http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=STATE&storyID=430852&BCCode=&newsdate=12/17/2005
Testimony at state hearing finds voter-rights advocates
leery of ATM-style machines for elections
By NICK REISMAN, Gannett News Service
December 17, 2005
ALBANY -- Voter-rights advocates criticized proposed changes
in elections regulations on Friday, saying that they cater to private companies
and ignore the public's needs.
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Most who testified at a state hearing said New York should
choose an "optical scan" voting machine system in which voters pencil
in ovals to select choices, much like a standardized school test, then feed
their ballots into a scanner. It's cheaper and more reliable than ATM-style
machines, they said.
Also, critics charged that electronic voting machines don't
provide a "paper trail" to verify votes and could be tampered with.
"It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the
counting," William Sell, a Public Employees Federation representative
said. "Government cannot allow the outsourcing of our votes to private
corporations."
The comments came as part of a public comment period on rule
changes mandated by the Help America Vote Act, a federal law requiring states
to update election laws and voting machines. Lever-style machines are being
phased out because they aren't sufficiently accessible to the handicapped.
Critics have charged that the state Board of Elections is
trying to rush through the review process to purchase ATM-style machines that
can't be trusted to accurately register votes.
Aimee Allaud of the League of Women Voters said the new
regulations, published by the board last month, had a distinct bias in favor of
the computerized machines. She said that the rules place more scrutiny on
paper-based ballots and too much trust in a computer, since the computer
program's source code isn't made public.
Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian said that the
source code is in escrow and available for system maintenance.
The board has refused to mandate that companies offer
optical-scan machines, saying it doesn't want to tell them what to do.
Activists fear manufacturers will put forward only a more expensive electronic
option.
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Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.
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