When residents go to the polls for municipal elections on March 15, they’ll be using the familiar lever voting machines that were supplanted by electronic ballot scanners in the November general election, and municipalities will be able to keep using the less expensive lever machines through the end of 2012.
Use of the lever machines instead of the controversial electronic scanners was the result of legislation co-sponsored by state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) and state Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck), which was approved by both houses of the state Legislature last week.
“At a time when people are struggling, it is our responsible to alleviate burdens placed on our taxpayers. This legislation will prevent local villages from having to incur the expense of renting scanner machines and having election workers trained on them or purchasing ballots,” Martins said.
Martins had previously said that reprogramming scanning machines for upcoming local elections is “effectively impossible” and would represent a “significant cost” to local tax bases. Without the scanner machines, local municipalities would have been forced to use paper ballots, at a cost of 55 cents for each ballot.
In pushing for approval of the legislation, Schimel noted that each lever machine is a $150 rental, while the scanners cost $1,500 per machine to rent.
“Without changes to current state law, many villages will be forced to conduct their upcoming elections by hand counting paper ballots or by renting machines at an exorbitant cost,” she said after the bill passed.
The bill gives municipalities the same break that the state Board of Elections granted to school districts in permitting the same latitude for the continued use of lever machines in school budget elections through the end of 2012.
Municipal officials in Nassau County universally lauded passage of the bill.
“We would have had to contract with an out-of-state vendor in Nebraska at a significant increased cost for paper ballots and optical scanners rather than the mechanical lever machines,” Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender said. “Passage of these bills in the Assembly and Senate has enabled us to make our local elections more affordable.”
Celender urged Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign the legislation.
Village of Sands Point Mayor Leonard Wurzel seconded that sentiment.
“We certainly hope that the governor will sign the bill as soon as possible. Time is getting short for villages to have the March elections,” Wurzel said.
Ironically, it was the alleged unreliability of the electronic scanners that formed the basis of former state Sen. Craig Johnson’s unsuccessful effort to seek a full recount in the November election battle that he lost to Martins in the 7th state Senate District race.
