State checking readiness of Capital Region counties for Election Day

CAPITAL REGION — Officials from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office were reviewing the election preparedness of four counties in the Capital Region on Wednesday.

Albany, Rensselaer, Fulton and Schoharie counties were chosen for review as part of a sample of boards of election throughout the state.

“We’re not calling this an audit, because an audit is a very in-depth process. This is a review that we expect to take a few weeks. We’d like to get it out well ahead of the elections, probably in October,” state spokeswoman Jennifer Freeman said. “We’re looking at things like staffing, how many individuals are assigned to specific areas.”

State law requires four election inspectors, two from each major party, to be present within each election district. The state is also reviewing whether voter technicians have been appropriately trained.

Linda Coons, Fulton County’s Democratic elections commissioner, said Fulton County has four inspectors for each of its 49 election districts. She said she believes the county is in compliance with training requirements.

“We’d better be, because they’re here. They’ll be here all week,” Coons said.

John Graziano, a Republican election commissioner for Albany County, said Albany County compensates its election inspectors with $25 during training, $100 for the September election primaries and another $200 on Election Day, with the goal that inspectors will participate in all three. He said the Comptroller’s Office took the list of names and contact information for the inspectors for Albany’s 353 election districts, but he cautioned that just because the Board of Elections has complied with the state law in preparing the correct number of inspectors does not mean they will actually show up.

“You have to back fill when people don’t show. Even when they are trained, approved and paid they sometimes don’t show. So you have to scramble, which we always do,” Graziano said. “Probably 95 percent show. Under the law . . . we can back fill with anybody. We try to make sure there is at least one and one [of each major party] and we strive for two and two.”

Freeman said officials from the Comptroller’s Office will be concerned only with state election law and will not be reviewing compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act.

HAVA was passed in the wake of the contested 2000 presidential election and was meant to improve voter accuracy throughout the United States. Eight years after that election, however, most voters in the Capital Region will still be using traditional voting machines.

Coons and Graziano both said their counties have used federal grant money to install new voting machines in order to comply with HAVA, although those voting machines likely won’t be used by many voters. Coons said Fulton County has installed 30 “Ballot Marking Devices” costing $11,500 each throughout the county.

She said the machines were made by a company called Sequoia Voting Systems and have special features for people with disabilities.

Voting for non-disabled people will still be done using the lever machines long used by the county. Coons said Fulton County does own some Sequoia equipment that could change how votes are counted next year, using optical scanning devices, but only if the state approves the use of those machines.

Graziano said any voter in Albany County can theoretically use the 187 new AutoMARK ballot-marking devices purchased and installed by the county, using $1.6 million in federal grant money. But he highly recommends non-disabled people skip using the new machines.

“People think it’s a voting system . . . it’s not a voting system at all because it does no calculations. All it is, is a machine that marks a ballot like a pencil and it takes considerable time,” he said. “It means your vote will not be tabulated [quickly]. After it comes spitting out of that machine it’s taken and put into a sealed envelope and then somebody has to take it and count it.

Graziano said the AutoMARK machines will be helpful to the disabled but not other voters.

“Depending on a the severity of someone’s disability we expect it will take them about 25 minutes to use it,” he said. “They may still need some assistance. For example, if you don’t have arms — unbelievably difficult — but someone will assist them.”

Albany County officials estimate about 130 people used the AutoMARK machines during September’s primary, which attracted about 20,000 voters.