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Time is Running Out
Dear Editor:
New York State is rushing into a choice of voting machines on a very tight timeline. This is solely because the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the State, forcing the issue. The AIRS Board of Election's plan for compliance with DOJ demands discards the State's existing "Gold Standard" regulations for voting equipment. We are being forced to forego the previously required rigorous testing procedures, risking approval of faulty machines. The NY State Board of Elections plan calls for accessible ballot markers for persons with disabilities at each voting location in 2008 and complete replacement of our lever machines with new voting systems in 2009.
The timeline for 2008 is as follows: on January 23, the State Board will notify our County Board of Election Commissioners which ballot-marking devices are available for consideration, By February 8, the County Commissioners must make their choice. However, the technical testing by NYS of these devices won't be completed until February 27. If a chosen ballot-marking device later fails the technical test, a substitution will have to he made. This timeline places extreme pressure on our county election commissioners. The County Commissioners are required to choose our county's voting system without the benefit of meaningful testing.
There are two major categories of ballot markers, and due to cost considerations, the choice of category will determine whether all our votes in 2009 and beyond will be recorded on voter-marked paper ballots or, instead, in electronic circuits deep within a computer. The first category includes "true" ballot markers, which work together with specific paper ballot/optical scanner systems. If our commissioners choose a true ballot maker, we will all vote with paper ballots counted on optical scanners in 2009.
The alternative category is a touch screen electronic voting machine (DRE) with its votecounting function disabled for 2008, so that its "paper trail" can be hand-counted as a "ballot". This DRE reconfigured as a ballot marker device would only be chosen for 2008 if our county commissioners plan to us$ tern (as fully functional touch screen computerized voting systems) in 2009.
Because the commissioners will be spending a large portion of the Federal funds provided for this voting machine transition to purchase the ballot markers, the county will be forced to adopt the system compatibles with the ballot marker in 2009. State Board of Elections Commissioner Kellner has emphasized that (1) DREs are more expensive for counties than the paper ballot scanner system, and. (2) it will be much more difficult to carry out New York's required 3% audit with DRE paper trails. We can only hope that our county commissioners take this into consideration in making their choice. We need to make our views on this choice" known to our County Commissioners Bennett and Scannapieco - and to our elected officials - now. Our vote depends on it.
Joyce B1um
Garrison
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