The federal Department of Justice is threatening to sue New York over delays in bringing new voting machines to the state and complying with other requirements of the Help America Vote Act, officials said Thursday.
William Buccheri, Delaware County Democratic election commissioner, said New York is so far behind in meeting the federal requirements that he doesn’t think the new machines will be in place by the September primary election.
"We are still waiting to hear which machines the state has certified," Buccheri said Thursday. "I have a feeling we are going to be using the old lever-action voting machines this year."
The HAVA legislation was adopted by Congress after the vote-counting problems in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. The legislation requires states to modernize voting systems and provides funding for new voting machines.
In a letter received Tuesday, New York officials were told by Wan Kim, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, that the state was lagging behind every other state in complying with the HAVA requirements.
"The only advantage of being last is that maybe we can learn from problems the other states have encountered," Buccheri said. "But I wish we had been able to move faster on this."
Lee Daghlian, the spokesman for the state Board of Elections, said New York may not have new voting machines in place and workers trained to operate them in time for the September primaries or the November elections, according to an Associated Press story.
Chris Zachmeyer, Catskill Center for Independence executive director, said, "I’m very disappointed that it has come to this, although I’m not surprised. But I’m hopeful that the state and the feds don’t lose track of the fact that much of HAVA was intended to provide access to voting for people with disabilities."
Zachmeyer said New York has a "quirky little law" that all voting machines must conform to a full-face ballot — in which everything must appear on one page.
"It’s difficult to come up with a machine that provides full access for people with vision disabilities and still meets the full-face ballot requirement," Zachmeyer said.
Zachmeyer said other disabilities that must be addressed include reach ranges for people in wheelchairs, dexterity problems that limit a person’s ability to manipulate keys and buttons, and cognitive issues that make some ballots difficult to read.
Until voting-machine standards are adopted by the state election board, new machines can’t be certified for sale in New York, and counties can’t begin to negotiate purchases with manufacturers.
Sheila Ross, Otsego County Republican deputy election commissioner, said the New York State Election Commissioners Association is holding a conference in Cooperstown next week and several voting machines will be on display.
"I hope we know a whole lot more after the conference," Ross said. "We are waiting to see the machines, but this has been hard because everything is up in the air."
Ross said she is very concerned about the timeline because the new machines will require a lot of training and voter education.
In addition to not having voting-machine standards adopted, New York has failed to compile a statewide computerized list of registered voters, Kim said.
"We are hopeful that we will be able to resolve this matter through a negotiated consent decree rather than through costly and protracted litigation ... (but) we are prepared to file a complaint if the matter is not resolved expeditiously," Kim said in the letter sent to the state Board of Elections and state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said state officials should consider asking for a federal waiver that would allow them to delay the use of new machines until the 2007 election. Horner said rushing decisions might lead to the purchasing of machines that might not be as good as they should be.
Thus far, New York has received $220 million in federal funds to help comply with HAVA requirements.
Patricia Breakey can be reached at 746-2894 or at stardelhi@stny.rr.com.