COOPERSTOWN — Residents of Otsego County and much of the state will be using the same mechanical voting machines this year that they have used for decades.
The state’s counties may buy electronic election machines this year, but before they can be used, technicians have to be trained to set them up and maintain them.
According to Sheila Ross, Otsego’s Republican deputy elections commissioner, not enough time remains before the November 2006 election to buy machines, train technicians and educate the public on how to use the equipment.
"We may have the new machines, but we won’t be using them," Ross said at Tuesday’s meeting of the county’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.
Charlotte Koniuto, the county’s Republican elections commissioner, agreed.
The change in election hardware is pending as the state tries to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.
Intended originally to remedy ballot problems in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, the act also mandates that voting equipment be handicapped-accessible.
Most states have complied with HAVA, but New York is moving more slowly.
The state Legislature decided last summer that new voting machines must display a full-faced ballot, allowing a voter to see all candidates for all offices on one page, and this has presented challenges to some vendors, who have had to build large machines specifically for the state.
Before counties can select machines, the state must test them and certify that they meet New York’s standards. And before the state can test machines, it must have rules for the testing. A second draft of proposed voting regulations was reviewed Tuesday by the state Board of Elections and posted on the BOE’s website.
According to Robert Brehm, a BOE spokesman, the public may review these proposed regulations and comment on them until Feb. 24.
After the rules are adopted, the state can test and certify machines.
Brehm said that some election districts in the state will comply with federal standards by Election Day, and some likely will not. Months ago, state officials intended to have equipment up and running by the September primary. Now the state has the more modest goal of having some handicapped-accessible equipment at every polling station by September, he said.
The federal government has provided New York money for the initial purchase of new machines and the federal Justice Department has been meeting with state officials to try to speed up the conversion process in New York. Otsego County is in line to receive about $623,000; Delaware County, $531,000; Chenango County, $511,000; and Schoharie County, $305,000.
Which kind of machines local counties will buy is still not determined. Koniuto and Ross said they prefer the direct recording electronic machines (DREs) that are being built specifically for New York. These machines are easier to use than their main competition, optical scanners, they said.
A contingent of local residents, including Paddy Lane and David Grodsky of Morris, who also attended the IGA meeting, say that DREs are unreliable. Optical scanners are preferable because voters mark the ballots themselves, which are scanned, and can be recounted later if necessary, Lane said.
Hank Nicols, the county’s Democratic elections commissioner, said he hasn’t made up his mind yet which type of machine is better.
"I want to see what the choices are when everything is certified," he said.
Nicols added that his foremost concerns are that the machines count accurately and that people trust them.