Authorizes use of lever voting machines for school elections

Summary of specific provisions

Sections 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7 of the bill amends various section of the education law to provide that voting machines may be used in school district elections as permitted in Education Law § 2035(1).

Section 3 of the bill amends Education Law § 1951(2)(g) to provide that the board of cooperative educational services may permit the use of lever voting machines in elections but that such authority shall not be construed to require the board of elections to make lever voting machines available for such elections.

Section 4 of the bill amends Education Law § 2035(1) to provide that the trustees or board of education of any school district may permit the use of lever voting machines in elections but that such authority shall not be construed to require the board of elections to make lever voting machines available for such elections.

Section 8 of the bill contains the effective date.

JUSTIFICATION:; Current law allows schools to conduct their elections with paper ballots or voting machines. Some schools that use voting machines own such machines. Others borrow or rent voting machines from the board of elections. Still others pay a private company to conduct their elections with voting machines.

However, the federal Help America Voting Act of 2002 (HAVA) requires that voting machines used in federal elections must "produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity." The lever voting machines currently in use in New York State do not produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity. As a result, the New York Election Reform and Modernization Act, or ERMA (Chapter 181 of the Laws of 2005) requires that all lever machines in New York be replaced by voting machines that, among other things, produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity. ERMA provides

that once the new machines are in place, the use of lever voting machines will be prohibited in New York State.

After several years of effort, all of the boards of elections around the state will permanently replace the lever voting machines with precinct based optical scan voting machines beginning with the September 2010 primary election. At that point, schools will no longer be able to legally use lever voting machines unless they are given explicit authority to do so. Such authority is feasible because school district elections, unlike state elections, are not held at the same time as federal elections which fall under the HAVA mandate.

School districts around the state have expressed an overwhelming preference to continue using lever voting machines in their elections. This bill gives school districts that option through December 31, 2012. However, it does not impose any obligation on the boards of elections to maintain care, custody or control of. lever voting machines or to provide school districts with such voting machines for their elections. The bill temporarily maintains the status quo with respect to the options that school districts have to run their elections, but the board of elections has no obligation to assist a school that chooses to use lever voting machines after September 2010. The sunset provisions in the bill will allow a reevaluation of the situation once the new voting machines have been used in several election cycles.

Prior legislative history

None

Fiscal implication

None for the boards of elections. Schools that want to use lever machines will have to obtain such machines at their own expense.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately; provided, however, that the authority to use lever machines will expire on December 31, 2012.