Keep the dinosaurs for one more year

Editorial

New York is under federal court order to replace virtually all of its voting equipment in time for the election next September - and this has all the earmarks of a disaster in the making.

The state Board of Elections and local election panels across New York - including in the city - have just 10 months to decide which electronic voting machines to buy, order them by the thousands (assuming they can be manufactured to the state's unique specs), fix inevitable computer bugs, deploy the gizmos and teach 11 million voters a completely new way to cast ballots.

And making matters worse is that the state board, a collection of incompetents if ever there was one, is falling further and further behind in deciding which of six possible machines can be trusted to operate flawlessly and securely. No one knows the answer right now, and we may not know the answer for some time.

That the coming elections will be primaries for boroughwide races, most involving judges but possibly including a district attorney or two, does not in any way justify using them in effect as the hurried test run for unproven technology. Where democracy is concerned, the rule should be: safe, not sorry.

At this point, prudence clearly dictates sticking for a while longer with the familiar lever-operated dinosaurs while shooting for, at best, a partial introduction of the electronic voting that was mandated by Congress after the debacle of the 2000 presidential election. Realistically, New York will have to crawl back to the U.S. Justice Department for yet one more extension on the deadlines in the Help America Vote Act.

Proceeding with caution becomes all the more important in light of the continuing snafus in states that - unlike New York - complied promptly with HAVA. Florida's Sarasota County, for example, now uses the latest ATM-style computerized voting machines and still had 18,000 votes go missing in one of the country's closest congressional races.

If New York is positioned to avoid such fiascos, it's only through the dumbest of dumb luck. State lawmakers ignored HAVA for so long that the feds moved in, and the state board dawdled even more. Mayor Bloomberg got it right last week when he slammed Albany for bungling, foot-dragging and dereliction of duty.

Let's not now compound all the felonies by screwing up the coming election. Let's introduce the high-tech machines on a manageable scale to try them out in advance of the 2008 presidential contest, when there will be zero room for error.

Open the High Bridge

Spanning the Harlem River is a mid-19th century marvel, a Roman-style aqueduct that brought the city its first reliable fresh water supply and offered spectacular vistas to pedestrians. A tourist attraction when it opened in 1848, the High Bridge, alas, eventually fell victim to changing times and a public that no longer thought to celebrate this architectural gem. It became derelict and forsaken and was closed. And no one thought to mourn. Except this page.

Five years ago, the Daily News began editorializing in favor of rescuing the High Bridge and restoring it both to its former glory and to the people of New York. Which now might happen. On Friday, officials from three city agencies gathered at the bridge to release an engineering report on the steps that must be taken to reopen the walkway that extends from a small park in the Bronx to the large High Bridge recreational complex in Manhattan.

To date, Rep. Jose Serrano has secured $5 million in federal transportation money for the project, and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe is seeking an initial $1 million in municipal funds. The City Parks Foundation is also raising private donations - all of which is a good start toward the $20 million to $30 million needed to make the span accessible.

For an hour or so Friday, anyone who happened by could amble out onto the 1,250-foot-long span. There, the walker was surrounded by endless sky, the vista of Manhattan's spires, sea gulls wheeling on the thermals below, the curve of the river 116 feet down, Metro-North trains streaming along their tracks adjacent to the traffic interchanges of the Cross Bronx and the Major Deegan. But traffic and train noise was too far away to hear. There was only the sound of the wind and the gulls. And the echoes of a time long past, for those who cared to hear. And then the gate was locked again.

It cannot reopen soon enough.

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Originally published on November 20, 2006

All contents � 2006 Daily News, L.P.