Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Secretary of the State Prepared to Roll Out New Voting Machines

The Towns receiving the new Machines in alphabetical order:
Ashford
Bethlehem
Bolton
Durham
East Hartford
East Haven
East Lyme
Hartford
(4 precincts)
Litchfield
Mansfield
Middletown
Monroe
Montville
Newington
Newtown
Old Lyme
Salisbury
Southington
South Windsor
Tolland
Vernon
Westbrook
Wethersfield
Wilton
Wolcott


Excerpt from press release issued by Press Secretary Dan Tapper:
HARTFORD – At a news conference today at the State Capitol, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced that twenty-five (25) cities and towns will use new optical scan voting machines during this November’s election.

The twenty-five cities and towns were chosen following a survey in which every municipality in Connecticut took part, where officials were asked if they would like to be considered for the new technology this year or wait until the 2007 elections. A total of fifty-one (51) cities and towns expressed an interest in beginning this year, and the twenty-five were chosen from there.

LHS Associates is the company chosen by the Office of the Secretary of the State in August to ultimately provide the state with 1,538 optical scan machines to replace all 3,300 lever voting machines in Connecticut by November 2007. They will provide these twenty-five towns with 253 optical scan machines and 1,167 privacy booths within in the next month, well in time for the November election, Secretary Bysiewicz said today.

Optical scan voting technology, in which a voter fills out a paper ballot and then scans it into a machine for verification, is the most common form of voting technology in America today, with more than half of the counties in America voting on optical scan machines. Optical scan technology also provides a paper trail for every vote case, in compliance with state law and the federal Help America Vote Act. The state will use $15.7 million in federal funds to purchase optical scan machines and privacy booths for every municipality by 2007, and to also cover the cost of all necessary training.


Source: Press Release, "SECRETARY OF THE STATE BYSIEWICZ ANNOUNCES
25 CITIES AND TOWNS TO BEGIN USING OPTICAL SCAN VOTING MACHINES THIS YEAR" September 13, 2006

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

With Madam Secretary's typical effectiveness, I'm amazed the towns were alphabetically correct.

Anonymous said...

You mean WIllington doesn't get them!?

;-)

Anonymous said...

I was kinda of hoping Washington would be a test site oh what a bummer Well I guess I have to wait until 2007

Anonymous said...

Please, if you can find it in your hearts, vote for Richard Abbate. I know he is not a sexy candidate, but anybody is better than Susan (well, anybody other than Alan Schlesinger). Seriously, she needs to go.

Anonymous said...

We could vote by having everyone in CT get in one room and raise their hands and it wouldn't be worse than what went on in MD yesterday...

Anonymous said...

Just an FYI - both Old Lyme and East Lyme ALREADY HAVE the new optical voting machines! In fact, both towns have had them for over 3 years...

Just what the heck is Susan doing up there?

Anonymous said...

NOOOO Bush is oging to rig the machines!!!! Oh.. a lib is doing it, thats ok then.

Anonymous said...

The scanners are easily tampered with according to several source turned up by a google search.

The IVS system for disabled people is a joke. It takes 10 minutes or more to vote. (Current law for lever machines says that people must vote and exist the machine within 2 minutes.) 7 days before the election, our town still doesn't have the phone number to call or access code for each polling place for this terrible IVS system. The one good thing Susan B did was to only contract for this system for one year. Leads me to believe she knows this system is garbage and the state will replace it next year, after buying 825 "laser" fax machines, special telephones, headphones, paying for privacy screens and ballot boxes plus the installation of dedicated phone lines (for the IVS system). How many million was spent on this system?

It creates a lot of extra work and expense for each polliing place. In some other state using this system, only 100 votes were recorded on it STATEWIDE.

Abbate, as the former head of the Registrars' Association is familiar with how polling places work and need to be run. I doubt he'd have made such an unwise decision.