Local counties waiting for voting machine certification
While a new law requires electronic machines be used next May, state and federal officials have yet to certify systems under consideration.
 

By KELLY MONITZ
The Standard-Speaker   16 October 2005

Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties shopped for new electronic voting machines, but they're not quite ready to buy yet. Out of the dozens of machines county officials looked at, only one has been certified for use in the state, they said.

Without knowing which machines will make the cut, no one wants to make a commitment.

But they don't have much time to decide.

Under the Help America Vote Act, the counties must choose by Jan. 1 and put the machines in place in time for the first election afterwards.

"Right now, we're waiting on certification on the federal and state levels," said Len Piazza, Luzerne County Election Bureau director.

He had hoped that the three models recommended by the county's Electronic Voting Machine Committee would be certified by the end of September.

None of the chosen systems has been certified, and no one really knows when the certifications will happen, Piazza said.

The Department of State hopes to have the machines certified in the next few weeks, spokeswoman Allison Hrestach said Thursday.

The machines must be certified at the federal level, then by the state, she explained.

However, the commonwealth isn't waiting until the federal certification to do its own examination, Hrestach said. A number of machines are undergoing evaluations at both levels at the same time, she said.

Counties still can't move forward until both certifications are declared, but the state hopes to speed up the process by not waiting for the federal OK before doing its own, Hrestach said.

The commonwealth hopes that the secretary of state can announce the list of approved machines within the next two to three weeks, she said.

In Schuylkill County, Election Director Elizabeth Dries and county commissioners are taking their time shopping, she said.

"We can't decide too much," she said. "We're still in the process of looking."

Two vendors will be offering demonstrations of their products to county officials in the next two weeks, and the county has already reviewed others as well, she said.

Dries wouldn't reveal her favorite, but noted they all have good features.

"Cost is going to be a factor," she said.

Ultimately, the decision will be up to the county election board, but Dries will offer a recommendation, she said.

"We have an idea, but we can't buy now," she said.

In Carbon County, the story is similar, said Director Ken Leffler.

"We're still looking at them," he said. "We are looking at three of them. We haven't picked one."

Leffler isn't letting the approaching deadline concern him, because he can't do anything to move the process along, he said.

He's more concerned with the timing of the next steps in the process, like getting the machines from the manufacturers and educating voters before the primary.

"We're going to have to have make enough time (for education)," Leffler said. "We do want to have the opportunity to display the machines for the public."

He plans to visit senior citizen centers, elderly housing complexes and church groups to educate folks who might feel intimidated by the new process, he said.

Seniors are the special concern because they hear electronic and think computer, and that's not really the case with the new machines, Leffler said.

"You just read and touch a screen," he said of the new machines.

Back in Luzerne County, Piazza already mapped a plan for education using television and newspaper advertisements and direct mailing, but the county can't work out the details because it doesn't know which system it needs to explain or demonstrate, he said.

He wants to put the new machines in each of the 76 municipalities in the county so folks can see the system and become familiar with it before next May's primary, he said.

Piazza wants to get as much work completed as his department can while they continue to wait for the certification process to finish, he said.

"I knew early on there would be some delays," Piazza said. "I can only control what we do here."

And his department has been doing a great deal - purging some 3,000 names from registered voter list as part of a long-term plan to consolidate the precincts, he said.

The staff mailed 46,000 notices to inactive voters and the response has been better than expected, Piazza said.

The county hasn't purged its list in a decade, and it's finding that some of the inactive voters died, moved or just haven't been to the polls, he said.

Some people sent back the cards to let the county know that their information is still correct; those names will be returned to the active list, Piazza said.

A number of the cards came back undeliverable, he said. If those folks do show up at their polling place during one of the next three elections, they'll be able to vote after updating their registration, he said.

"They have three more opportunities to stop the process," Piazza said, but noted that afterwards, they'll have to re-register.

The purge wasn't cheap, but now the county's master list is current.

"The voter file is caught up," Piazza said. "Now that we are caught up, we can stay caught up."

He just has to wait for the state and federal governments to get caught up on their work, namely the certification of the new voting machines, he said.

"It's my hope that we have that certification in the next few weeks," Piazza said.