On Jan. 16, New York State was committed, by court order, to a strict schedule for compliance with federal voting regulations. Yesterday, the State Board of Elections deadlocked.

Come Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe will likely either appoint a special master to make the board’s decision on what voting machines to authorize or make the choice himself, said Bo Lipari, who founded New Yorkers for Verified Voting and serves on an advisory committee to the board of elections.

New York is the last state in the union to comply with the federally mandated Help America Vote Act that was passed in 2002. HAVA requires that New York’s current lever machines be replaced by machines that conform to several requirements, including accessibility for disabled people and alternative language accessibility.

When the state legislature was faced with deciding between two types of machines — optical scan or Direct Recording Electronic systems — it couldn’t reach consensus and left the matter to individual counties to decide.

The board met yesterday to choose the voting machines from which New York’s counties were to select ballot-marking devices, to allow people with disabilities to vote. But, to prevent a quorum of the board, Republican board members Neil Kelleher and Helena Moses Donohue would not enter the room at the Saratoga Springs hotel where the open meeting was held, Lipari said.
"This time, there’s a clear case of obstructionism on the Republican side of the board," said Lipari, who says he is a strict nonpartisan.

The only machine that the two parties could agree on is the Sequoia ImageCast, Lipari said, but the Republicans wouldn’t approve anything without also approving a DRE system also — hence the deadlock.
"They want to give the county commissioners choices," Lipari said of their reasoning, with a note of disbelief. He then recounted a conversation he had had with a Republican election commissioner, who he would not name; the commissioner told him that the vendors for the DREs had spent millions and couldn’t be turned away.
"Beginning the first Friday... and continuing thereafter on each subsequent Friday until further order of this court," wrote Judge Sharpe in his Jan. 16 opinion, "the defendants shall file with this court, and shall submit by electronic mail to counsel for the United States, a detailed report concerning the previous week’s progress in implementing the terms of this Court’s Orders."

If the judge goes the route of special master, which is the title given to an appointee of the court who carries out an action on its behalf, the one he names may be Governor Eliot Spitzer, Lipari said.
The meeting of the board is set to reconvene today, Lipari said, but, he added, "I do not expect any progress."