Wait And Hurry Up 
New York State Lags In Picking New Voting Machines 
Elizabeth Cady Brown    Long Island Press   08/11/2005  

 

The "hanging chad" debacle of 2000 showed Americans that voting machines can eat, add, misread or mistabulate ballots with ease. So in 2002, the federal government passed the $3.8 billion Help America Vote Act (HAVA), setting national standards for voting equipment and providing states with hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade voting technologies.

On July 12, lawmakers in Albany finally reached an agreement on how to implement HAVA, making New York the last state in the union to qualify for its federal money: roughly $226 million that will be used to replace 20,000 voting machines and retrain elections workers. The bill also hands county boards of elections the unfamiliar task of picking the new equipment.

"We did it this way because New York is such a diverse state," says Assemb. Fred Thiele (R-Bridgehampton), who sat on the conference committee that hashed out the final legislation. "You have Hamilton County, with 5,000 people, and then you have New York City. What machine might be suitable for one may not be suitable in the other."

Already, the biggest voting machine companies are aggressively pitching to local election commissioners. After years of being on hold, county officials are now under pressure to choose quickly?perhaps too quickly.

New Yorkers have used basically the same mechanical lever machines since the 19th century (94 percent of the votes cast are still recorded on such machines). Hence, New York pols have limited experience with modern alternatives, and county officials have never before had to make such a big buy.

Lisa Tyson, director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, warns that officials may not relish this expanded role.

"Their job as board of elections commissioners is running elections," says Tyson. "Right now, the commissioners are stressed about the upcoming elections, so [voting machines] aren't high on their list. But they know they have to make a decision soon, and if they make the wrong one, it is going to be a problem."

According to HAVA, states must install new machines by September 2006 to be eligible for funds. That is now impossible, thanks to Albany's foot-dragging, so state lawmakers are trying to convince the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) that New York could technically satisfy HAVA if every polling place has at least one handicapped-accessible voting machine by the 2006 deadline and the rest of the machines are online by September 2007. If the EAC does not buy this argument, New York could lose the $226 million.

"The whole issue is very murky," says Bo Lipari, executive director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), a nonpartisan citizens' action group. "A lot of folks feel New York is jeopardizing the HAVA funds, but...I agree that to try to overhaul the entire voting system by 2006 would have been a train wreck."

Many counties are working toward the 2006 deadline anyway.

"We are trying to get ahead of the game," says Nassau Board of Elections Deputy Commissioner Eleanor Sciglibaglio.

That's going to be tough, due to other related delays in Albany. Counties can only choose equipment approved by the state board, but to date, not a single machine has been certified.

According to Lee Daghlian, spokesperson for New York State's Board of Elections, the full certification process can take from four to six months. Given that only five or six machines are even close to being certified, Daghlian estimates a list of approved machines won't be available until the end of this year.

"Right now, the local governments have to wait," agrees Lawrence Cregan, a senior assistant commissioner at the Suffolk County Board of Elections, with a hint of frustration.

And certification is only a first step. The certified machines have to be reviewed and agreed upon by the Republican and Democratic commissioners in each county. They have to be ordered, manufactured, shipped and installed. Election workers (and voters) will need to be retrained. Not surprisingly, some counties are finding ways to move ahead.

"While it's true that no machines have been certified," says Lipari, who is in contact with local boards across the state, "what's not being said is that more and more commissioners are going ahead with the decision-making process."

In Nassau, the Board of Elections formed a bipartisan, six-member committee to study the machines expected to get state certification. Election officials confirm that several of the most powerful voting machine makers?Sequoia Voting Systems, Election Systems and Software, and Liberty Election Systems?have started visiting already.

Voting-rights groups are concerned that the lack of certification is driving the decision-making process indoors. There is growing alarm that without transparency and public input, companies with a profit motive will wield too much influence.

"We don't want the constitutional right to vote to be sacrificed by voting machines that aren't the most accurate machines out there," says Brian Mannix, a leader in Democracy for Long Island, a group that sprouted from the Howard Dean campaign. "We don't want the voting machine companies to be influencing the Board of Elections decision."

With the help of Legis. Lisanne Altmann (D-Great Neck) and several organizations, including the Long Island Progressive Coalition and the League of Women Voters, this issue has gotten some attention in Nassau. Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury) says the county Legislature, which has no formal role in the decision, will host a public meeting at the end of August where elections experts can respond to residents.

"The most important thing is citizen involvement," says Sandy Wayland, legislative chair of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, which has been at the center of the debates over voting machines in Florida. "They should demand that the companies come and show voters the machines, and the citizens have to ask good questions. There will always be issues in voting, but you have to try your best to get it right the first time."