Vote's out on city meeting new fed law

BY FRANK LOMBARDI   New York DAILY NEWS  24 May 2005

The city's election chief painted a dismal picture yesterday about the prospects of meeting a federal mandate to replace all antiquated voting machines by the 2006 elections.

"We are still in the dark," John Ravitz, the executive director of the Board of Elections, testified at a City Council hearing.

He blamed the city's plight on ongoing delays in Albany in passing a bill spelling out the details of how the state and its local governments are going to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), enacted after the 2000 Florida presidential election debacle.

For the city, the HAVA requirements mean scrapping its 7,639 lever-operated machines built more than 40 years ago. New machines - presumably electronically operated - have to be in place for next year's September primary. This year's elections aren't affected.

Ravitz said federal funds will pay some of the cost of the new machines, but the city and state will have to foot the rest. And even if Albany finally passes a detailed HAVA-compliance bill soon, it remains an open question whether the city will have time to acquire new machines and do all the training necessary to put them into operation in time, Ravitz testified.

That question has "kept us up late at night, worrying about what is going to happen," Ravitz told the Finance and Governmental Operations Committees.

Last week, state legislative officials said they had agreed to let each county and New York City their own machines, based on standards yet to be set by the state.

"There is no reason why it should have taken this long," Ravitz lamented.

Governmental Operations Chairman Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan) raised the prospect of intervention by the U.S. Justice Department, which is charged with enforcing HAVA's mandates.

Ravitz said the Justice Department has indicated it "will take legal action if we're not up and going" by the September 2006 deadline. He said "serious conversations" should be held with the Justice Department to seek permission to phase in the new machines over several years rather than all at once.