S.C. Leg. Lou D'Amaro, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the S.C. Legislature looks over one of the new optical scanning machines the country is planning to put to use in 2009. Over the next year, the County will be reaching out to the public to educate them on how to use the new machines. New voting machines for the handicapped will be installed at every polling site in Suffolk County this November, and by 2009, the County will have all new optical scanning voting machines, replacing the 1,500 lever machines that have been in service for more than 30 years. The change comes at the direction of the federal government, which authorized the installation of new machines throughout the country following the hanging chad-riddled 2000 election, and concerns about voter accuracy.

"New York is the last state in the country to have complied with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was passed in 2002 authorizing improvements to outdated voting machines," said S.C. Leg. Lou D'Amaro, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. "But even before the state certified which type of machines it wanted to use, we examined the options out there so that we would be prepared."

New voting machines with the paper ballots One requirement of HAVA was that states have to provide better accessibility for the handicapped with ballot marking devices, at least one at each polling place. These are to serve voters with vision, hearing and other physical limitations.

"This is really allowing us to move forward to provide disabled voters with assistance they never had available to them before," said D'Amaro. "The machines even have a tube that allows a voter who has no use of his legs or arms to blow into the machine to cast a vote."

The County received $14.8 million in funding from HAVA and has spent approximately $47 million on the initial purchase of the voting machines for the handicapped. The additional funds will be spent in the early part of next year to purchase the machines for other voters and to have them ready for the 2009 election season. The County has to purchase privacy booths and provide training for poll inspectors as well

as educate the public with those funds. Judy Gorenstein, director of voter services for the League of Women Voters, said her organization is pleased that the County has moved forward with this project and that the machines for handicapped voters will be in place at every poll in the County in November.

"The League has been, for the past several years, advocating for the change to optical scanners and we believe the ones the County selected are the most secure and accurate and the easiest to use for a recount or audit," said Gorenstein. "We're also pleased with the timeline because if all of the machines were replaced this year it would have caused chaos and confusion at the polls, especially with the large turnout expected as a result of the Presidential election."

The biggest challenge, she said will be in educating poll workers and voters.

D'Amaro agreed and said that is why the County is allocating money for training and education. Over the next year, the County expects to reach out to the public at meetings, through direct mail and with kiosks at shopping centers. "There is going to be a major education push to educate everyone and to make the machines available ahead of time so that anyone who wants to can practice on them. We are committed to making the transition to the entirely different machine as smooth as possible to encourage rather than deter voting."

Anita Katz, a S.C. Commissioner of Elections said that her department is prepared to make the transition. "We have a job and we will get it done," she said.

How will the new machines work and what will they cost?

The new optical scanner voting machines to be installed in Suffolk for next year's election cost approximately $1,500 each.

The scanners record votes on a paper ballot, which the county puts into an electronic format and is stored by the County for at least two years. As with the current machines, there is no way to determine how an individual voted, but they are more reliable in terms of recording the numbers, said D'Amaro.

In addition, the machine reminds voters if they skipped one of the voting options and helps the voter ensure that the ballot is cast accurately.

In addition to the initial outlay for the cost of the machines and the educational outreach the County is planning before putting them at the polls next year, there are some additional annual trucking costs since the machines require a "smoother" ride to and from the polls. Those ongoing costs are not subsidized by the federal government.