Suffolk Sues State Over Voting Machine Guidelines

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy (left), Suffolk County Legislature's Majority Leader Jon Cooper (right), and Nassau County Legislator Lisanne Altmann (center), at the press conference announcing Suffolk’s lawsuit.

With Long Island legislators at his side, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy today announced that the county will file suit against the New York State Board of Elections to keep Suffolk from having to comply with a board mandate that he says is costly and unnecessary. Mr. Levy disagrees with the board that federal and state law requires counties to purchase updated voting machines by September 2007, declaring that his interpretation of the guidelines is different.

The board interprets the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to mean that counties not only have to eliminate punch card voting systems, but also have to replace lever machines. Mr. Levy maintains that the guidelines allow for the continuation of lever machines by counties that act by September 1st, 2007.

The lawsuit will be filed today in State Supreme Court today. The county is seeking a declaratory judgment from the court to determine if the county has the right to retain its lever machines. The county is also challenging the State Board of Election's interpretation on constitutional grounds, claiming that a requirement to switch to the new voting equipment does not guarantee security for voters and can intimidate those unfamiliar with electronic equipment into not voting.

Present at the press conference to show their support for the County Executive’s position was Suffolk County Legislative Majority Leader Jon Cooper (D-Huntington) and Nassau County Legislator Lisanne Altmann (D-Great Neck), who reportedly plans to propose a similar suit to Nassau legislators.

"The tried and tested lever system has proven to be reliable, and I do not agree with a state mandate that we spend millions of dollars on equipment which may be confusing, or more importantly, vulnerable to tampering and fraud," Mr. Levy said. "In my twenty years of public life, I can not recall an election where complaints centered on problems with the lever machines. We in Suffolk County should not be inconvenienced or forced to spend millions of our precious taxpayer dollars because counties in Florida had troubles with hanging chads."

The County Executive also pointed to a report released in September by a Princeton University computer science professor and two Ph.D. students that apparently demonstrated various ways in which the nation's most widely-used electronic voting machine – the Diebold AccuVote-TS – can be rigged to alter voting results in a variety of ways (such as infecting it with a virus), many of which take less than a minute and are extremely difficult to detect.

"It's clear that the public supports the continued use of lever machines, which have proven reliable for many decades," said Legislator Cooper. "The New York State law is misguided and, luckily for Suffolk voters, poorly drafted. I am confident that, by the end of the day, common sense will prevail."

"Nassau County residents shouldn't have to pay for expensive new machines when everyone agrees that the old ones work just fine," Legislator Altman said.

Mr. Levy said that it is uncertain how much of the cost of the alterations would be reimbursed by promised aid from the federal government. He also said that it is costly to store electronic machines in a climate-controlled environment and to teach voters and poll inspectors – particularly older ones – working the elections how to use them.

"The estimated cost for new equipment in Suffolk County is at least $14 million, and it has yet to be determined what percentage of our capital costs will be reimbursed," he said. "Additionally, it will cost us at least $1 million for a climate controlled warehouse needed for the electronic equipment, and there will also be extensive training and maintenance costs."

"As the old saying goes, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', and I believe I speak for the majority of Suffolk residents who feel that our present system is not broken," Levy said.