Hal Marcovitz at the Morning Call is reporting that Bucks County voters will be able to use their lever machines for the May primary because Danaher can't get their unverifiable DREs delivered in time.
All I can say to that is hooray! Tell Danaher they can keep their machines until 3006. The federal government will work out the HAVA dollars Bucks is supposed to lose for not being HAVA-compliant in time for the May primaries. I can't imagine that the powers that be in Washington will let Mike Fitzpatrick take that hit in an election year. Bucks County can rent some handicapped-accessible machines like the AutoMark, which has the added advantage of providing a voter-verified paper ballot.
In the meantime, voter-verified paper ballot legislation will pass on the federal (HR 550) or state level (HB2000, SB977) turning the Danaher machines into very expensive paperweights, which is what they are best suited for anyway.
Update on the cartoon feature set up by the state to make us all realize how much fun it is to be disenfranchised: I clicked around the game and found out that the cartoon Star Trek lady is saying that Snyder county will be voting on ES&S iVotronic machines in May. According to my research, Snyder county will be using the ES&S Model 100 op-scan machines in May for non-handicapped voters. They will have iVotronics in place for handicapped voters only for the May primary. After that they will be using the Auto Mark system, which provides a voter-verified paper ballot.
Snyder county is the model for the rest of the state when it comes to electronic voting. In May most of their voters will be using voter-verified paper ballots via precinct-based (counted at the precinct - not by a vulnerable central tabulator) op-scan machines. As of November of this year, all the voters will be using voter-verified paper ballots via the addition of the Auto Mark system.
I wonder why the state doesn't make that clear on their website. Would it take away from the rest of the county's fun if they found out that there was a perfectly valid alternative to voting on unverifiable machines already in place in PA?
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