I Got Two Words For Ya: Die Bold!

New York’s nifty old lever-powered voting machines actually, finally, perhaps may be retired after this election:

Over the next few months, the New York City Board of Elections will have the formidable task of complying with the Help America Vote Act, which requires that updated voting machines be installed for the 2007 elections.

With many states already using varying types of the new machines in today’s election, the New York City Board of Elections, which has created an evaluation team, will no doubt be looking around the country to help determine a game plan for next year.

The board has already faced criticism for its failure to implement the voting machines for this election, but some experts say the delay could actually pay off.

“I think on one side of the coin, it’s a good thing that we’re not the guinea pigs,” the executive director of the Citizens Union and the Citizens Union Foundation, Dick Dadey, said.

New York failed to meet the deadline imposed for the Help America Vote Act, and was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice. The suit called for the New York City Board of Elections to implement a token amount of disabled voting machines for 2006 and to be fully compliant with all new voting machines for 2007.

. . .

The board is considering two types of voting machines: an optical scan device that reads a paper ballot that is filled out in a private voting booth, and a direct-reading electronic machine that functions like an automated teller machine with a push-button screen. The two technologies leave a paper trail.

In Ohio during the September primaries, the optical scan voting machines received criticisms. About 18,000 ballots were deemed unreadable by the scanners due to subtle paper variations. The optical scanners were manufactured by one of the same vendors that the city is considering, Diebold.