NEW YORK – New electronic voting machines are being introduced in tomorrow’s primary. State and city budget cuts mean not enough staff have been trained to help voters use them.
A glitch in the computer programming will let people mistakenly vote for too many candidates.
And the machines come with paper ballots so hard to read, voters will be offered magnifying glasses.
Election officials still insist the roll-out of the optical scan voting machines should be relatively smooth, as New York becomes the last state to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.
HAVA, enacted in response to the contested Florida presidential vote in 2000, directed states to adopt simpler voting systems to avoid the nightmare that led to the contentious, 36-day recount in Florida that gave George Bush the state – and the White House – by 537 votes over Al Gore. (AP)
