Officials report little trouble with new voting machines

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

Not every voter was happy, but elections officials said the first general election using the state’s new electronic voting machines went well.

Election inspectors at some local polling sites said they heard voters complain that the print on the paper ballots was too small or that they preferred the old voting mechanical machines, but several voters interviewed said the new system seemed fine.

“It’s a little less confusing than the lever machines. It’s pretty self-explanatory,” said Michael Kelly, who voted at Geyser Road Elementary School in Saratoga Springs.

Tuesday’s was the first statewide general election in which printed ballots that are filled out with a pen and fed into optical scanners replaced the old curtained lever voting machines — a change mandated by federal voting law.

Officials were prepared for problems because of the unfamiliar process, but there were relatively few through the day.

“They’re adjusting to it,” said Brian Finneran, a poll inspector at the Geyser Road school.

The state comptroller’s voter hotline had received 116 calls as of shortly before polls were to close, said Dennis Tompkins, a spokesman for Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. He said that was a small number of calls, with most of them coming from New York City.

“We’re pretty confident it went pretty smoothly,” Tompkins said.

Those calls included complaints about voters feeling they lacked privacy, polling places not opening on time and the small print size — all issues that DiNapoli had cited in a report last month on how the new voting machines fared in the Sept. 14 primary. That report had found there were complaints in 44 of the 57 upstate counties but found the troubles were worst in New York City.

“It looks like, for the most part, the boards of elections have addressed those issues,” Tompkins said.

Albany County had a few problems as polls opened at 6 a.m., including a voting machine delivered to the wrong district and a missing set of keys for unlocking a machine. In another case, a machine wasn’t plugged in but no one realized it until the machine’s battery began to fail.

“Most of it was not machine-related. It was mistakes,” said John Graziano, Albany County’s Republican elections commissioner.

All polling places were operating properly by 6:45 a.m., Graziano said. “We’ve really had great success all day,” he said.

Schenectady County had an unusually low number of voter complaints, said Brian Quail, the county’s Democratic elections commissioner.

“Typically, by this time our phones are ringing off the hook, but call volume has been low,” Quail said.

He said there have been no voter machine failures within the county and “there is not even modest concern that we will have trouble.”

Phil Lyford, Democratic deputy elections commissioner in Montgomery County, said there were a few maintenance calls for the machines but voters seemed to be making the adjustment well.

“It’s been heavy [turnout], but there have been no lines. They’re handling it well,” Lyford said.

In Glenville, poll workers said they were getting a mixed reaction, with young people generally adapting to the new system better than older voters.

“It’s like anything that’s new,” said one election inspector whose supervisor asked that she not be identified in print.

A different Glenville inspector said the print on the ballots was indeed small — a result of the state law requirement that all offices up for election appear on a single-page ballot.

Polling places had magnification devices available for voters to use, though three different arrangements were found at three different polling places. Some had them available routinely in the privacy booths where ballots are filled out, while at other locations voters had to ask for them.

Poll workers said the process generally seemed smoother on Tuesday because they had gained experience with it in the September primary.

Most voters hadn’t voted in the primaries, though.

“It seemed incredibly straightforward to me,” said James Rearic, who voted at Glenville Town Hall.