http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1133689104244511.xml&coll=1
Sunday, December 04, 2005
ERIK KRISS
ALBANY NOTEBOOK
[Two sections on other topics omitted here ]
The clock will officially start to tick on a 45-day public
comment period for proposed new voting machine regulations when they're
published in the State Register Wednesday.
Already, advocates for replacing New York's lever machines
with "optical scan" paper ballot readers are blasting the rules
proposed by the state Board of Elections.
"As they stand, we find them to be extremely
poor," said Bo Lipari, head of the group New Yorkers for Verified Voting.
With a federal law requiring states to install new machines
for the 2006 elections, many manufacturers are promoting electronic
touch-screen devices - and most county election officials in Central New York
intend to go that route.
But Lipari, the League of Women Voters and other groups
maintain the touch screens are more expensive and error-prone than optical
scanners.
The new rules hold optical scan systems to higher testing
standards than touch screens, Lipari said. And he said there's no requirement
that a vendor who submits a touch screen and also makes a scanner should submit
a scanner, too.
Board spokesman Lee Daghlian said Lipari is
"complaining to the wrong people. The regulations as written reflect
what's in the statute, no more, no less. If the requirements in the statute
aren't good enough, they should be lobbying their elected officials to change
the law."
The Board of Elections is planning public hearings on the
voting machine regulations Dec. 13 in Rochester, Dec. 16 in Albany and Dec. 20
in New York City.
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