By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
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First published: Tuesday, February 28, 2006
ALBANY -- The state Monday was working feverishly to avert a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice over failure to comply with voting rights laws, spurring the Board of Elections to consider setting up temporary ways for disabled voters to cast ballots.
"Making sure everybody has the ability to vote is more important than technical compliance," said Douglas Kellner, the board's co-chairman.One fourth of the board's staff, he said, has been tied up for a week trying to work out an agreement with the Justice Department, which has threatened to sue the state for being far behind in meeting Help America Vote Act deadlines. A DOJ spokesman did not return a call Monday. A spokesman for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer confirmed talks to resolve the matter are ongoing.
Kellner said the board doesn't know when the state will meet HAVA requirements to set up a statewide, computerized voter registration list and replace its old lever voting machines with new ones that disabled people can use.
An alternative under discussion, he said, includes expediting certification of machines that allow people with disabilities to fill out ballots, while having other voters use lever machines in 2006. The systems include a telephone system that would fill in the votes called in by a disabled person.
The board would also set up an "interim" centralized voter registration list that would honor HAVA's terms while a final, more thorough system is devised.
Board commissioners are still working on regulations for machines that would replace the old lever equipment, and for the registration list. Commissioner Robert Brehm and others said it is better to do it right than to have to redo everything just to meet an "arbitrary" federal deadline. Counties and machine manufacturers are awaiting the board's decisions.
The state is receiving $220 million to set up new systems by September, the date of the primaries for federal elections.
"We're committed to doing it once and doing it correctly, going beyond the federal standards, so they're not outdated when they're certified," said Brehm, formerly a Democratic Schenectady County Board of Elections commissioner. The federal government, he said, wasn't penalized when it missed its own deadlines for setting up HAVA requirements.
Kellner, a Democrat who worked as a New York City elections commissioner, added that some states moved too quickly and have certified equipment already out of date. Also, several states, he said, are trying to adopt the New York standards, which go well beyond HAVA's requirements for a voter-verifiable paper trail.
In January, the Justice Department warned Spitzer that a lawsuit could be lodged against the state but said it would try to negotiate a consent decree.
Kellner said, "If we were to go to court, we would be arguing that the federal government itself delayed HAVA."
The Justice Department can't pull funding from the state because that is not within its jurisdiction, Brehm said.
Over the objections of a reporter, the commission met behind closed doors to discuss its proposed consent deal, arguing private sessions are allowed to discuss litigation and that the Justice Department specifically requested all negotiations be secret.
Kellner promised terms of any deal would be made public for a week before he would vote on a consent agreement.
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