Oswego County to scrap voting machines

ALBANY - Mechanical-lever voting machines will be locked away in 18 counties this fall, as the state moves forward with its latest plan to comply with a federal election-modernization law.

Instead, voters will take pencil to paper and mark up their ballots before feeding them into optical scanners. People with disabilities and other voters have the option of using ballot-marking machines before scanning in their choices.

All states were supposed to implement the Help America Vote Act by January 2006. New York, which was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for multiple delays, will be the last to comply.

The date for fully implementing the federal law has been pushed back several times. Last year was supposed to be the final time voters used decades-old lever machines, but problems with testing new machines and other factors led to changing the date to fall 2010. The state Board of Elections notified the Justice Department last year that it was at risk for missing the 2009 deadline.

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(Please note in the story Oswego County is left out, but Oswego County will be one of only a handful of counties in the pilot program that will fully implement the new voting systems...all 124 elections districts.)