County pulling voting machine debate in opposite directions
NORWICH – Chenango County appeared to be pulling in opposite directions Monday with lawmakers adopting a resolution to stay with the old-fashioned, lever-operated voting machines and the elections office agreeing to participate in a pilot test of the new, optical scanner system.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard B. Decker, R-North Norwich, who personally offered the resolution before the board, said he didn’t know the Chenango County Board of Elections had agreed to the pilot.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said yesterday. “We should have said, ‘No.’ We don’t want to be guinea pigs.”
Decker’s resolution comes on the coattails of similar moves made recently in Sullivan, Columbia, Dutchess, Essex, Greene, Rensselaer, Schuyler, Ulster, Warren and Washington counties. The Association of Towns of the State of New York has passed a similar measure rejecting the new machines.
Decker said he receives approximately three calls a week from a constituent who asks him to stay with the lever machines. The chairman’s resolution, which was adopted by the full board yesterday, states the cost to taxpayers for the new machines will be “insurmountable and severely strain and possibly break the budgets of all counties in this time of economic crises.”
Elections expenses have increased from $150,000 a year in 2004/2005 to $460,000 last year in order to meet federal Help America Vote Act statutes. HAVA aims to make voting easier for the handicapped.
The supervisors from the towns of Pharsalia and Preston said they wished Chenango County hadn’t agreed to purchase the Dominion brand machine in the first place. What’s more, New York State has yet to certify it. A state elections department official said yesterday that testing is scheduled to be completed in December.
Chenango, Broome, Cortland, and Delaware counties are among the 18 New York counties this year that will switch completely to the Dominion. There will not be any lever machines in those places.
Decker also questioned how much money the county would be charged to run the pilot on the new voting systems. “You all know how much pilots can end up costing us,” he said.
The Board of Elections was quick to clarify their side of the controversy in a press release distributed to The Evening Sun later in the afternoon. Chenango County Board of Elections Republican Commissioner Harriet Jenkins said her department had budgeted for the pilot for the past two years, and there will be no additional cost to participate.
Jenkins said she was not informed of Decker’s intent to propose the resolution, and said she and Democratic Commissioner Carol Franklin had planned to inform lawmakers of the pilot at a committee meeting this month.
“They didn’t know we were in the pilot program because it happened in between us going to committee last month and going next week. We wanted to have all of our facts together. We figured since we have the machines here, why not? We are going to have to use them sometime down the line. Why wait?” she said.
Chenango County would be one of 45 counties participating in a test of the Dominion machine during the primaries in September. Voters will mark a paper ballot, which is then fed into the scanning device.
The machine will be on display at the Chenango County Fair in August with voters participating in a mock election.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard B. Decker, R-North Norwich, who personally offered the resolution before the board, said he didn’t know the Chenango County Board of Elections had agreed to the pilot.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he said yesterday. “We should have said, ‘No.’ We don’t want to be guinea pigs.”
Decker’s resolution comes on the coattails of similar moves made recently in Sullivan, Columbia, Dutchess, Essex, Greene, Rensselaer, Schuyler, Ulster, Warren and Washington counties. The Association of Towns of the State of New York has passed a similar measure rejecting the new machines.
Decker said he receives approximately three calls a week from a constituent who asks him to stay with the lever machines. The chairman’s resolution, which was adopted by the full board yesterday, states the cost to taxpayers for the new machines will be “insurmountable and severely strain and possibly break the budgets of all counties in this time of economic crises.”
Elections expenses have increased from $150,000 a year in 2004/2005 to $460,000 last year in order to meet federal Help America Vote Act statutes. HAVA aims to make voting easier for the handicapped.
The supervisors from the towns of Pharsalia and Preston said they wished Chenango County hadn’t agreed to purchase the Dominion brand machine in the first place. What’s more, New York State has yet to certify it. A state elections department official said yesterday that testing is scheduled to be completed in December.
Chenango, Broome, Cortland, and Delaware counties are among the 18 New York counties this year that will switch completely to the Dominion. There will not be any lever machines in those places.
Decker also questioned how much money the county would be charged to run the pilot on the new voting systems. “You all know how much pilots can end up costing us,” he said.
The Board of Elections was quick to clarify their side of the controversy in a press release distributed to The Evening Sun later in the afternoon. Chenango County Board of Elections Republican Commissioner Harriet Jenkins said her department had budgeted for the pilot for the past two years, and there will be no additional cost to participate.
Jenkins said she was not informed of Decker’s intent to propose the resolution, and said she and Democratic Commissioner Carol Franklin had planned to inform lawmakers of the pilot at a committee meeting this month.
“They didn’t know we were in the pilot program because it happened in between us going to committee last month and going next week. We wanted to have all of our facts together. We figured since we have the machines here, why not? We are going to have to use them sometime down the line. Why wait?” she said.
Chenango County would be one of 45 counties participating in a test of the Dominion machine during the primaries in September. Voters will mark a paper ballot, which is then fed into the scanning device.
The machine will be on display at the Chenango County Fair in August with voters participating in a mock election.
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