Counties: Show us the money
You may remember a post and story I wrote last week saying that state election officials were worried about being able to deploy a whole new network of voting machines in time for the May primary.
Well, they aren't the only ones.
The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners says the state hasn't come through with enough funding to help the counties buy and deploy the new machines. From association director David Thompson:
“It is unreasonable to expect that all 100 counties can review the approved equipment and then decide which to order by Jan. 20,” said Thompson. “In addition, funding provided by the federal and state governments under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is insufficient to meet the increased state requirements under the General Assembly’s Public Confidence in Elections Act. The General Assembly’s decision to require a paper trail is essentially another unfunded mandate on counties.”
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"The General Assembly’s decision to require a paper trail is essentially another unfunded mandate on counties.”
When are officials going to stop using the paper trail as their whipping boy for voting equipment upgrades? Even if the state government had done nothing -- had not even dreamed of passing a paper trail bill -- the counties would still have to upgrade their equipment. And why is that?
The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 says that counties have to upgrade their equipment to be disabled-accessible by 2006. This has nothing to do with a paper trail. Nothing. The counties have known for over three years now that they would have to upgrade their systems.
If they're not ready to meet a federal law from 2002, it is hardly the fault of the state government for passing an election reform bill this year.
Posted on December 9, 2005 5:28 PM
The fact is, North Carolina has around 7,400 touchscreen or pushbutton machines that are not disabled accessible, not HAVA compliant.
The Help America Vote Act set a deadline of Jan 2006 for states to arrange to buy voting systems, which must be in place before the first federal election. There must be at least one disabled accessible voting system at every precinct. Accessible to blind and physically challenged. This is LONG overdue.
The Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002, with 2006 as the deadline.
All the paper trail requirement of S223 does is ensure that the new equipment create a reliable paper record for every vote.
In reality, the counties are better off for S223 being passed, because it ensures that the HAVA funds be EQUITABLY DISTRIBUTED, each county gets a grant up to $12K, which would pay for new reliable optical scan equipment.
This is all federal money that would have been spent on more expensive, paperless machines that can't be audited or recounted.
Guilford county has about 1,186 paperless touchscreen machines, and NONE OF THEM ARE DISABLED ACCESSIBLE.
The vendors made these machines without a printer port, and without a simple audit jack.
They knew what they were doing.
Mecklenburg - has 1,400 paperless pushbutton electronic machines, none of those are disabled accessible.
If S223 hadn't passed, the cost would be the same, and folks might not be smart enough to choose optical scanners.
Posted on December 9, 2005 8:25 PM