Residents get peek at New Age voting machines
BY MARY PERHAM THE LEADER

PHOTO BY ROB PRICE A Steuben County resident receives a demonstration in how to use an electronic voting machine at the Steuben County Civil Defense Building last week. The demo attracted hundreds of area residents.

BATH - Hundreds of voters crowded into the Civil Defense Building in Bath Wednesday to find out how they could be voting next year.

Representatives from companies named Liberty, Avante and ES&S demonstrated their wares, including touch screen electronic systems, optical scanners and machines for voters with disabilities.

A new voting system is mandated by the federal Help America Vote Act after miscounted votes in Florida disrupted the 2000 presidential election.

However, a number of participants Wednesday saw no reason to change the old lever machine used in New York for 80 years.

"I'm just frustrated by the whole thing," said Marcia Burns, Bath town clerk. "We don't need to spend the money when it's gone so well for so long. We've had no problems."

The systems on view in Bath are among the machines being considered for certification by the state Board of Elections, expected to complete testing in a few weeks. Once the machines are approved by the state, they must be in use by November 2007.

Currently, the machines for Steuben County will cost more than $600,000, with the federal government paying 95 percent of the cost.

County legislators recently appropriated $34,000 in case the state does not come up with its share of the cost.

Implementing voting reform in New York has been difficult since the beginning, with delays in state legislation, lawsuits and ongoing concerns the new machines can be tampered with.

Monday, Chicago residents learned the city Board of Elections database had been hacked into, by a nonpartisan Illinois Ballot Integrity Project. The group claimed they could have confused voters by logging into the database and making significant changes.

The apparent unreliability of some systems was on many voters minds at the demonstration Wednesday with Legislator Patrick McAllister, R-Wayland, asking a Liberty representative if the machines are secure.

"Anything that is made by man can be destroyed by man," said Michael Caruso, a Liberty salesman.

But Caruso said Liberty machines can only be programmed by the county election officials, with database inserts that can not be switched between machines.

The voting machines are not connected to phones or computers, also reducing the likelihood of tampering, he said.

Voters also got a look at an optical scanner, which reads a paper ballot filled in by a voter and fed through a scanner to record the votes.