Feds OK paper ballots for Tuesday's city vote

06/01/2005 Elizabeth Allen and Guillermo Contreras   San Antonio Express-News

The city's June 7 runoff election was pre-cleared Tuesday by the Department of Justice, partly rendering moot a federal lawsuit by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is seeking to force the city and county to use some electronic voting machines.

MALDEF says the city failed to get clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice when it decided to switch to paper ballots for the election, which will decide the mayor's race and two City Council seats. It's also contesting the change of a polling site.

"Suddenly the city decided to switch methods, or election systems, midstream for the runoff," said MALDEF regional counsel Nina Perales.

Changing systems can lead to voter confusion, she said, while paper ballots do not offer vote secrecy for the blind and visually impaired.

The electronic system has voice software, but the county does offer a method for visually impaired voters who must use paper ballots.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, already has had one effect. At the request of U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson, the city urged the Justice Department to expedite its process, said City Clerk Leticia Vacek, and the city got its clearance Tuesday afternoon.

"This only helps the city's case, of course," Vacek said.

The city had not submitted its pre-clearance request to the Justice Department until late May. Governments must ask for pre-clearance 60 days before putting a voting change into effect, said Assistant District Attorney Ed Schweninger.

"You can get it like the city did, by begging," Schweninger said, but asking well in advance is "the only way that you can be certain you will get a response."

Vacek said that only counts for regular elections.

"You won't know you're going to have a runoff until your main election takes place," said Vacek, who chose the paper ballot system because that method, at about $350,000, will cost the city roughly half the electronic system's cost.

"You only have to comply with the Voting Rights Act for one round of the election, then you can do anything you want?" responded Jim Harrington of the Austin-based Texas Civil Rights Project, which is partnering with MALDEF on the suit. "That doesn't make any sense."

Perales said the last-minute pre-clearance takes care of the voting rights question, but not the Americans with Disabilities Act issue and one relating to state election law.

The parties in the case are to make their arguments before a three-judge panel today. The plaintiffs are asking that the county elections office place an electronic machine at each polling site so people will have the option of either method.

State law allows the entity paying for an election to choose the system, and although the county switched to electronic voting years ago, it held on to the paper ballot technology to count mail-in and provisional ballots.

Elections Administrator Cliff Borofsky said it would be very difficult to get the electronic machines ready for Tuesday's election.

"The challenge would be getting the voice files done," he said, adding that he would be asking the system vendors about it.

County Judge Nelson Wolff, who raised considerable fuss three weeks ago when he learned that the city chose paper ballots over the electronic system, said he felt vindicated.

"Why do you think we went to this?" he said. "It's easier for the handicapped to vote. It's easier for the blind. It's easier for a lot of things."