New Concerns Raised Over Voting Machine Upgrade
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As New York State gets ready to move to a new system of ballot-scanning computers this fall, some groups are challenging the technological upgrade in court. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed the following report.Say goodbye to the old lever machine and hello to new electronic scanners. It’s the new way of doing business at the ballot box, where New Yorkers this fall will have to fill out paper ballots by hand-darkening their choice SAT-style before feeding them into a scanner that can tally results immediately.
"The good thing about this machine is if there’s any concern, we have paper. So there’ll be a paper trail. And those papers can be counted to make sure that they go along with the number that’s on the machine," said New York City Board of Elections President Julie Dent.
On Monday, election officials put on a demonstration at the Kings Bay Y in Brooklyn, part of a major outreach campaign being rolled out between now and the September 14 primary. Also on display was a ballot marking device, designed with the disabled in mind, but available for anyone needing help marking their ballot. The new system is required by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. New York is the last state in the union to comply.
"We’re really doing a big campaign to let people know that the old machines are gone, and it’s a new day, and we’re voting on the new machines now," Dent said.
But not everyone is totally happy with the new machines. In fact, a number of groups, including the NAACP, filed a lawsuit last month because of the way the machines deal with overvoting, which is when you vote for more than one candidate in the same race.
When the new machines register an overvote, rather than reject the ballot automatically, you’re given a choice -- "Don’t Cast-Return Ballot" or "Cast Ballot," which means your ballot is accepted but your vote in that particular race is simply invalidated.
"The language that’s used is unclear. It doesn’t tell the voter that their vote isn’t going to count. That is never expressed or stated in the statement. And the interface itself is just counterintuitive. If you see a green button with a check mark and something that says ‘Cast,’ to most people that means good, that means my vote is going to count," said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice.
Election officials say the message is both understandable and legally sufficient, and that there are no plans in place to change the software, at least for now.