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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/nyregion/29vote.html

April 29, 2004

New York Risking the Loss of Ballot Equipment Money

By Al Baker

ALBANY, April 28 -Trying to prevent another vote-counting debacle like the one that paralyzed the 2000 presidential election, the federal government has ordered all 50 states to update their election systems and set minimum requirements for voting equipment.

But New York has failed to take any of the significant steps that leaders in both major political parties agree are necessary, like replacing the state's pull-lever machines with electronic models and setting up a uniform database of all registered voters. As a result, some of the more than $200 million the federal government has earmarked to help New York make the switch could be delayed or forfeited, state and federal officials said.

With pressure from Washington mounting and deadlines looming, a group of 10 lawmakers from the State Senate and the Assembly held a rare bipartisan conference committee on Wednesday to try to iron out differences in their competing sets of bills on the issue.

But by the end of their 50-minute session - the legislators' first public meeting on the issue - they had merely read their proposals, raising questions about whether the matter would be solved in time to make the changes the government requires this year, and others that are due by 2006.

"New York has been one of the slowest in the nation to comply with the Help America Vote Act,'' said Daniel M. Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, which tracks and analyzes attempts at election reform throughout the country. The Web site is run by a Washington nonprofit organization financed by the Pew Charitable Trust.

In one sense, Wednesday's meeting was another moment in Albany's syndrome of legislative paralysis. But just getting lawmakers from both chambers to the negotiating table was a major accomplishment, said Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a Democrat from Harlem who is the co-chairman of the joint legislative committee.

"We did a lot today, let's be clear,'' Mr. Wright said as he gathered up his papers to leave. "You have no idea - to get to this point is a major step. I mean, this is, like, analogous to the Paris peace talks.''

Conference committees are resisted in Albany because they have often proved impotent. But the two chambers joined in one this year to discuss the state's budget process, and on Wednesday, the Senate called for such a panel, as the Assembly has for years, to discuss revamping the state's Rockefeller-era drug laws.

Mr. Wright said the elections committee set a May 10 deadline to finish its work but could go longer. He said lawmakers must first merge their separate visions for remaking the state's election system and pass a set of common bills to be sent to Gov. George E. Pataki, by the session's scheduled end on June 22. "Otherwise we are in jeopardy of losing the money,'' Mr. Wright said.

In 2002, when Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act, it authorized up to $3.9 billion in spending to help overhaul the states' election procedures. So far, $2.3 billion has been appropriated. Already, New York has received $66 million in federal money that is sitting in an account held by the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, and the state expects up to $235 million by 2005.

In last year's state budget, and in Mr. Pataki's proposed spending plan for this year, $180 million of that money has been earmarked to help meet the federal requirements. That includes $20 million to create a database of registered voters and $160 million to help localities, Pataki administration officials said.

But until the lawmakers pass a set of common bills, and the governor signs them, the money cannot be spent.

"It is our understanding that if we don't meet certain deadlines, then the state would have to give the money back to the federal government,'' Dan Weiller, a spokesman for Mr. Hevesi, said on Wednesday.

The Assembly, in its raft of bills, wants to make polling places more accessible to the disabled, allowing at least one voting machine in each to have an audio prompt for the blind, a hand-held voting device and an attachment allowing quadriplegics to cast votes with their breath using a sip-and-puff system. The Senate legislation would have experts decide later how the machines should accommodate the disabled.

The Assembly wants to allow first-time voters, who are required to show identification at the polls, to use any one of 20 different kinds. A Senate bill would allow fewer forms of identification, and would make it a felony to try to register fraudulently.

Despite the differences, there is some common ground. Both chambers want new voting machines to produce a verifiable paper trail of votes, to safeguard election returns. Each wants to set up a more efficient system for lodging and addressing complaints.

Many in Albany say the state is not the only one to blame for the delays. The federal government has only recently established the Election Assistance Commission, to monitor the states' compliance with the new law and help them carry it out. The agency has the power to conduct financial audits, and the federal Justice Department is charged with enforcing the law.

But the elections commission has not yet weighed in on an election reform plan submitted by a task force Mr. Pataki appointed - a move that lawmakers said could provide them some guidance in forging compromises.

Although the issue goes to the heart of the democratic process, many advocates complained that up until Wednesday's public session, the matter had largely been fought out behind closed doors.

"This has definitely been an 'insider, keep-the-public-out' process,'' said Rachel Leon, the executive director of Common Cause New York, which has released a study showing that election machine vendors have paid $497,368 since 2002 to lobby state lawmakers.

"It has definitely been in a back room,'' Ms. Leon added. "And this is how most people participate in democracy, by voting, and these decisions should be made in the sunlight and with a lot of rigorous debate, and we've had the opposite.''

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