Voters in most of Erie County bid farewell to the traditional "pull the curtain and flip a lever" kind of voting machine Tuesday, and enough are unhappy with it that a local assemblyman is pledging to try and block its implementation when the current "pilot project" ends.
"We've certainly had concerns registered by voters," says Dennis Ward, the county's Democratic elections commissioner.
Under a test program being tried in Erie County, older larger machines are being replaced by an optical scanner that requires voters to enter their choices on paper -by filling out circles- and sending that into a ballot counting machine. Critics say the ballot marking lacks privacy.
" I think it is something the board of elections is going to have to look at," says Assy. Dennis Gabryszak, (D-Cheektowaga).
"It is something I will take up with my party and with the board of elections. .. something really needs to be done, " Gabryszak says.
Ward says most complaints had to do with perceived privacy breaches and "a lot of it has to do with how close an inspector will stand when a voter is marking a ballot."
The transition was mandated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, enacted in an attempt to reform the nation's voting process after the "hanging chads" issue and other controversies that followed the 2000 election. New York was the last state to comply with HAVA.
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