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Star-Gazette.com Editorial

Vote of no confidence

N.Y.'s reluctance to certify new machines can minimize future election problems.

December 20, 2006

Just when New Yorkers thought they had pulled those old voting-machine levers for the last time, now they find out the old clunkers might have an extended life.

The no-decision by the state Board of Elections last week on certifying new voting machines has put New York so far behind schedule that it is probable that the levers will be back for the November 2007 elections. But that's not a bad thing.

The Board of Elections last week and this week has said testing of the machines that would replace the current ones has not been reliable enough to meet state standards. The law authorizing the new machines requires the state to certify them before individual counties can choose which ones they want -- an optical scan that uses marked paper ballots or the touch-screen variety similar to bank ATM machines.

New York is already under the gun to put the new machines into use. The state missed a Jan. 1, 2006, federal deadline, triggering the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene and speed up New York's compliance with the Help America Vote Act -- known by the acronym HAVA. The state Legislature has approved a HAVA compliance bill that calls for the new machines to be in place by Sept. 1, 2007, but that now appears highly unlikely, given state elections officials' doubts about reliability tests of new machines.

New York's lethargy in complying with the act already has put $50 million of the state's nearly $220 million in federal HAVA aid in jeopardy. Officials are going to have to build a strong case with the Justice Department to convince federal officials the state shouldn't be penalized for the snail's pace it kept on voting-machine reform. On top of that, they now must persuade justice officials that New York's displeasure with machine performance is genuine and not a stalling tactic.

The second argument should be easier than the first, because the reliability of these voting machines has been the subject of concern from a number of groups and organizations, including the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The center issued a report this year noting flaws in the reliability of the machines, especially the touch-screens but also the optical scan models. Those same concerns have nagged state Board of Elections officials who told a gathering of county elections commissioners on Monday that the February target to approve the machines for use in the fall 2007 elections is highly doubtful.

The Help America Vote Act followed the chaotic 2000 presidential election count in Florida, when vote totals were challenged and officials spent weeks rechecking ballots for their accuracy. Since then, many states have spent millions on new voting machines, with mixed results. In the November election, for instance, a candidate in Sarasota County, Fla., lost a congressional race by 369 votes and sued for a recount when machines showed that more than 21,000 people didn't vote in the race in that county.

So with the verdict still out on the credibility of these voting machines, New York is right to be skeptical before spending tens of millions of dollars on a new system that could later turn out to be faulty. A little more time to get it right is a good policy for voting changes in New York, and that should make federal officials glad, not mad, when they review the state's progress.