NEW SALEM – Some local residents feel that voters may have been discouraged to vote by a sign posted on the door of the Wyman Osterhout Community Center polling station on Tuesday.

The sign said that photo identification was required in order to vote.

In fact, only those voters who have registered by mail since 2003 and do not yet have their identification on file need to present it, said James Clancy, the Democratic commissioner for the Albany County Board of Elections.
Anyone who showed identification at Tuesday’s election will not have to present it again, he said, stating, "We only verify it once."

Jean Miller and her husband have been voting in New Salem for 24 years, she told The Enterprise.

The Millers were surprised when they arrived at the community center and saw the sign. When they entered, they were told they must provide their IDs. The poll workers told them that it was a law that had previously not been enforced, Jean Miller said.
"This thing on the door might have prohibited people from going in if they didn’t have their ID," Miller told The Enterprise.

The Millers both had their IDs, and were able to vote, she said.

Six people worked the polls at the community center on Tuesday, said town Supervisor, Ed Clark. The workers are trained by the county’s board of elections, he said. He doesn’t believe that they are required to attend any annual training after the initial training session, he told The Enterprise.

Clark said that the board of elections pays the poll workers, and they are reimbursed by the town. He wasn’t sure what they will be paid.

Andrea Gleason, a retired school teacher and former town board member, was one of the workers at the community center. She told The Enterprise that this was her first year as a poll worker.

Gleason said that the poll workers were given two manuals – one from the board of elections and one from the town – to refer to. In the manuals, it said that identification may be required, she said.
"If you were not familiar with the person, you could ask for ID," she said. In addition to verifying the identity of the voter, the poll workers were also verifying addresses, and updating records, she said.
"We were trying to be very accurate in our duty," she said.

The sign on the front door was challenged, and the workers took it down, Gleason said.
"We felt it wasn’t much of an infringement," she said. But some voters disagreed.

Miller said that she feels that the poll workers thought they were doing right by the law.
"It’s a failure of whoever trains them," she said.

Gleason, who was trained prior to this year’s election, said that the identification issue was not one that was brought up at her training session.

Gleason said that the community center got about 650 voters on Tuesday, and the poll workers felt that was a good number for the off-year election.

Miller says that poll workers should be aware of the law in order to prevent turning people away from the polls, but she doesn’t think the problem lies only in Albany County.
"I think there’s a lot of this going on around the country," she said. "We’re not alone."

HAVA

The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, passed in response to the controversial Bush-Gore presidential election, required voting changes nationwide.
Among the changes, $325 million was authorized to "buy-out" punch card and lever voting machines. States were required to apply for the funding, and replace their voting machines with newer machines.

New York State is not fully compliant with HAVA, Clancy said. The state must be fully compliant by the first election of 2007, he said.

The state legislature was deadlocked over deciding on what type of voting machines to use and so left it up to individual counties to decide. New York is the last state in the nation to comply.

Some requirements of HAVA that each state must follow include: providing voters with the opportunity to change or correct ballot errors; providing at least one voting machine that is accessible to the handicapped per precinct; making ballots in alternative languages accessible; providing provisional ballots so that no voter is turned away; and implementing a statewide voter registration list with the names of every registered voter in the state, maintained at the state level.

Albany County has not yet updated its voting machines, Clancy told The Enterprise. By February, he said, the state board of elections should submit a list to the county of all the certified voting machines it can choose from.

Voters with disabilities can vote on machines at the Albany County Board of Elections, Clancy said. Tuesday, well over 30 voters with handicaps cast their ballots there, which is way up from just three voters at the primary, he said.