Wanted: a new voting system
GINA ZOTTI, Staff Writer  The Daily Local   01/26/2005

 WEST CHESTER County officials submitted a grant for funds to purchase new voting machines compliant with federal and state legislation.

The problem: There are no voting machines that are compliant from which to choose.

Counties across Pennsylvania and nationwide are attempting to adapt to new voting system regulations passed by Congress during 2002 before the January 2006 deadline.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and accompanying legislation from the Pennsylvania General Assembly seeks to bring a level of standard to the electoral process in the state and across the country to prevent a recurrence of difficulties experienced during the presidential election of 2000, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The legislation requires many things, including all voting systems to be accessible to individuals with disabilities.

Here in Chester County, not only must machines be compliant with HAVA, the machine must also be certified in Pennsylvania.

No such machines exist.

"It?s classic Pennsylvania," said Commissioner Andrew Dinniman. "Here we sit as a county wanting to do the right thing, but the state doesn?t give us any options."

The funding for the machines, almost $1.7 million, being applied for through a HAVA grant, can only go to HAVA-compliant machines.

"The machine has to be totally accessible to any voter," said Linda Cummings, director of Chester County Voter Services.

The problem is finding machines that have an audio feature for the visually impaired, she explained. Of three machines in a precinct, only one needs to have the audio capacity, but, she said, it would be most logical if all three machines were of the same system.

There is no way to make punch card voting meet the requirement to be accessible to all, she added.

Currently, those with a disability who can?t use the machines have someone physically help them vote or they cast their tally using an absentee ballot.

"If a jurisdiction or county wanted to continue to use punch cards, it?d still be required to have one fully accessible machine in every precinct," Cummings explained. "Then it would have two separate types of voting systems in each precinct."

Only counties with punch card or lever systems would be eligible for money from HAVA to switch systems.

The change in Chester County comes despite the fact the county has had no reported problems with the system, county officials said.

"All of the efforts to bring voting machines in compliance with the law are supported by this board of commissioners," said Commissioner Carol Aichele.

"It?s still a little chaotic out there, but at least we?ll get our name on the list," said Dinniman.

Cummings said that she wasn?t concerned with the 2006 deadline, but hopes to get the situation resolved as soon as possible.

"I?m hoping next year we can look at it seriously," she said.

In addition to funding for the new voting machines, the county also applied for more than $42,000 with the HAVA grant to comply with other parts of the act, including assisting the county with provisional voting, more voter education services and precinct officials educational services.

That money is available up front. It would be the first time the county received funding for such efforts through the act.

Voter Services will also purge the inactive voter list this week.

About 37,000 names will be d from the system. As a part of "routine cleanup," Cummings said that the list applies to residents who have been inactive for five years and have been unreachable more than once over that time.

Officials attempted to reach those individuals twice, at a current address and an old address or have been sent a notice that was returned as undeliverable.

Those who are purged have been inactive since prior to the November 2002 election must re-register to vote before the next election.