By Maggie Gordon

The Help America Vote Act was passed two years ago in the wake of the 2000 Presidential elections, which were fraught with ballot discrepancies.

The law called for $3.86 billion to be distributed to the 50 states to replace current voting booths and upgrade the quality of voting machinery by 2006.

Six additions to the current voting process must be provided for voters by the year 2006, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group. These new additions are:

— Private ballot review, which enables the voter to see if she has made an error in her voting, such as over-voting, or filling in the wrong circle;

— In the case of paper ballots, voter education provided by election jurisdictions;

— A permanent record of hard-copy ballots in case of a recount, which can also be used as an audit trail;

— Handicapped accessibility;

— Accessibility for non-English-speaking voters, in accordance with the Voting Rights Act; and
— A definition of "a vote" adopted by the state’s government.

New York is currently in the process of making decisions that will affect every voter. The League of Women Voters — a non-partisan political organization meant to encourage informed participation of citizens in government — is one group that has taken a stand on which type of voting machine is best. The League is also concerned that the state will not have its required database of voters established by the Jan. 1, 2006 deadline.

Voting machines
Aimee Allaud, the HAVA point person for the League of Women Voters, said, "The idea of HAVA was to help states upgrade and improve their election procedures...The various elements of HAVA strive to create uniformity in procedure."
One of the procedures that is being changed in New York State is the actual machines that residents vote in. "The League of Women Voters prefers the optical scan method of voting over the electronic," Allaud said.

Optical scan voting is similar to standardized testing, where voters fill in circles on a piece of paper that then cast their votes.

In optical-scan voting, the voter fills out her vote card in a privacy booth and brings it over to a scanner, according to Allaud. The scanner then asks if the choices the voter made are the choices she wanted to make.
"That is a requirement of HAVA," Allaud said. "This is second-chance voting. That means that you check your vote so that if you tried to vote, accidentally, for two people in one office, it would reject it and tell you to try again. That’s an ‘overvote.’ If you ‘undervote’ — that means you didn’t express a choice for office — it asks you to confirm that."
Electronic voting machines are also an option. If a district uses an electronic voting machine, it must then provide a voter-verified paper ballot. "A voter-verified paper ballot will enable the voter to check that his or her vote has been reported as he expressed his or her preferences," Allaud said. "There is no receipt involved, but you will be able to execute a command."

The voter verification will appear behind a transparent plastic screen, showing the vote in the way it was expressed. The voter can then choose to either accept that vote, or try again.

While the aim of HAVA is to create uniformity throughout the country by requiring each state to meet the six requirements, how each goes about that — such as choice of voting machines — is left up to individual states. In New York, each county or even each election district, can make its own decision.

Each election jurisdiction can have up to two different kinds of voting machines, said Allaud. That means there can be optical scan, and electronic machines in one voting precinct.

However, it is mandated that one of the machines be accessible for people with disabilities.
"HAVA does not define disabilities, except in terms of visual disability. However, New York State and its legislation define disability in many ways. Any machine purchased in New York must conform to all different disabilities.
"Optical scan has an accessory machine called ballot-marking machine," Allaud said. "A disabled person would come in, be given a paper ballot, and he or she would take it into the ballot marking machine, which executes the ballot marking for them... Then he or she takes the ballot to the optical scanner."

Everyone votes
The Help America Vote Act also makes it possible for voters who do not have "proper" forms of identification to vote in elections. States must keep a database that lists all the registered voters. "This database will assist in maintaining accurate and up-to-date records of qualified voters," Allaud said.
"The state has not proceeded to establish the database," she said of New York. "It has to be in effect by Jan. 1, 2006, and there is not any way that they can have this up an running by then."
This database will help to ensure against voter disenfranchisement, Allaud said. "Each state had to fulfill the requirements of HAVA in its own way...Some states were much stricter about the interpretation about the language."

This strict interpretation, some feared, could lead to the disenfranchisement of voters, rejecting voters who did not have valid Social Security numbers or driver’s license identification numbers.
"In New York," Allaud said. "The Assembly took a point of view that was more concerned about making sure that voters were not disenfranchised, and the Senate took a stricter view of the interpretation. We felt comfortable with the end result, and we’re hopeful...It was a successful compromise."

Now
Governor George Pataki signed the voting machine legislation on July 12, which requires the appointment of an election modernization committee. "The committee is appointed by various political parties," she said, and includes the Assembly’s speaker and majority leader of the Senate as well as the state Board of Election’s executive director. "Appointments must be made within 30 days of signing the bill, so we might not see that until Aug. 12," she said.
"It is a 12-member committee, with a variety of representatives; however, the League does not feel it is a particularly diverse committee. There are four members from the disability community, but, beyond that, the members are not diverse."
The committee’s job is to "assist the state Board of Election in determining whether machines meet the HAVA standards," Allaud said.
"From the perspective of the League of Women Voters," she concluded, "we were very relieved that optical-scan voting systems were identified as being eligible for consideration — because we were afraid, quite honestly, that legislation would only name electronic voting machines."