Freeholders delay casting ballot on voting machines
Thursday, August 11, 2005
By SARA LEITCH
The Express-Times

WHITE TWP. Freeholders on Wednesday postponed a vote to set aside more than $1.6 million to pay for new electronic voting machines, saying they needed more information on the machines including the ways they would be serviced and delivered to polling places.

"The election board is fairly well taken with this full-face machine for multiple reasons," freeholder Director Richard Gardner said. "I'm not prepared to make a vote on it."

The federal Help America Vote Act requires the county to have voting machines that all residents can use in place for the 2006 elections. The county Board of Elections has recommended a machine made by Princeton-based Avante, which produces touch-screen voting machines so new they aren't certified by state or federal election commissions. 
 Avante makes two kinds of machines: a large one that displays the entire ballot at once, and a smaller one that displays the candidates in one race at a time.

Wednesday's resolution would have allocated $1.637 million to pay for 200 of the larger machines; freeholders said they were not convinced the ease of using the 225-pound units outweighed the costs of moving and storing them.

County administrator Steve Marvin said storing the voting machines could cost $36,000 a year, in addition to the expense of moving them to municipalities for elections.

County information systems director Barry Smith said there was a lot behind recommending the bigger machines, which election workers simply plug into a wall to set up for voters. The various components of the smaller machines must be set up by poll workers at each election.

"There's quite a lot of steps involved in putting those (smaller) machines together," Smith said.

Freeholders agreed it might be important to make the shift from the county's current optical scanning machines as simple as possible for poll workers.

"It's not like these people do their job every day," Freeholder John DiMaio said. "They may not be up on technology and how to put it together. It could be chaotic. I wish we didn't have to do this at all."

Freeholders asked election board secretary C.J. Coop to research the costs of storing the larger machines and find out more information about warranties. The board must pass the resolution to buy the machines by the end of next month so the county can file an application to the state, which would reimburse up to 75 percent of the cost of the machines.

Also Wednesday, the freeholders voted to give Belvidere officials another month to come up with their third-quarter tax payment.

The town asked for a 30-day extension after delays in receiving its certified county tax rate, and a late amendment to its town budget. The county could charge a 6 percent fee on late payments, Chief Financial Officer Charles Houck said. 
 "It really won't create a huge problem for us," he said. "There are some extenuating circumstances."

Houck suggested the county grant the extension, without charging the late fee, on the condition that Belvidere pay the money it owes the county for its 2003 taxes.

"I find it somewhat ironic that these people are asking for an extension when they still owe us money from two years back," he said.

The freeholders agreed to grant the extension Belvidere wanted.

"Just as long as it doesn't become habitual," Gardner said.