campus.

Steve Flowers, a political columnist, former state legislator and University of Alabama graduate, said the Machine’s political influence had waned. “When I was growing up, that was the way to go to Congress,” he said. “You went to the University of Alabama, got into student government, got involved in the Machine, practiced law a little bit in your hometown, and you went to Washington.”

Nowadays, Mr. Flowers said, there are not many Machine alumni in the State Legislature and almost none in Washington.

According to current and former members of Machine-affiliated Greek organizations, each of the 28 fraternities and sororities associated with the Machine (many Greek organizations on campus are not) sends a pair of representatives to a secret group, often referred to as “going downstairs,” because the group meets in the basement of a fraternity house. Members decide which candidates to back for student government, homecoming queen and several honor societies. The fraternity-and-sorority rank and file are informed of the choices and put into action on Election Day. Their choices rarely lose.

Accounts of intimidation tactics attributed to the Machine over the decades include cross burnings, threats and boycotts, although students these days speak mostly of social pressure, both implicit and overt and at times intense. Despite changes that the university has made to student government — like expanding polling days and switching to online voting — and despite the fact that Machine-affiliated organizations account for less than one-third of Alabama’s student population, its candidates have continued to win, if not as decisively as in the past.

“There is a lot of apathy,” said Kendra Key, who in 2009 came within a few hundred votes of being the first black woman to be student government president. Students, she said, “feel the Greek system is going to dominate the elections, so why even waste the effort?”

When the Machine has faltered, it has adjusted. Cleophus Thomas Jr. beat a Machine candidate to become Alabama’s first black student government president in 1976, in large part because of the votes of sorority members. Not long after, sororities were allowed into the Machine for the first time. There have been few non-Machine presidents, and no black presidents, since.