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Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Counties to Fund Vote Machine Upkeep

By Trip Jennings
Journal Capitol Bureau
    SANTA FE— New Mexico now has paper ballots and machines to count them, but will anyone be able to fix them should they break on Election Day?
    Gov. Bill Richardson's veto of legislation Monday has New Mexico's county clerks expressing concern about this year's elections and how well their new electronic tabulators will work.
    The vetoed bill would have required the state— and not the counties— to pay the more than $1 million annual maintenance fee for the state's fleet of electronic tabulators used to read paper ballots.
    With the veto, the counties must assume the costs.
    And the costs are eye-popping for offices that are used to taking care of problems in-house and paying next to nothing to maintain voting equipment.
    "We are in shock and awe," said Sheryl Nichols, the chief deputy Los Alamos County clerk.
    Under a proposal from Nebraska-based ES&S, which sold New Mexico the voting equipment for $18 million in 2006, the costs to Bernalillo County, for example, would top about $300,000 a year.
    For Doña Ana County, the bill is $79,000 a year, slightly higher than Santa Fe County, at $69,000.
    Tiny Mora County, population just more than 5,000, would pay about $7,500 a year. Los Alamos County's tab would be more than $14,000.
    Richardson said Monday afternoon he would try to assist the counties: "I will instruct the Board of Finance to try to help the counties get through this."
    But Richardson made clear he thought the counties should bear some costs for the voting equipment the state purchased.
    "I think the counties have to assume some responsibility," he said. "But I will make sure the counties ... can sustain the expenses."
    In his veto message, Richardson said the requirement for the state to assume maintenance costs was left unfunded by the Legislature. He also noted that the requirement had been added during a conference committee and had not been discussed on the floor of either chamber of the Legislature.
    Despite the governor's assurances, the prices have made some elections officials wary of signing maintenance agreements with ES&S. But if they don't sign, ES&S won't send out technicians to maintain the equipment, they said.
    And that could have consequences: On Election Day no one would be on hand who knows how to fix the machines.
    "By virtue of not being trained on how to fix them, it puts us in a bad situation," Nichols said. "These machines are a mystery to us. No one has been trained in the county office."
    Last Friday, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said it might be less costly to purchase more electronic tabulators as backup than signing a maintenance agreement.
    "Needless to say, we don't intend to go into this election year without ensuring that the machines are up to snuff," she said.
    On Monday, Toulouse Oliver said through a county spokeswoman she "is disappointed (the governor) vetoed the bill."
    Denise Lamb, a former state elections director who now runs Santa Fe County elections, said she was surprised Richardson vetoed the legislation because it was he and the state that determined "we needed to get rid of our old voting equipment because (the new machines) added a level of integrity to our process."
    "I can't imagine his enthusiasm has waned so quickly, because we have this enormous election coming up, and we need to have equipment to work," Lamb said.
    An ES&S spokeswoman said Monday the company has worked with the state to address concerns. But she added the maintenance agreement was specified in the contract between ES&S and the state.
    "It was well-known," ES&S spokeswoman Jill Friedman Wilson said. "It is unfortunate that it came as a surprise to the counties."
    The cost for maintenance is consistent with agreements across the country, Wilson said.