Lever Machines Approved for Village Elections

The Village of Mineola and other municipalities will be able to use the old non-digital lever machines in the local elections in March.

The New York State Legislature recently passed legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, D-Great Neck, and , R-Mineola, to use lever machines.

During Wednesday’s meeting of the , Mineola Village Clerk Joe Scalero mentioned his belief that there are national groups opposing signing the bill.

“I believe because they’re not informed as to what the repercussions are or what it would mean to local voters,” Scalero said. “They’re just hellbent on going with technology, they don’t realize that’s even the issue because that’s not an option this year.”

A fear existed that local municipalities would have to resort to in the March 15 election. The new optical scan machines used in the 2010 elections were not available because as the State amended its laws for the new scan machines, paper ballots become the automatic default when the .

The Martins-Schimel bill allows villages to continue using the lever voting machines for elections until Dec. 31, 2012. School elections and votes are governed under education law, and were allowed to continue using the lever machines.

“This legislation will prevent local villages from having to incur the expense of renting scanner machines and having election workers trained on them or purchasing ballots,” Martins said in a statement.

Under the law, paper ballots would have to be provided by the same outside company that provided them to the county for the optical scan machines and cover 110 percent of the registered voting roll, about 12,000 total. The village would have to pick up the cost, totaling $6,600 at 55 cents per ballot. When asked at a previous board meeting, Scalero estimated that Mineola last used paper ballots around 1945.

Nassau County is prepared to offer the old lever machines to local municipalities for their elections and Scalero said that he has already reserved the machines for this year’s vote.

“So when you come down to village hall to vote, the names on the ballot may change, but the machines will be the same,” he said.