When it comes to helping America vote, the spirit may be willing, but ...

By JOHN LATIMER
Lebanon Daily News     07 November 2005

Complying with the federal Help America Vote Act has been a bureaucratic nightmare for Elaine Ludwig, the county?s chief clerk of elections.

Since HAVA was passed in 2002, in the wake of the controversial 2000 presidential elections, Ludwig has been preparing to meet the law?s mandate by converting the county?s voting system from the antiquated, yet reliable, lever machines to a computerized, electronic system.

Along the way, she has encountered one hurdle after another.

The first hurdle ? receiving ample money from the federal government ? was cleared earlier this year after a lengthy wait, Ludwig said. The county was assured it will receive about $600,000 in grants to replace the lever machines, but will still have to pony up about $225,000 of its own money to properly equip them, Ludwig said.

Holding up the entire process is the fact that the Pennsylvania Department of State has not approved what voting machines meet state requirements. Without that approval, she said, Lebanon County cannot move forward and choose a system to purchase. All counties are required to make that decision by the state?s Jan. 1 deadline.

While Ludwig is pointing fingers at the state, officials in the Department of State?s election bureau claim the federal government is to blame for the delay in certifying the electronic-voting machines.

?A lot of the holdup is on the federal end,? said Department of State spokeswoman Allison Hrestak. ?The state cannot certify a machine until it has been federally certified. As of right now, only one system, AccuPoll, is on the state certification list and is approved by the state and federal government. ... We have actually examined a number of machines so that the moment they do get federally certified we can release our report.?

That is not how a representative of the federal agency in charge of HAVA oversight sees it. According to Jeanne Layson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, it is Pennsylvania?s own law that is delaying the certification process.

?Some states require their voting systems to be federally certified, and some states do not,? she said. ?Ultimately, it is up to each state to decide which voting system to certify and to determine how to do that under their own law.?

But, for the state to certify a system before it has been certified by the federal government would be foolish, countered Pennsylvania State Department spokesman Brian McDonald, because it would put counties in jeopardy of purchasing machines that later may be ruled unusable in federal elections.

?From Pennsylvania?s standpoint, the election systems used in Pennsylvania have to have a dual certification,? he said. ?From one standpoint, they have to have the federal signoff from the (U.S. Election Assistance Commission) that they are certified and, secondly, they must meet the requirements of our own state election code. The point being, we don?t want to go ahead and certify a voting system and then have the feds say, ?No, that won?t meet our requirements.? We can?t put the counties in that kind of predicament.?

The bureaucratic knot should be untangled in plenty of time for counties to make an informed choice and meet the state?s deadline of choosing a system by Jan. 1, McDonald said. In doing so, there would also be plenty of time to meet HAVA?s deadline to have the system ready by the next federal election ? May?s primary.

In the meantime, Ludwig said, the county will do what it can by continuing to research the various types of machines that are likely to be certified.