New York's already laggard efforts to catch up with federal voting laws may be further delayed by lawsuits filed against the state Board of Elections.
Years behind on multiple deadlines to ensure the accuracy of voting, the board told local election officials last week they could choose between three machines to ensure voting access for the disabled, a requirement of the federal Help America Vote Act.
But board officials soon after cut the choice to a single machine, which led to one of two lawsuits from voting machine makers that could interfere with a court-ordered Feb. 8 deadline, when election officials must order new machines.
The lawsuits and board actions could mean disabled voters won't get to use new machines in time for the presidential election this fall.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state in 2006 for failing to meet the terms of the HAVA and U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe approved a rigid timeline last month for the state to come into compliance. He said if one deadline is missed, he would consider appointing a special master to take charge of the process.
It may be "premature" to worry about missing deadlines, board spokesman Lee Daghlian said Monday. But he added that it was possible the companies filing suit could ask for an order to stop the counties from ordering machines.
"If we get stopped by an order, we get stopped," he said. "Then we have to work it out with the Justice Department."
The state is years behind in complying with the HAVA, which was enacted after the contested 2000 presidential election to ensure voting accuracy and access for the disabled.
"There's been frustration all along with this process from day one," Daghlian said. "So, it's nothing new to us. We've had to change dates before because of certain things the vendors didn't do, or testers didn't do, so there's certain things that take us off our timeline that are out of our control."
While the board initially selected three machines for county officials to consider, officials couldn't decide whether two of those machines met state standards for providing a "full-face" ballot _ showing all of the candidates and choices on one sheet _ and eliminated Premier Election Solutions and Election Systems & Software Inc. from the field.
Without those devices, disabled voters around the state will all use the same type of machine to cast their ballots in the fall presidential elections.
The last remaining 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, but the machines are also designed to scan and count the results while maintaining a paper record in a lockbox.
Texas-based Premier, previously Diebold Election Systems, Inc., and ES&S, of Nebraska, each submitted similar Automark Technical Systems machines _ a ballot marker that the companies sought to use with their own scanners to read the ballots.
Premier is suing the board in state Supreme Court, arguing that the company should be one of the counties' choices.
The exclusion is "capricious and unwarranted," Premier spokesman Chris Riggall said.
ES&S was "shocked" by the board's decision and hasn't decided whether to file a suit, spokesman Ken Fields said Monday.
In a written statement, the company said the board's "arbitrary and baseless decision is not in the best interests of New York or its voters _ including those with disabilities ... Because of the importance of this decision, we are willing to go to court to ensure that this matter is resolved fairly and quickly."
Liberty Election Systems is also suing the state over the board's decision not to include the company among the initial three options.
"They said that we don't have a full-face ballot, which obviously isn't the case," said Robert Witko, president of Liberty.
He also said the touch screen machine they submitted was accessible to the blind _ an issue that some voting and disabled advocates consider critical.
The state faces additional deadlines from Sharpe, including replacement of all pull-lever machines by the fall 2009 elections.
Source: newsday.com
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