PRESS
RELEASE
(August
9, 2006)
TO:
ALL MEDIA
Contact: Edward J. Szczesniak/Helen M. Kiggins
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Commissioners
435-3312
Special
Voting Machine
The
Onondaga County Board of Elections announced that the AVM lever
voting machines will still be used for both the September 12 th
Primary and the November 7 th General Elections this year. Commissioners
Ed Szczesniak and Helen Kiggins said “All voters can use these
lever voting machines just as they have for the past 50 years. Those
using absentee ballots can continue to vote on the paper ballots”.
However,
there will be one new voting machine – the Avante – located only
at the County Board of Elections in the Civic Center in downtown
Syracuse . This machine will be used as a ballot marking device
only for the two elections this year for the disabled, especially
the visually impaired. Next year, there will be a different, permanent
lever machine replacement for all voters, to include all disabled
voters, at each election district at every polling place throughout
Onondaga County .
Some
disability advocacy groups do not believe that this Avante ballot
marking device is accessible to the disabled. They are encouraging
disabled voters not to use this special voting machine this year.
Instead, they recommend disabled voters continue to vote at their
polling place on the lever machines or by absentee ballot this year
and next year, vote on the new voting equipment at their normal
polling place.
The
County Board of Elections has noted that any disabled person that
intends to use the Avante ballot marking device and does not have
access to transportation to get to the Civic Center should advise
the County Board of Elections (315)
435-3312 at least one week before each Election Day this year. The
Board of Elections will assist in identifying sources of transportation.
They also plan to place a listing of available transportation sources
on their web site at www.ongov.net
.
PRESS
RELEASE
(October
8, 2005)
TO:
ALL MEDIA
Contact: Edward J. Szczesniak/Helen M. Kiggins
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Commissioners
435-3312
Search for a Replacement Voting System
The United States Congress passed the Help America
Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to modernize the administration of federal
elections. Federal funds have been provided for the first time to
purchase new voting systems, as long as these systems comply with
the Act. HAVA established the US Election Assistance Commission
(EAC) to administer the federal funding and to provide guidance
to the States in their efforts to comply with HAVA administrative
requirements. In addition to being in compliance with HAVA, the
new voting system must meet the needs of all our voters and follow
the EAC Voluntary Voting System Guidelines as well as New York State
Election laws. Given these requirements, we have concluded that
the only type of voting system that we can select for the voters
in Onondaga County is a Direct Recording Electronic (Electronic)
system.
Between us, we have over 40 years of election
administration experience in Onondaga County and, as County Commissioners
of Election, we have the responsibility to select a voting system
to replace our lever voting machines. For over 3 years we have been
reviewing the new HAVA requirements with fellow election administrators,
public officials as well as advocacy groups such as the League of
Women Voters and disabled advocates at the national, state, and
local levels.
HAVA and New York State legislation adopted
several guidelines that impact on choosing a voting system. Voting
is a 2-step process – mark your ballot, then
cast your ballot. HAVA established a new requirement
that all voters, especially persons with disabilities,
are to have a similar voting experience, namely an opportunity to
mark and cast their ballot in
private and independently. This
is the key new ingredient that dictates whether
a specific voting system is in compliance with HAVA. New York State
laws further limit the available choices of voting equipment. New
York set a standard for voting systems that requires a full
face ballot, certification of the system at the federal
and state levels, a voter verifiable paper
audit trail and states that the paper
from the audit trail in a court ordered recanvass
of votes is the ballot.
Since there were voting systems standards passed
by the Federal Election Commission prior to HAVA passage, the Election
Assistance Commission put out an advisory to states and county election
jurisdictions to explain how to determine if a voting system is
compliant with HAVA. The advisory noted that compliance “must
take into account the disability of the voter, the advancement of
technology and its accessibility, and the efforts of the election
officials to make the voting process accessible to disabled voters
in a private and independent manner”. It went on to say that
while future technological innovation may produce other voting systems
with the same capacity of an electronic voting system, the only
current fully HAVA compliant disabled accessible voting
system is Electronic. In addition, electronic voting technology
is tested and proven in 3 New York State counties as well as throughout
the country and will only come certified with HAVA mandated disabled
accessibility features.
Ideally every voter would be able to vote independently
and privately. As a practical matter, there may be a small number
of voters whose disabilities are such that they will need personal
assistance. Nonetheless, the requirements of HAVA section 301(a)(3)
are meant to make the voting system directly accessible to as many
voters as possible.
There is also a requirement that any voting system
that we purchase must first be certified at the federal and state
levels as to its capacity to do what the vendor says it can do without
concerns as to its reliability, usability, security and accessibility.
It is this certification process that should give us the comfort
level that this voting system will routinely perform as advertised.
Ultimately, the objectives of the security standards
for voting systems are:
• To
establish and maintain controls that can ensure that accidents,
inadvertent mistakes,
and errors are minimized,
• To protect the system from intentional manipulation
and fraud, and from malicious mischief,
• To identify fraudulent or erroneous changes to the
system and
• To protect secrecy in the voting process.
It is clear to us that any current paper
based voting system alone does not achieve the
HAVA mandate particularly as it refers to persons with disabilities
such as the visually impaired. The issue with the Optical Scan voting
system and why it is not compliant is that, after a visually impaired
voter independently and in private marks his ballot
on a separate voting machine such as the AutoMark, they are not
provided the opportunity to independently and in private place that
ballot in a security sleeve and cast that ballot
in an optical scan voting machine. This is where the optical scan
system breaks down. Optical Scan, like the lever machines, are not
HAVA compliant because they are not accessible to the disabled.
A ballot-marking device such as AutoMark does NOT, in itself, make
the voting system accessible to disabled voters, particularly for
the visually impaired. AutoMark, in conjunction with an optical
scan machine, has a casting the ballot problem.
While an Optical Scan voting system can work for most voters, we
would also need to have an Electronic system in each polling place
to accommodate voters with certain disabilities. Since we are purchasing
a totally new voting system, and since we have 300 polling places
for 455 election districts, it would be extremely costly
and unnecessary to implement a blended Electronic/Optical Scan system.
An Electronic voting system for each election district is the most
cost efficient and effective voting system replacement.
Even if the Optical Scan was HAVA compliant, our budget analysis
reveals that both initial costs to purchase and the annual printing
costs are higher for the Optical Scan system compared to the Electronic
system. Optical Scan advocates state that Electronics are expensive
to operate, can only be maintained by the vendor and are prone to
errors and hacking. But the three counties in New York that have
used Electronics for over 10 years have found them to be inexpensive
to operate and maintain. The Electronic machines will be maintained
and programmed by a bi-partisan team of Board of Elections employees
with proper training and will be kept in a secure location. The
Electronics are stand-alone machines. To cause the system to break
down, a person would need to tamper with each voting machine.
While no system is absolutely perfect, both Electronic and Optical
Scan voting systems are good systems. Problems attributed to these
voting machines are usually due to errors by the people setting
them up or using them. Effective security, training and accountability
of election workers make the difference in the successful operation
of any voting system. Once we have approval on a voting system that
insures compliance with all election mandates, we can develop appropriate
management policies and procedures with an emphasis on maintaining
our voting system's usability,
security and accessibility to all voters.
Edward J. Szczesniak
Helen M. Kiggins
Commissioners of Elections
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