Group moving ahead with HAVA plan 05-01-2005 
 
 
KEVIN LEWIS

The Plainview Daily Herald    01 May 2005 
 
What is the purpose of HAVA?

?Create a new federal agency to serve as a clearinghouse for election administration information.

?Provide funds to states to improve election administration and replace outdated voting systems.

?Create minimum standards for states to follow in several key areas of election administration.

Heard of HAVA? Well, you?ll likely be hearing a lot about it in the coming months.

HAVA is the federally-mandated Help America Vote Act designed, among other things, to provide funds to improve election administration and replace outdated voting systems. HAVA is geared toward making the voting process easier and preventing mistakes as well as improving accessibility to voters with disabilities.

A local group of about a dozen people is in place and currently deciding how to best go about making Hale County HAVA compliant before the January 2006 deadline. The county will receive almost $280,000 in HAVA funds to be used toward the purchase of DRE, or direct record electronic, voting machines designed to electronically record votes instead of the current paper ballot system.

Voting electronically, through the use of buttons or touch screens, has several advantages including accessibility to voters with visual or motor impairments as well as supporting a number of different languages; helping prevent undesirable over-voting and under-voting; speeding up the voting process; and allowing election workers to quickly tally voting records.

The local HAVA group met for the third time last week with Dorothy Kennedy, elections administrator in Lubbock County, and Mark Johnston, director of Lubbock County information services, providing ample input about what to expect over the coming months.

?There are a lot of unknowns still up in the air, but the more you can do now the more ahead of the curve you?ll be,? Ms. Kennedy told the group headed by county judge Bill Hollars, county clerk Diane Williams, voter registrar Kemp Hinch and county auditor Maretta Smithson.

Others on the committee include county attorney Jim Tirey, election coordinator Don Smith, county commissioner Gary Koelder and local Democratic and Republican party chairmen James Belk and W.M. Tyler.

Lubbock County, which has been working on HAVA compliance for about a year, was allocated $1.6 million in HAVA funds.

?We spent that in a heartbeat,? Ms. Kennedy said.

The local HAVA group hopes Hale County will be more fortunate in that regard.

According to figures provided by Hinch, Hale County - with its approximately 21,000 eligible voters - will need to purchase 43 DRE machines - one for every 300 voters based on last November?s election which produced a record of more than 10,359 votes. Seventeen of those machines - one for each polling place in the county, as designated by law - must be for use by the disabled, and 17 judge?s booth controllers (JBCs) will also need to be purchased.

Hemp also suggested purchasing two ?dummy? machines on which voters could practice casting ballots.

At an average of $2,700 per machine, 45 DREs, 17 JBCs and two dummy machines would cost around $163,400. Add in $100,000 in programing costs and about $1,000 worth of memory cards and the total is roughly $264,420. That?s not counting any reserve machines the county might want to purchase in case of problems with the regulars.

Based on the $279,954 in federal HAVA funds designated for Hale County, some $15,500 would be left over to be used for education and incidentals.

?These figures are just approximations,? Hinch stressed.

The group decided to purchase all the DREs at once instead of gradually implementing the new system with paper ballots (paper ballots would still be available by mail, Mrs. Williams noted). They also decided to purchase them through the state which will negotiate terms of contracts with DRE vendors for many counties.

To be ready for use by the January 2006 deadline, the machines probably need to be purchased by mid-June in order to give enough time for the order to be filled and proper training to be done.

?You know how people are about change,? Ms. Kennedy said of the training process. ?While we may be comfortable with how to use an ATM or program a VCR, not everybody is.?

?Everyone in the country is going through this, so it?s going to be a madhouse for awhile,? Johnston added.

One of the next steps for the group will be deciding what type of voting machine to use. To help make that decision, the group agreed to set up a public demonstration of the different machines at a time and place to be decided, likely sometime this month.

The public will be invited to attend the vendor showcase and voice their opinion as to which DRE they prefer.

?You just have to see what works best for your county,? said Ms. Kennedy. ?There are things you will like about all of them, but not one is perfect.?

Once the decision is made as to which machine to purchase, officials suggested staging mock elections - possibly voting for your favorite Disney character - to help familiarize the public with the DREs. The machines might also be taken to service club meetings and churches, it was suggested.

?We?d like to have it all in place before the November election and use that as a trial run before for the March election,? Hinch said.

Many other questions still remain about the DRE process, including where to store the machines, insurance and maintenance, and contracting with Plainview and area cities and schools who might want to lease the machines.

Hinch suggested allocating $100,000 in incidental costs through the county the first year. Lubbock County, it was noted, could spend more than $2 million beyond its HAVA funds.

?It?s going to cost more to do elections now, and training is going to be substantial for everyone,? Johnston said. Still, he added, ?This is critical to the community, so we have to get through it.?

As one member of the group said: ?It?s not as easy as it used to be when you handed them a piece of paper and they put a check on it.?

But, like it or not, HAVA is here and there?s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

?Every county in the state is required to do this,? Smith said.