PA: Counties receive reprieve on buying voting machines

PA: Counties receive reprieve on buying voting machines

J.D. Prose, Times Staff
12/08/2005

snip

Monday memo from Harry VanSickle, the commissioner of the Department of State's Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation, instructed county officials that they can meet federal requirements by either signing a contract with a voting-machine vendor or having the county commissioners pass a resolution by Dec. 31 obligating funds for new machines.

snip

http://www.timesonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15715002&BRD=2305&PAG=461&dept_id=478569&rfi=6


Can they do this?

THEY STILL HAVE TO BE READY WITH NEW MACHINES FOR THE MAY PRIMARY. How the hell are they going to get the training and preparation done if they delay waiting for ES & S or Diebold or WINvote to get certified???

Here's the deal:

Counties may be able to obtain more time to make their selection of voting systems under a memorandum issued this week by the Pennsylvania Department of State. Basically, this new decision means that in order to comply with the Help America Vote Act a county must do one of two things (my wording, not the official ruling):

1) Buy a machine now that is both federally and state certified now (such as AccuPoll, which did the right thing and got its certification turned in and finished in a timely manner.) Start getting the staff trained, and the pollworkers trained, and be ready to have everything in place by May Primary.

2) The County Commissioners write a resolution by the end of this year, legally obligating (encumbering) all monies they receive from HAVA . The resolution should detail how the HAVA monies will be distributed - administration, voter education and all other requirements of HAVA, including how much of the monies will be committed to the purchase of a voting system - they are NOT obligated to state a specific voting system in this resolution, simply lay out their clear plan of how the HAVA monies will be dispersed/spent. And then - even though they will be choosing their system a month or two (or more) LATER - they will still have to have all the staff and pollworkers trained on the system they finally choose and have everything in place by May Primary.

My concern is that if the purchase is delayed but the May Primary deadline remains firm to have the new machines in order and operating, there will be lot of rush training, overtime and rush expenses, and maybe even quickie and inadequate training. Poorly and hastily trained officials and pollworkers make mistakes, cost more in the long run, and votes don't get counted correctly! This switchover to new machines is NOT going to be easy and will take time.

This "extension" seems unfair to companies, like AccuPoll, who made the effort to get their certification done in time and played by the rules here in Pennsylvania. Along comes others like ES & S who are still "pending", and in the meantime they disparage other companies like AccuPoll who DID play by the rules. PA Counties are falling like flies for slick sales pitches -- and opting to wait precious weeks for the crappy machines of the "big two" ES & S and Diebold, and even the wireless and scary WINvote -- rather than pick something certified now like AccuPoll and get started with necessary preparations and training to be ready for the May primary.

And we have found out that ES & S is even trying to put the screws to our proposed Pennsylvania VVPB bills HB 2000 and SB 977 by spreading the FALSE information that these bills -- and voter verified paper ballots on voting machines -- are "dead in the water"!

:grr::grr: :grr::grr::grr:

Come to www.votePA.us for updates -- we'll post 'em as we get 'em.

I actually had something else in mind (totally supported by my ignorance, I might add).

I had wondered if the deadline passed without purchases, and the HAVA money would no longer be available for buying DRE's, would force states to do the economical thing and opt for OpScans...or even hang on to hand-counted paper ballots.

Is that a concept, if not in PA, elsewhere?

I might add that this seems to be a pattern seen elsewhere. Election Officials will bend the rules, it seems, to accomodate the prefered vendor. All that comes to mind is tat someone, somewhere has been paid off.

Pay lip service to the election activists, then pick what they want. It seems to me the best way to stop these fuckers is drag their asses into court- if you have a state election law with any teeth, that is.

I'm done trying to reason with elected officials in my area. I watched 5 democrats vote for the purchase of the SEquoia Advanatge in my county.

They waited 2 days after they got re-elected-- to have the vote-- they were afraid we would work to defeat them - which we would have. Duplicitious fuckers, the lot of them.

State gives counties more time to buy voting machines
By Alison Hawkes, For the Herald-Standard
12/09/2005


HARRISBURG - With only three voting machines so far certified for use in the state, the Pennsylvania Department of State is giving counties additional time to make multi-million purchasing decisions on new machines.

This week, the department backed off on the enforcement of a Dec. 31 deadline in which counties needed to have new voting machine contracts in place.

Instead, it announced that counties could sign a resolution indicating that they would obligate funds for the purchase of new machines by the May primary, essentially giving them more time to make their decisions.

Department of State Spokesman Brian McDonald would not draw a clear line between the delayed certification and the time extension. But he did say that the department wants to give counties more time to make good decisions on their replacement of lever and punch card machines.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15721202&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=480247&rfi=6