City Selects Company for New Voting Machines

[babsbunny]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/city-selects-company-for-new-voting-machines/?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

By DAVID W. CHEN

The voting levers are officially history.

After years of delays and fierce lobbying, the city’s Board of Elections on Tuesday afternoon selected Election Systems and Software, an Omaha company, to provide new electronic voting machines in time for the September 2010 primary.

Voters will now be required to fill out paper ballots with ovals, similar to SAT exams, before feeding them into a fax-like scanner.

The change means that New York City will finally be in compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002. That law was passed to avoid a repeat of the recount debacle in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, and to help disabled people vote.

[brooklynite]

1. Some clarifications...

All voting will be done on paper ballots.

While most voters will fill out ballots with a pen, Ballot Marking Devices will be available to assist in filling out for those with disabilities.

Ballots, while scanned for counting purposes, will be retained for manual recount. Recount policy will need to be developed by BOE.

Scanning machine will report either an undervote (candidate not selected for a race) or overvote (more than eligible number of candidates voted for) and allow the ballot to be changed

ES&S claims they have unit in stock sufficient to allow roll-out for September primary election

[Peace Patriot]

2. This is a catastrophe. nt