http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--votingmachines0410apr10,0,3999044.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

State files voting plan with court

By MARC HUMBERT, AP Political Writer

April 10, 2006, 4:27 PM EDT

ALBANY, N.Y. -- State officials filed a plan Monday with a federal judge outlining how New York would comply with requirements that disabled voters can independently participate in this fall's elections.

The state has been sued by the U.S. Justice Department for failing to comply with portions of the Help America Vote Act adopted after the disputed 2000 presidential election. New York has the nation's worst record for meeting HAVA requirements designed to upgrade voting systems, according to federal officials.

The Justice Department lawsuit also requires New York to have a centralized voter registration in place for this year's elections.

The Justice Department has 10 days to comment on the state plan filed Monday with U.S. District Judge Gary Sharpe.

Under the state plan, marking devices or other systems allowing the disabled to vote would not necessarily be available at every polling place, but would be at some locations within "each town and city in the county, in each (state) Assembly District in the county ... or in polling places intended to serve concentrations of disabled voters."

Robert Brehm, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections, said Monday that some counties worried they would not have machines in place or staff trained in time for the September primary or the November general election.

Brehm said four companies have expressed an interest in supplying devices that will allow the disabled to vote independently. The state board has yet to authorize any of them for use.

Still to come is the full replacement of the lever-action voting machines that have been in use in the state for decades. State law requires those to be replaced in time for the 2007 elections.

Brad Williams of the New York State Independent Living Council said Monday he hoped Sharpe would order the state to have voting devices for the disabled available in every polling place.

Relying on information from the American Association of People with Disabilities, Williams said an estimated 1.3 million New Yorkers with disabilities voted in the 2000 election, but almost 2 million more did not.

"It goes to show just how bad the situation is," Williams said.