By Alex Costello
Nassau County is to receive 450 of the new machines, and has already received 240. There’s just one problem: of the 240, 85 percent don’t work.
That’s right: 204 out of 240 of the new voting machines malfunctioned in one way or another. But what has caused the malfunctions is a matter of some disagreement.
The reason for the switch to newer voting machines stems back to the 2000 presidential election. After the debacle that was the Florida ballot count, Congress realized changes were needed. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002.
According to the Justice Department Web site, HAVA is intended to improve elections through three key means: creating a new federal agency to serve as a clearinghouse for election administration information, providing funds to states to improve election administration and replace outdated voting systems, and creating minimum standards for states to follow in several key areas of election administration.
Compliance with the various acts of the law was supposed to be met by January 2006, and New York State failed in that respect. The state was sued by the federal government into compliance with the act, which is why they are now purchasing thousands of new voting machines. However, according to Bob Brehm, the deputy director of information for the New York State Board of Elections, New York State did not comply in time because the federal government didn’t hold up their end of the law.
"When the federal government passed the Help America Vote Act, they made several promises that they came short on," said Brehm. The federal government was supposed to make $3.6 billion in aid available, but they did not. "It’s closer to $3.1 billion," Brehm said.
The government was also supposed to have created national standards for new voting machines in time for the first federal election in January of 2006. According to Brehm, the 2005 election standards they passed were not posted in the federal register until January of 2006. "It hardly was in time to create the standards, test the equipment, and roll it out for an election in 2006," he said.
The third thing the government was supposed to do was to create a national standard for voting machine testing laboratories. The first lab was certified in 2007.
"We waited for what we were promised with HAVA and it didn’t come timely," said Brehm. "We had to start doing it ourselves."
Unfortunately, by the time the federal government fell through on their parts, New York State was already in violation of theirs, and was therefore sued into compliance by the government. According to William Biamonte, the Democratic commissioner of the Nassau County Board of Elections, New York State is currently 50th in compliance with HAVA.
Brehm, however, viewed this in a positive light. Citing the myriad of problems other states had by jumping into compliance with HAVA and buying voting machines before there were federal standards, Brehm said, "we like to believe that we’re the first state to do it right rather than the last state to do it wrong."
In 2006 and 2007, Nassau County had 24 handicap-accessible voting machines in place in 12 different polling locations. In contrast, New York City had five machines. This year, the county is putting 450 of the machines in its 400 polling places.
To meet this year’s increased demand, the state contracted Sequoia Voting Systems in April to produce the handicap-accessible machines. And when Nassau County first received their machines, 85 percent of them did not function properly.
John DeGrace, the Republican commissioner of the Nassau County Board of Elections, believes that part of the problem stems from the fact that Sequoia has had to have the machines mass produced in a short amount of time to meet the state’s demand. "Sequoia is producing machines for the entire state except New York City," said DeGrace. "They have to bang out hundreds a day to fulfill their requirements."
"The law of averages would dictate that there are glitches because they produce so many of them," he added.
"This is a very aggressive compliance plan that we are under court order to meet," said Brehm.
The machines are handicap accessible because they have a variety of different data input methods: tactile keyboards, "sniff and puff" apparatuses, and speakers that can read back a ballot that is printed out and then scanned into the machine.
On July 10, a group comprised of representatives from the State and Federal Boards of Election and the vendor, along with independent consultants, met with county representatives to discuss and evaluate the problems. In response to the inspection, Sequoia decided to leave a technician at the county’s facility to go over all of the machines and make sure they are working properly.
According to Brehm, many of the problems have been traced back to user error, a notion with which DeGrace agrees. "Some of the issues that we have seen are the delivery of equipment before local training had been completed by the vendor," said Brehm. "It’s difficult to know all of the features and how to work around them and through them without the full amount of training before they’re delivered."
As for the paper jams, Brehm attributed those problems to using the wrong type of paper. "I’m not sure where they got the paper from, but that was one of the items," he said. Brehm said that the county was using cover stock paper, which is thicker than the regular stock the machines were meant to use.
Biamonte, however, disagrees with the group’s results. "We had major problems with paper jams, broken monitors, LCDs that weren’t working, busted wheels, and misaligned verifications that create security issues," he said. "How does that come back to training? It is an absurd, obnoxious report."
Biamonte also disagreed with the state’s assessment that the wrong paper was being used. "That’s ridiculous," he said. "The paper we got was from Phoenix Graphics, which was the vendor the state told us to use. So, if that’s the case, the state is telling us to use the wrong vendor." Brehm responded that even though that’s a vendor supplied by the state, it’s up to the individual counties to order the paper.
Brehm also believes that another reason the county may have rejected so many machines was because of aesthetic reasons. The state does what is called "acceptance testing" on the machines. They test every machine to make sure it is the same as the ones that they agreed to order and make sure it works properly. If it passes the acceptance testing, it is packed up and shipped out to the various counties. Damage on the outside of the machine is not necessarily a reason to fail an acceptance test, so long as it does not affect the machine’s ability to work properly.
When the counties receive and inspect them, they can choose to reject the machines if they feel they are too damaged on the outside, something that might have occurred during shipping. "Some were unacceptable dings from the county’s perspective," said Brehm. "Probably ‘ding’ is too light of a word, but there’s a whole list of things so it’s hard for me to sum them all up.
"Anything that’s kind of a cosmetic, that doesn’t affect the functionality of the machine, would be a county issue to take up with the vendor...The county is certainly well within their rights because they paying $12,000 for it," he added.
Sequoia would not comment on why the county was having so many problems with the machines. "Sequoia Voting Systems is working with the State of New York to identify and resolve any voting equipment concerns they may have," said Michelle Schafer, vice president of communications and external affairs for Sequoia, in the company’s official statement. "We met with representatives from the State of New York and Nassau County [on July 10] for a productive session and we are working cooperatively with them to address any product issues."
Everyone involved believes that the machines should be repaired or replaced by the time of the presidential election in November. However, if they’re not, the state could he held liable for the lack of accessible voting by the federal government. "If this is across the state, the Justice Department could then say you’re noncompliant with our consent agreement," said Biamonte. He did stress, however, that for this year, the lever voting machines would still be used, so citizens will still be able to vote in elections as they normally do.
However, the main problem is, at least for Biamonte, that the machines were defective to begin with. The county should have received functional machines, especially with a $12,000 price tag on each one. "The state certified the machines," he said. "That’s the real kick in the rear, you know? They certified the machines, sent them to us, and they’re not working."
