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Recent article:
State board settles on 3 voting machines
All meet federal accessible-to-disabled law. Now, each county has to pick one.
Monday, January 28, 2008
By John Mariani
Staff writer
The state Board of Elections on Thursday approved three new voting machines accessible to the disabled and gave county election officials the option of choosing among them to comply with the Help America Vote Act.
One of the machines selected is an optical scanner that uses paper ballots that voters fill in with a pen, much like standardized tests. The other machines, which were approved pending minor modifications, are "auto markers" that create paper ballots complete with a record of voters' choices.
HAVA requires at least one machine accessible for disabled voters in each polling place. Counties must have the new machines in place by the fall elections.
The board still needs to decide how to replace the state's lever-action voting machines. Those must be selected by Oct. 23, 2008, and in place for the fall 2009 elections.
For those who came in late, here's a primer on HAVA and the issues New York state and Onondaga County officials have confronted in trying to put it in action.
HAVA's heart
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 in reaction to Florida's contested presidential election outcome two year earlier. It requires states to ensure that people with disabilities can vote with the same degree of privacy as other voters. This has forced most jurisdictions to replace their old voting methods lever machines, punch cards and the like with systems that use technologies that are friendlier to voters with disabilities.
Blown deadlines
The states were supposed to meet HAVA's requirements by
the first federal election of 2006. But New York didn't have its enabling legislation in place until summer 2005 and still has not certified replacement voting systems for use.
System basics
Most communities nationwide have opted to use one of two computer-based systems. With scanner-based systems, voters mark paper ballots that are scanned at the polling place. The scanner compiles the votes for reporting once the polls close; the paper ballots are kept as a way of verifying the vote if there is a recount or a question over the results. Voters with disabilities use special electronic devices called ballot markers to help them prepare their ballots for scanning.
Direct Recording Electric devices, or DREs, are akin to automated teller machines. Voters push buttons or touch screens to indicate their choices. DREs come equipped with audio instructions, sip-and-puff tubes and other devices to help voters with disabilities cast ballots.
Questions and concerns
Groups that back scanners, including the New York League of Women Voters and New Yorkers for Verified Voting, say DREs are too unreliable and prone to tampering to be trusted. While scanners also have computers at their heart, the paper ballots filled by voters provide an indisputable record of voter intent, fans say.
DRE advocates, including many of New York's county election commissioners, say voters with disabilities may need help inserting their paper ballots into privacy sleeves before they are scanned, violating HAVA's privacy requirement. DREs are no less reliable than the lever machines now in use and are cheaper in the long run to operate than scanners, they argue.
New York wrinkles
To cope with the question of voter intent, New York lawmakers required that replacement systems provide a "voter-verifiable paper audit trail" - VVPAT, in elections lingo. This made DRE manufacturers come up with machines that, besides tabulating votes electronically, also print out each voter's choices so the voters can review and approve them before casting their ballots. Those receipts are stored in the machine for use in recounts.
Instead of mandating the use of a specific system across the state, the Legislature left the choice of which system to adopt to the election commissioners in each county. They are to choose a system off a list of machines certified by the state Board of Elections.
As part of the certification process, each manufacturer is to provide the state with the source code for its systems, the programming on which their machines' computer software is based.
Unlike most other states, New York requires that voters see a full-face ballot, a grid that contains all offices being contested and the candidates vying for them.
Big bucks at stake
The federal government promised the states money to help them change systems. New York's share, $230 million, included $190 million to help the counties replace their lever machines. The rest was for the installation of a statewide voter registration database, training and other support. Federal officials threatened to punish the state by withdrawing nearly $50 million from that pot, but Congress restored the money last fall in the military funding bill, said Lee Daghlian, speaking for the state Board of Elections.
Why New York is late
Manufacturers had a hard time coming up with machines and software that could accommodate the full-faced ballot and VVPAT requirements; some opted not even to try.
State officials also had a hard time finding a company qualified to certify equipment; one testing lab wound up being disqualified, setting back the process by months.
The source code requirement is a major hang-up. Most voting system manufacturers use Microsoft Corp. operating systems and Microsoft is reluctant to make its proprietary source coding public.
The court case
The federal Department of Justice sued New York in 2006 to force the state to comply with HAVA. A settlement that year allowed the counties to install as few as one ballot marker in 2006 elections to accommodate voters with disabilities. A state law passed allowed the continued use of lever machines in 2007 elections.
On Dec. 21, U.S. District Judge Gary Sharpe ordered state election officials to come back with two timelines. One would show how ballot markers would be located at every polling place in the state for this fall's elections; the other would detail installation of a replacement voting system by September 2009. The old-fashioned lever machines would remain in place for the 2008 elections but not in 2009.
What's next
Onondaga County must make plans to equip its 210 polling places with ballot markers and buy the devices; prepare a new service center to store the markers when they're not deployed; hire and train 210 additional election inspectors to run the markers; provide and train custodians to maintain the machines; and deliver and return machines between the service center and polling places.
Election Commissioners Edward Szczesniak and Helen Kiggins estimate those tasks will cost the county $1.27 million this year. That doesn't include the cost of obtaining paper ballots for the markers to mark.
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