http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=842187&category=REGION
New voting machines needed a little TLC in Tuesday's
primaries
By LAUREN STANFORTH,
Staff writer
First published: Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Eight poll workers huddled around Albany County Board of
Elections technician Joshua Rutnick as he fixed a brand-new electronic voting
machine that made its debut at the First United Methodist Church in Delmar for
Tuesday's primary.
The polls had been open for 25 minutes, and already two
voters at the church had to cast their paper ballots without feeding them into
the optical scan machine, which tallies the votes. The poll workers peppered
Rutnick with questions about the problem. It turned out to involve a glitch in
the machine's software that was supposed to have been fixed already by the
state and the machine's manufacturer.
"One thing at a time," Rutnick patiently told the
group.
The machine flap, which also popped up at a locations in
Bethlehem and Colonie, was quickly remedied by election technicians and would
not affect the official results, county officials said. Getting kinks out like
this one is what pilot programs are for, said Rutnick.
Most counties chose to conduct the pilot programs to test
out the new optical scan systems, which will be required for all elections in
New York in 2010. Albany used it at 15 sites Tuesday while Schenectady and
Saratoga counties each had them at three polling places. The machines will be
back again at the same sites for November's general election. Rensselaer,
Columbia, Warren and Washington counties opted out of this election season's
trial run.
The machines require voters to mark a paper ballot, which is
then fed into a computer that scans the vote and tallies the results. The paper
ballot drops down into a secure box.
New York is the last state to banish the lever-action
machine.
Kathleen Kalmer, 46, of Slingerlands, who voted at the
Delmar church, found the new way of voting familiar and easy.
"It's just like high school and all those tests you
have to take," she said.
At the Westmere Fire Department in Guilderland, voter Herb
Brown, 73, said he found the optical scanners more secure than the old lever
machines because a paper ballot exists with his vote on it.
"It scanned exactly the way I wanted it to," Brown
said. "No hanky-panky."
Poll workers at the Westmere site, however, had to face a
question about the new system early on. A voter marked too many candidates, the
machine let him know it, and so he needed a new ballot. The county requires the
incorrect ballot be kept to make sure it is not counted. But the man refused to
give it up and walked out the door with it. Unbeknownst to the poll workers
there, a new blank ballot may not be issued until the voter gives back the
mis-marked one.
In Schenectady County, the Princetown Town Hall site had a
machine flub when two ballots jammed and didn't drop down into the box on the
machine. The county had a technician on-site all day to address the issue,
which required pulling a roller down inside the machine.
Local boards of elections specifically chose
lesser-trafficked locations to break in the new voting systems gently. For
example, the machines were not tested in the city of Albany for the mayoral
primary.
At Princetown Town Hall, seven people out of 32 possible
voters had shown up at the polls by 4 p.m.
"It'll be interesting when we have a crowd," poll
worker Ann-Marie Gray said about the new machine.
Lauren Stanforth can be reached at 454-5697 or lstanforth@timesunion.com.