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No gold in sight; N.Y. takes voting spill

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

BARBARA BARTOLETTI

ALBANY

Playing the blame game. It's such much fun to do, especially when there is so much blame to go around. If this wasn't so serious it would be laughable.

I'm talking about voting reform. Because many of us are into the Olympic Games, I thought I would rate how we are doing by using Olympic scoring. Right now New York state is getting a one out of 10, and if this were a downhill ski race we would be dead last, a gold medal definitely not in our future.

Let me bring you up-to-date. Back in 2003 and 2004, when state legislators should have passed legislation to implement federal HAVA - the Help America Vote Act - they did what they are so good at doing. Nothing.

When the political bickering at the joint conference committees finally ended and the legislation passed, it was June 2005 and New York state had the dubious distinction of being the last of the 50 states to begin implementing HAVA.

Fast forward to the present. New York now has another problem: We're in danger of being sued! The U.S. Department of Justice has notified New York's attorney general that we did not meet the Jan. 1, 2006, date for compliance either for the required statewide voter registration database or new voting machine standards.

The Legislature, aware that its inaction might not allow counties to get new machines bought, poll workers trained or voters educated for the September 2006 primary elections, gave the counties a waiver on getting new machines until November 2007. Federal law, however, governs federal elections - including, of course, this year's congressional elections.

The state Attorney General's Office is now in negotiations with the Department of Justice to try to come to a compromise and forestall the state from losing all or some of the federal money that has been allocated to the state for buying the new voting machines - an amount that could be as much as $220 million.

If thefederal government does pull back the HAVA money, the counties will still have to comply with the federal law, but they will have to find the money in their own budgets.

At a state Board of Elections meeting last week, representatives of the Attorney General's Office, the Division of the Budget, a voting machine company and advocacy organizations looked on while the state board put a possible compromise on the table.

Called "Plan B," it calls for one handicapped-accessible new voting machine in each polling site to bring the state into compliance with the disability provision of HAVA. It then allowed for the use of the old lever machines for every other voter to get New York through the 2006 election. Three possible machines for those with disabilities were discussed.

What will federal officials do? Will they throw up their arms like a parent with a continually unruly child and say, "We give up, just go do it, we can't risk disenfranchising 8 million voters with the chaos that might ensue without proper time to put a good database and secure voting machines in place"? Or will they say, "Too little, too late; money gone"?

Barbara Bartoletti is legislative director of the League of Women Voters of New York State. To contribute to "Rethinking Albany," contact state editor Paul Riede at 470-2138 or e-mail him at priede@syracuse.com.