Speak Now or Forever Question Your Vote

Voters’ rights advocates try to sway lawmakers against lobbyists pushing less reliable, more expensive voting machines

In less than two weeks, the public-comment period for New Yorkers to provide input on the types of voting machines that can be used around the state will end. However, questions remain about whether lawmakers will consider the concerns of their constituents or the generosity of lobbyists when the final decision is made.

“This situation in New York, it’s a golden faucet that manufacturers want to exploit,” said William Sell, a member of voters’ rights group New Yorkers for Verified Voting.

New York ranks last among the states—by almost half a year— in establishing a set of statewide standards for new voting machines. More than $200 million is earmarked for New York by 2002 federal legislation aimed at helping states update their voting machines, but the state’s lawmakers spent three years arguing along party lines without reaching agreement. State legislators finally punted the responsibility to county election officials late last year, but now it looks like the delay could result in the loss of all federal funding—leaving individual counties to foot the bill for new machines. While lawmakers were able to agree on the need for voting machines to keep voter-verifiable records of ballots, the question of which type of machine to use has pitted lobbyists and manufacturers against constituents in the battle for politicians’ ears.

The two styles of machines are Direct Recording Electronic and the Paper Ballot Optical Scan. Voters cast their ballots on DRE machines using either a touch-screen or push-button system, and their vote is recorded electronically and displayed on a roll of paper similar to a cash-register receipt. With PBOS machines, voters mark large, paper ballots in much the same way as they would for lottery tickets, then insert the ballots into a scanning machine. A display screen on the PBOS machines allows a voter to confirm that everything is recorded correctly before the paper ballot is accepted for storage in a secure container (in case an audit is necessary). The DRE printout roll is used in case of an audit on those machines.

Heavily pushed by manufacturers and their lobbying groups, the DRE machines are less expensive per machine, but each county will need at least one DRE to replace each of their lever-style voting machines. In contrast, only one PBOS machine will be needed for each polling place, as simple, curtained tables are all that’s required for voters to privately mark their ballots before having them scanned. Additionally, the DRE machines require specialized repair training, as manufacturers have refused to give government agencies access to much of the hardware and software used in the machines. NYVV estimated the cost of replacing a standard three-machine polling place at $11,000 for PBOS and $27,000 for DRE (not including the cost of service contracts).

DRE machines’ reliability has also been controversial. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, local officials spent more than $24.5 million converting to DRE in March 2005, only to discover that a neighboring county of comparative size spent less than a third of that amount converting to PBOS. When hundreds of votes were lost in the following election, the county scrapped the machines and converted to scanners.

“In the computer industry, we have a saying: Never buy version 1.0,” said Bo Lipari, executive director of NYVV, during a recent presentation in Saratoga Springs. “With DREs, our state is asking us to buy $200 million of version 1.0.”

In warning of the risks of DREs, Lipari is far from alone. Civic groups like the League of Women Voters have had their support for PBOS systems echoed on editorial pages around the state. At a series of public hearings held by the State Board of Elections over the last few months, supporters of the DRE machines were few and far between.

Yet, critics fear that many lawmakers have already made their decision.

“Revamping our voting systems has to happen, but the process has been mishandled since day one by our leaders and the New York State Board of Elections,” said Rachel Leon, executive director of Common Cause New York, in response to news that the state board of elections began preliminary certification of at least one DRE machine—an unfinished model that the manufacturer, Liberty, promises will eventually conform to voting standards—during the first week of December.

The state agency initially claimed that the public hearings and comment period were being held so that public input could be incorporated into the creation of certification guidelines. The decision to begin certifying machines before the public input period was finished cast serious doubts upon lawmakers’ sincerity, according to many of the groups that expressed outrage at the announcement. With manufacturers and their lobbying groups pushing for expensive DRE contracts, civic groups argue that one of the only ways the state can avoid having the most questionable voting systems in the nation is by petitioning their local officials. Without enough public demand for the PBOS systems, civic groups said that many of the manufacturers won’t even bother to offer PBOS machines to many counties.

In Saratoga County, Democratic elections commissioner William Fruci said he and his Republican counterpart are, like many county election officials, waiting for the state BOE to settle on certification standards before making their decision on which type of machine to use. The county already uses DRE machines in several districts, and Fruci said he hasn’t experienced any of the problems the machines have caused elsewhere in the country.

But, say many civic groups, citizens shouldn’t let such an ambiguous—or, in some cases, complete lack of—response from election officials about their voting-machine perspectives silence the call for real voting reform.

“If an election commissioner tells you they’re not going to weigh in on the type of machine they plan to use until after the certification standards are created, that means they’re not doing their jobs,” said Lipari. “Because you can bet that as soon as those certification standards are approved, they’re going to whip some hefty contracts out of their desk drawers that they’ve had written up for months.”

Numerous calls to the Albany and Schenectady County Boards of Elections were not returned in time for publication. Comments can be mailed to the NYSBOE at 40 Steuben St., Albany, NY 12207 or e-mailed to ldaghlian@elections.state.ny.us.

—Rick Marshall

rmarshall@metroland.net

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