Michelle
09-22-2006, 12:33 AM
From New York Daily News (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/454338p-382381c.html):
Disabled vote tab: 52G each
Turnout put as low as 29
BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
As few as 29 disabled voters may have participated in the city's limited use of electronic voting machines in last week's primary election - at a cost of nearly $52,000 per voter.
Intended to be used primarily by disabled voters, 22 electronic ballot scanners were deployed at polling sites set up in each of the Board of Elections' five borough offices.
The board spent at least $500,000 to buy the machines, and an additional $1 million on an advisory mailing about them that was sent to all 3.7 million enrolled voters before the primary.
Election officials have said that 580 voters used the voting devices, but gave no information on whether those voters were disabled or not.
But a report released yesterday by Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Investigations, cites a survey conducted by Council staffers on election night of 160 voters who used the electronic machines.
The survey found that only 5% of those 160 voters - or just eight voters - said they voted at the sites because they were disabled or needed an accessible machine.
According to the report, the rest were nondisabled voters who used the sites because of convenience, confusion, curiosity or because they were poll workers assigned there.
Although the report doesn't conclude how many of the 580 voters were disabled, if the 5% level found in the survey is representative, then just 29 disabled voters used the electronic devices.
Based on the $1.5 million cost, that works out to $51,724 per voter.
John Ravitz, executive director of the Board of Elections, did not question that assumption yesterday, but said the use of the accessible voting machines was mandated by the state as part of a court-sanctioned settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.
The federal Help America Vote Act required all states to have modern voting systems in place this year.
New York State failed to meet that deadline, triggering a lawsuit by the Justice Department that was resolved by the token deployment of electronic machines for disabled voters in this year's elections.
At a press conference outside City Hall yesterday, Gioia and other Council members and representatives of the disabled and good-government groups said very few disabled voters used the new machines largely because they didn't know about them, or because getting to the polling sites would have been too difficult.
Disabled vote tab: 52G each
Turnout put as low as 29
BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
As few as 29 disabled voters may have participated in the city's limited use of electronic voting machines in last week's primary election - at a cost of nearly $52,000 per voter.
Intended to be used primarily by disabled voters, 22 electronic ballot scanners were deployed at polling sites set up in each of the Board of Elections' five borough offices.
The board spent at least $500,000 to buy the machines, and an additional $1 million on an advisory mailing about them that was sent to all 3.7 million enrolled voters before the primary.
Election officials have said that 580 voters used the voting devices, but gave no information on whether those voters were disabled or not.
But a report released yesterday by Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Investigations, cites a survey conducted by Council staffers on election night of 160 voters who used the electronic machines.
The survey found that only 5% of those 160 voters - or just eight voters - said they voted at the sites because they were disabled or needed an accessible machine.
According to the report, the rest were nondisabled voters who used the sites because of convenience, confusion, curiosity or because they were poll workers assigned there.
Although the report doesn't conclude how many of the 580 voters were disabled, if the 5% level found in the survey is representative, then just 29 disabled voters used the electronic devices.
Based on the $1.5 million cost, that works out to $51,724 per voter.
John Ravitz, executive director of the Board of Elections, did not question that assumption yesterday, but said the use of the accessible voting machines was mandated by the state as part of a court-sanctioned settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.
The federal Help America Vote Act required all states to have modern voting systems in place this year.
New York State failed to meet that deadline, triggering a lawsuit by the Justice Department that was resolved by the token deployment of electronic machines for disabled voters in this year's elections.
At a press conference outside City Hall yesterday, Gioia and other Council members and representatives of the disabled and good-government groups said very few disabled voters used the new machines largely because they didn't know about them, or because getting to the polling sites would have been too difficult.