County to name vendor for voting machines by November 
 
By Edward Lewis, The Citizen's Voice   08/04/2005 
 Selection of new electronic voting machines in Luzerne County should be made by November to comply with the Help America Vote Act, said Leonard Piazza III, director of the county's Bureau of Elections.

"If we get into mid-November, that's kind of pushing it," Piazza said during a brief meeting of the county Board of Elections on Wednesday.

Three weeks ago, seven vendors, who are competing for the county's business, displayed their machines at the Luzerne County Courthouse.
Approximately 1,000 people participated in the exposition.
Piazza said the Electronic Voting Machine Committee, which must recommend a machine to county commissioners Greg Skrepenak, Todd Vonderheid and Stephen Urban, will meet sometime in the next two weeks.

Piazza said vendors had assured him they could deliver the machines within a month, once the commissioners make their ion.
Under the Help America Vote Act, which Congress passed in 2002 to prevent the difficulties experienced during the 2000 presidential election from recurring, states must begin using electronic voting machines in the 2006 primary election.

However, state officials have to certify the machine before the county puts it into service, Piazza said.
The county is receiving nearly $3 million in state funding to offset the cost.

The full-ballot, touch screen machine average cost is $7,500 each while the smaller, touch-screen machine average cost is $3,500 each.
Piazza said the voting machine warehouse, Water Street, Wilkes-Barre, would have to be renovated to meet the new machine's electricity needs.

Skrepenak expressed concerns about hackers tampering with vote results. He said he has heard that hackers can use palm pilots to change votes.
Piazza said vote results from precincts would not be transferred using telephone lines, except for unofficial results from the Hazleton courthouse annex.

"The only transmission over phone lines would be unofficial returns from the Hazleton annex," Piazza said.
Piazza said each machine has a cartridge that counts the number of votes.
The cartridge would be pulled from the machine and taken to the courthouse, where the votes would be officially counted.
"It is illegal to tamper with votes," Piazza said.
In other business, Walter Griffith, a former Wilkes-Barre City Council candidate, believes the city and the Board of Elections should be held in contempt for failing to adopt a district-based election in Wilkes-Barre.
"The voters have spoken, and the (state) Supreme Court has already ruled," Griffith said. "The city should be held in contempt.

"The county is responsible for the election. I don't know why the city and county are not found in contempt.
"The county Board of Elections should lean on council," Griffith said.
A ballot referendum in the 2001 election reduced the number of city council seats from seven to five and changed the means of electing candidates from at-large to district-based.

An apportionment commission, chaired by Attorney John Peter Moses, devised six scenarios that divided the city into five districts in 2002.
To date, council has not adopted the five-district model.