Officials pan voting mandate
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Wednesday, May 23, 2007
By Loretta Park
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
lpark@standard.net
Davis leaders join resolution against paper-trail proposal
FARMINGTON -- Davis County Commissioners joined other county leaders by signing a resolution stating their disapproval of a federal bill that could change how voters cast their votes in 2008.
Box Elder and Utah counties have already signed a similar resolution, while others, including Weber, plan to do so soon.
The bill bans the use of the Direct Recording Electronic voting machines. Utah and other states have already spent millions of dollars on the machines, which have barely been used.
Those voting machines allow voters to use a touch-screen to cast their votes and were first used in the November 2006 election.
The bill requires states to use only optical scan ballots and indicates those machines would have to be in place by the 2008 elections nationwide.
"This is another knee-jerk reaction," said Davis County Clerk/Auditor Steve Rawlings at the commission meeting.
Davis County would end up scrapping its 833 DRE machines, worth $2.4 million, Rawlings said. Funding for the machines came from the federal government, but the county has to pay to store the devices, maintain them and train workers.
"This is going to cause big-time problems," Rawlings said. "It's unfunded mandates."
Weber County has 655 voting machines worth $2.3 million, said Weber County Clerk/Auditor Alan D. McEwan. He said he expects Weber County commissioners to sign a resolution opposing the bill at its next meeting.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-N.J.
It could be voted on by the House of Representatives as early as June, said Matt Dennis, press secretary for Holt.
Utah spent more than $27 million in upfront costs in order to meet the mandates of the 2002 Help America Vote Act, said Joe Demma, the lieutenant governor's chief of staff.
"We are opposed anytime Congress comes poking their noses in the election game," Demma said.
Utah congressmen also disagree with the bill's mandates.
"While well-intentioned, I'm not sure this new Democrat bill, with additional unfunded mandates on the states and counties, is the right approach," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.
Bishop said Utah's election system is solid. When the federal government begins making mandates, it often does more bad than good, he said.
The bill requires that a specific type of paper be used in voting machines to create a paper trail, Demma said. The current voting machines are not capable of handling the heavier paper.
"A paper trail is a good goal, but this entire legislation may in fact be a congressional overreaction to repair the previous congressional overreaction," Bishop said.
County officials said the majority of voters who used the machines in November's election liked them.
Other county officials said they are also worried about what the unfunded mandates will mean to county pocketbooks.
"It's insane to me," said LuAnn Adams, Box Elder County recorder/clerk/surveyor.
Adams said Box Elder, like other counties, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars not only to train poll workers, but for the storage and maintenance of the voting machines.
She served on the state's committee that decided on the voting machines.
"It was the hardest thing I've done," Adams said. "We tried to buy the very best we could, and now (the federal government) is coming around and saying the equipment won't work. I'm having a hard time understanding where they're coming from."
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