Another undecided vote

City weighing 2 new polling systems

BY FRANK LOMBARDI

DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

Voting is again a bone of contention at City Hall - but the candidates this time are two electronic voting systems.

City election officials are expected to chose between the systems early next year.

Four groups for good government teamed up yesterday at a City Hall press conference to endorse the optical scan system - which electronically counts paper ballots after they are marked by voters.

The rival system is known as direct recording electronic voting, or DRE. It is similar to a direct-touch ATM screen. Voters merely press a display of the ballot to make their choices.

The four groups that endorsed the alternative, the optical scan, were the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the League of Women Voters, the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and New Yorkers for Verified Voting.

They contended the optical scan is cheaper and more reliable than direct recording.

"Our findings are clear: New York City cannot ensure that voters' choices will be accurately recorded if it decides to use the touch-screen machine that it is currently considering," said Brennan counsel Lawrence Norden.

They said the city could save millions by opting for optical scan in replacing the city's 7,550 lever-operated machines.

Bo Lipari, executive director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, said each optical scan would cost $5,500 to $6,500, while each direct recording device would cost $8,000 to $9,500.

Based on those cost estimates, simply replacing the lever machines with a direct recording device would cost as much as $71.2 million - compared with $48.7 million for optical scan devices.

A federally mandated conversion to modern voting systems has been bogged down in New York State for several years, but the state Board of Elections is now expected to certify sometime in February a menu of manufacturers of both types of voting systems from which local boards can pick the ones they want to buy through a state contracting process.

Barring more delays, the city's Board of Elections could make its choice by late February or early March.

"It's been a dysfunctional process at best," said John Ravitz, the executive director of the city board. "We've done everything we can to move the process forward."

Ravitz said board members haven't decided yet which voting system or manufacturer they will select. The board heard more testimony yesterday on the options at a public hearing.

Ravitz said the new voting devices would be paid for partly with federal funds and the rest with city funds. So far, the city has budgeted $65 million for its share.

Originally published on November 22, 2006