New York has spent millions of federal dollars on the new ballot marking machines for the disabled to comply with federal laws. But a week before primary state elections, many have watched machines fail to turn on, freeze up, or automatically store paper ballots in metal containers vulnerable to tampering.
Ballot marking devices are most often used with paper ballot optical scan voting systems, and are equipped with various functions and capacities, such as audio recordings of the ballot, large font displays and voice activated technology.
Nassau County machines had various problems, including faulty monitors, diagnostic systems and batteries. Some machines also had a large gap between where the ballot was marked and the metal box it was dropped in, said William Biamonte, the Democratic commissioner of the Nassau County Board of Elections.
"Someone could actually stuff the ballot box - which is a problem," he said. "If the machine says 10 people voted and we open it up and there's 20 ballots, how do we know which are the real ballots?"
Bob Brehm, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections, said the vendors have been responding to the counties' problems - sealing off gaps in ballot boxes, resolving technical issues and training workers to handle the machines.
"We are ready to roll them out in every polling place around the state," Brehm said.
Disability and voting rights advocates and other county election officials are still worried, even though many machines have been repaired. For the fall 2008 elections - the Sept. 9 primary and general presidential runoffs - New York must have at least one new ballot marker in each polling place that can accommodate the disabled.
It's a requirement of the Help America Vote Act. New York is years behind federal deadlines to conform with the act, enacted to improve voting accuracy and access for the disabled after the contested 2000 presidential election. By the fall of 2009, New York must replace every old-fashioned pull lever voting machine in the state with new HAVA compliant machines.
One machine is an optical scan model made by Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. of California. Voters mark their ballots by filling in "bubbles," similar in appearance to standardized tests. In the fall elections, those ballots would likely be counted by hand - scanners will be added next year. Election Systems & Software Inc., of Nebraska, created an "auto marker" machine that creates paper ballots complete with a record of voters' choices.
Biamonte said only about five of Nassau County's approximately 240 machines for the disabled - at a cost of about $12,000 each - aren't working. But he's still nervous. Of the first 44 machines sent to Nassau County in May, four were rejected for failure and 23 had "significant problems." Some of those problems were paper jams, which were resolved when a different type of paper ballot was used.
New York, with 3 million people living with disabilities, has millions of dollars set aside to place at least one disabled-access machine at some 6,500 polling places. The old requirement was one per county.
New York received about $220 million in federal HAVA money, according to a report from the Election Assistance Commission. By the end of 2007, the state has spent just over $16 million.
Sue Fries, a Democratic Commissioner from the Cattaraugus County Board of Elections said after a few repairs, most of her machines are in working order. The only problem is that some parts haven't showed up yet, including foot pedals for marking ballots and screens that offer disabled voters privacy.
Washington County also had problems with getting machines to work properly. It ordered 43, but at this point only 35 work, the minimum the county needs.
"We have to have a backup in case something goes wrong, and at this point, we don't have any," said Donna English, a Republican election commissioner for the county.
---
