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http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--votingsystem0827aug27,0,3423053.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

New York submits thin-on-details vote overhaul plan

By MARC HUMBERT, AP Political Writer

August 27, 2003

ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York election officials said Wednesday they had submitted a required plan for overhauling the state's voting system to the Federal Elections Commission.

One critic accused the officials of trying to keep the plan from drawing much public attention. Another, state Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito, a Utica-area Democrat, said the plan was "vague and painfully does not address the needs of the diverse population that we have in this state."

The thin-on-details, 51-page implementation plan provides no answers to such questions as what sort of voting machines will be permitted as the state moves to replace almost 20,000 lever-action machines. That $140 million question has already prompted voting machine companies to hire well-connected lobbyists.

In the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election, Congress adopted the Help America Vote Act requiring all states to overhaul their voting systems. The plan submitted by New York officials earlier this month to the FEC is part of that process.

Also left unanswered in the New York plan is exactly what sort of identification might be accepted for new voters, if any, beyond the standard options such as driver's licenses; and how a statewide voter registration system will be implemented.

The state Board of Elections did pledge to come up with answers to those questions as it moved ahead with implementing a system that is supposed to be fully in place for the 2006 elections.

"The plan is intended to be a broad and living document," New York election officials wrote in the part of the plan that dealt with public complaints its HAVA task force had received about the lack of specifics. "The plan ... is an ongoing process."

Critics, including Destito and some other members of the state Assembly's Democratic majority, have said the lack of specifics may be part of a plan by Republican Gov. George Pataki to rig the process so that the GOP can control how the new system is shaped. Pataki aides have denied that.

Some of those complaints surfaced at meetings held by the state's 19-member HAVA task force. Its members, including Destito, were chosen by Peter Kosinski, the new Republican executive director of the state Board of Elections.

The implementation report was submitted to federal officials earlier this month by Kosinski without any public notice. As of Wednesday, some groups interested in the process, including the college student-supported New York Public Interest Research Group, had been unable to obtain copies.

"They wanted to get it by with no one noticing," complained NYPIRG's Neal Rosenstein, a vocal critic of New York's HAVA process.

NYPIRG is looking for, among other things, college student ID cards to be accepted as new voter identification.

Destito said Wednesday that she had yet to see the final report and that Kosinski rejected Democratic calls for a final meeting of the HAVA task force to consider the plan.

"The task force never had any input into the drafting of the plan, nor did we have a final meeting to adopt the plan," she said.

Defending the process, Kosinski said Wednesday that when it comes to making decisions about HAVA implementation there is no way to keep the Assembly's Democratic majority from having a big say in matters.

"There's clearly a role for the Legislature, including appropriating the money," Kosinski said.

Destito conceded as much. "We probably will have the final say in the appropriation language," she said.

Rosenstein said that doesn't reduce his fears.

"Knowing the way the Legislature works, and the horse-trading that goes on, putting all our eggs in the Assembly basket isn't too comforting," the NYPIRG official said.

Kosinski said Wednesday that the implementation plan submitted to the FEC is required to keep federal money flowing to New York for the voting system overhaul.

New York has already received $66 million in federal aid for the HAVA-ordered overhaul and hopes to see that go above $100 million later this year. In all, the New York plan calls for $235.6 million in federal aid for the program, including $140 million to replace voting machines.