Storing new voting machines to be pricey

The county will be spending nearly $64,000 a year to store its new electronic voting machines in a climate-controlled environment. That’s more than $600,000 over the next 10 years, the way Milton Supervisor Frank D. Thompson looks at it.

Thompson this week voted against the county entering a lease agreement with WAM Commercial Associates of Ballston Spa, saying the county landfill garage in Northumberland could serve as a place to store the machines.

Thompson was the only member of the county Law and Finance Committee to vote against the three-year lease agreement with WAM, which owns the former Ballston Knitting Co. mill complex on Kent Street.

The matter — while almost humorous — highlighted the new costs the county is facing because of the Help America Vote Act and its requirement that states including New York convert to electronic voting machines. New York has been among the last states to comply, doing so under federal court supervision.

HAVA was adopted after the controversy over the 2000 presidential election, which highlighted how different states — Florida in particular — had different voting systems.

The mechanical lever voting machines most New Yorkers have used for decades did not require special storage conditions.

The new electronic machines, however, need to be in a climate-controlled environment so humidity and temperature extremes don’t damage the electronic circuits.

The county now has 250 of the electronic machines, one for every polling place.

Currently, some are stored at a business park in Malta and others are stored in Clifton Park.

The proposal brought before supervisors by the Board of Elections would eliminate those storage sites in favor of storing all of the machines together in the basement of the old mill.

“We do need to have them in a centrally located spot,” said County Administrator David A. Wickerham.

William Fruci, the Democratic elections commissioner, said they also need to be close to the Board of Elections office in Ballston Spa because technicians who program the machines want them nearby.

But Thompson noted the cost of the lease and that the county has a totally unused commercial-size garage that could be used for storage at the county landfill site on Kobor Road in Northumberland.

More than a decade ago, the county spent $10 million to build the landfill and a garage and administration building. They were completed in 2000. But the landfill has never opened, and the garage space for equipment storage has remained vacant.

While others around him pointed out that the garage isn’t climate-controlled and the landfill could someday be opened, Thompson was not persuaded.

“How long is the lease for?” he asked. “That’s a lot of money.”

The full Board of Supervisors will vote on the WAM lease Tuesday in Ballston Spa.

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