January 12, 2006

"Feds threaten to sue state over voting machine delay"

From the AP:

"New York is in danger of being sued by the federal government over continuing delays in bringing new voting machines to the state and complying with other requirements of the Help America Vote Act, officials said Thursday.

And a spokesman for the state Board of Elections said New York is so far behind in meeting the federal requirements that localities across the state may have to trot out their old lever-action voting machines this year for at least one more election cycle.

The HAVA legislation was adopted by Congress in the wake of the vote-counting fiasco in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. The legislation requires states to modernize voting systems and provides funding for such things as new voting machines. New York has trailed behind all other states in meeting HAVA deadlines.

In a letter received this week, New York officials were told by Wan Kim, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, that the state was lagging behind every other state in complying with the HAVA requirements.

Lee Daghlian, the spokesman for the state Board of Elections, said it is not certain New York will be able to have new voting machines in place and workers trained to operate them in time for the September primaries or the November elections. Failing that, Daghlian said counties across the state would have to use their old machines."

Posted by Randy Riddle at January 12, 2006 11:49 AM