New York faces federal suit over voter accessibility

The state of New York is being threatened with a federal lawsuit for failing to comply with the Help America Vote Act, which requires actions such as the development of statewide voter-registration databases and the installation of e-voting systems or other voting machines that are handicapped-accessible.

The legal threat came in a letter sent to state officials last month by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Wan Kim. In the letter, Kim said that New York is "further behind" in HAVA compliance than any other state and that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has authorized lawsuits against the state and its elections board.

Kim added, though, that the U.S. Department of Justice would rather negotiate a settlement with New York officials than go through "costly and protracted litigation."

HAVA was passed by Congress in 2002 in an attempt to improve the federal elections process. All 50 states were required to meet the law's provisions by the start of this year or face sanctions by the DOJ.

Several state officials interviewed recently acknowledged that they remain in violation of the statute, but only New York has been publicly warned that a lawsuit is possible.

A spokesman for the New York Elections Board acknowledged last week that the state lacks handicapped-accessible voting equipment and has not yet created the required voter-registration database.

The board is discussing the status of its efforts with the DOJ, the spokesman said, adding that the state was delayed in starting HAVA projects while it waited for the New York legislature to create vendor certification processes and other rules. The legislation was finally passed last July.

The spokesman said state officials expect work on the voter registration database to be done before the federal primary elections in September. The elections board is also speeding up the certification process for handicapped-accessible voting machines, he said.

The state could be forced to return some of the US$220 million it has received for HAVA compliance work if the requirements aren't met.

A DOJ spokesman declined to say what penalties might be imposed on New York or to offer any further information on the matter.

New York Not Alone Officials in some states claim to be compliant with HAVA, but a number of other states are still scrambling to comply with the law.

Spokesmen for the secretaries of state in Texas and Ohio, for example, said that those states are fully compliant with HAVA, whereas officials in California and Connecticut acknowledged that they still aren't meeting the requirements of the law.

In a survey conducted late last year by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), only 24 of the 43 states that responded said they expected to be fully compliant by the Jan. 1 deadline.

DOJ personnel are talking to state elections officials and are "evaluating the situation of each state," said the agency's spokesman. "We will then determine what action should be taken, if any." He declined to say whether any states besides New York have been formally threatened with a lawsuit.

Sam Reed, president of the NASS, said most states have done a fairly good job of responding to HAVA's requirements, considering that the federal deadlines weren't realistic from his point of view.

Reed, who is Washington's secretary of state, said he didn't know the specific status of member states because of the less than full participation in the association's survey and because state officials "tend to play it close to the vest."

Based on his experience in the state of Washington, Reed said, the DOJ has so