Newtown Will Get New Voting Equipment

By John Voket

Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced Wednesday that Newtown will be among select state towns and cities slated to receive the first round of optical scanning equipment that will eventually replace all of Connecticut’s mechanical lever voting booths. The announcement was hailed by First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, while being greeted with guarded enthusiasm by the local registrars and Town Clerk Cynthia Simon.

“I’m pleased that Newtown was chosen. I understand we’re one of only about 20 or 25 towns chosen from more than 50 that applied to pilot the new system,” Mr Rosenthal said.

The first selectman pointed out that Newtown voting officials will enjoy a concentrated level of support as the training, implementation, and election processes move forward.

“We’ll certainly be able to access a greater level of support being one of 20 towns the first year, than if Newtown had to wait for the technology with the rest of the state’s communities in 2007,” he said. “I’m also happy that every voter including our handicapped population will all be able to vote, and have our votes counted on the same equipment.”

Registrar of Voters LeReine Frampton said she requested Newtown be provided with a number of the first edition machines, which are among only about 960 available for distribution before Election Day 2006.

“I think it is a step forward for elections,” she told The Bee after hearing the formal announcement. “We will find out by next week when our machines are being delivered. Once we know that, I will make arrangements to have the machine available so the public can check them out before Election Day.”

Ms Frampton said it was important for as many Newtown voters to “test drive” the new machines as possible before the first official use.

“We do not want anyone feeling intimidated this November,” she said. “But based on our training on it at our annual registrars conference last week, this is a very user-friendly machine.”

“I’m looking forward to implementing the new machines and the new process,” Ms Simon said following the announcement. “I hope the new equipment and system delivers on the promise of providing a more efficient voting process.”

Ms Simon said the speed at which voters could perform their civic duty on Election Day would only be limited by the number of privacy booths the town can provide at polling places.

“The number of booths will make a very big difference, especially the first time we use the new equipment,” Ms Simon said. “This fall’s election will also have fewer offices to vote for, so it will probably be a better situation for the test run than a general election where we have lots of local offices on the ballots.”

Although the registrars’ office handles much of the administrative minutia involved with maintaining and updating voter records, the town clerk is the municipal official who must certify all local results before they are transmitted to state and federal election officials.

Optical scanning technology, which will be used in all the new state polling places by 2007, has actually been in use in several Connecticut communities on a pilot program of the Secretary of the State’s office for several years. It represents the technology that many state registrars hoped for all along.

Secretary of the State Bysiewicz, however, spent many months considering and testing fully computerized voting terminals before scrapping plans to purchase them by the hundreds. Instead, she announced in August that her office was in favor of using the simpler, less expensive, and, by many accounts, more accurate alternative to fulfill federal Help America Vote Act requirements.

Ms Bysiewicz announced August 4 that her office had entered into a contract with LHS Associates of Massachusetts to provide optical scan technology to replace lever voting machines across the state, which were outlawed by the federal legislation, primarily because of the difficulties they impose to handicapped voters.

“We heard from thousands of citizens, academics, and advocacy groups concerned about the pitfalls of touch-screen voting technology,” Secretary Bysiewicz said. “Touch-screen technology, in its current state of development, is simply is not ready for ‘prime time’ here in Connecticut.”

Ms Bysiewicz told The Bee Wednesday that Newtown was chosen based on several factors. She said her office assessed the pilot towns based on a combination of its geographical location, the congressional district, and the degree of support her office received on using the new technology.

“It was important that we chose communities like Newtown, where we had unified support for the pilot program among the town leaders, town clerk, and registrars,” Ms Bysiewicz said. “I also know from the many reports on the progress of this program in your newspaper that there was a heightened interest across the entire community from voters as well.”

Michael Fischer, a computer science professor from Yale University and a member of TrueVote CT who announced a campaign to defeat proposed touch screen terminals in Newtown last year, expressed his enthusiasm for the decision in a letter to Ms Bysiewicz.

“Optical scan is the best voting technology available for the replacement of Connecticut’s lever machines. It is cost-effective, more transparent than DRE [direct recording electronic] machines, and produces a voter-verified paper record,” Mr Fischer wrote. “I commend the Secretary of the State for choosing this alternative.”

Ms Bysiewicz said her office was planning to take the suggestion of TrueVote CT to conduct a thorough audit of the results in each of the pilot towns following the November balloting.

Additionally, Connecticut will meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) for the November election by entering into a one-year contract with IVS, LLC to provide one voting machine accessible to those with disabilities in each polling place in the state.

The IVS machines allow voters with disabilities to use a telephone at the polling place to cast their votes. The 2002 HAVA law requires that voters with disabilities be able to vote privately and independently by November 2006, Ms Bysiewicz said.