Will New York be ready for the 2006 election?
By JEFFREY T. ZAINO    Buffalo News   7/11/2005  
 
 In a very short period of time, New York faces a monumental task of not only introducing new voting technology to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) but also retraining thousands of poll workers.

At the end of its recent session, the State Legislature passed a bill that will hopefully bring state election practice into compliance with HAVA, a 2002 federal law that creates several mandates that states must meet by 2006 in order to retain federal election funding.

Many of the provisions of the New York legislation, however, will be challenging to implement in such a short time frame.

The state needs to replace voting machines in almost every county. Most counties currently use antiquated lever machines, which were introduced in 1892 and have not even been manufactured since 1982. Given the magnitude of the requirements, most counties will now have to scramble to have new voting machines in place by 2006.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the legislation allows counties to replace lever machines with either the ATM-style touch-screen or optical scan machines. Providing multiple voting system options to the counties is contrary to a primary goal of HAVA - to create a uniform, modern voting system.

Furthermore, optical scanning is mid-1960s technology that uses infra-red sensors to read votes. Unfortunately, this dated technology cannot properly read cross-outs, erasures and stray marks - problems that could come into play in a close election.

Due to repeated inconsistencies when comparing manual recount results with original optical scan results, the American Arbitration Association (AAA), an election provider that oversees hundreds of private elections each year for the nation's unions, associations and colleges, stopped using optical scan machines in the 1990s.

The AAA, however, has had great success with ATM-style touch-screen voting systems. Touch-screen voting systems are the best option for New York, but problems will certainly exist with the rushed introduction of this new technology. New York has approximately 77,000 poll workers who will need retraining if the machines are ever purchased and introduced.

Pending legislation in New York that seeks to increase both poll worker pay and training hours is promising, if uncertain.

Private-sector experience proves that electronic voting is safe and reliable and offers considerable advantages over traditional methods, provided that there is proper training. We can only hope that the deadlines imposed by HAVA do not lead to faulty implementation that will frustrate voters and give rise to doubts about worthy and effective technologies.

Jeffrey T. Zaino is vice president-elections for the American Arbitration Association.