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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-Voting machine rule straps countiesBY JOHN REYNOLDS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Issues over the reliability of electronic voting machines have grabbed national headlines over the past few months, but at the local level, officials have another overriding concern: How are they going to pay for them?
The Help America Vote Act, signed into law by President Bush in October 2002, requires at least one electronic voting machine in every polling place nationwide by January 2006.
The legislation passed in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election where accusations of voting irregullarities in Florida put the election's result in limbo for more than a month.
On the Net • For the latest information from the state on HAVA compliance in Texas, go to www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/hava/index.shtml
• For articles on HAVA compliance published in County Issues, the Texas Association of Counties' online newsletter, go to www.county.org/resources/library/cissue/
• To view a critique of the state's handling of HAVA compliance, go to Texas Safe Voting at safevoting.org/
Elected officials on the South Plains, though, are increasingly unhappy with yet another costly mandate sent their way without any accompanying funds to implement it.
Lubbock County commissioners point to the machines' expected $810,000 cost as a major reason the county will have to pull from its reserves to balance the fiscal year 2005 budget.
In neighboring Lynn County, officials will need to install up to 14 electronic voting machines, according to County Judge H.G. Franklin.
The machines' estimated cost, $85,000, is about a tenth of what Lubbock County must pay. Taking into consideration, though, that Lynn County's population is about one-thirty-fifth the population of its neighbor to the north, Frank lin's taxpayers are shouldering a heavier burden.
Coupled with drooping agriculture prices depressing the local tax base, the budget outlook is not promising, Franklin said.
"We've struggled."
Lynn County officials en tered this summer hoping to do something about county em ployees' salaries, historically some of the smallest in the state.
"We did give them a token 3 percent raise last year," Frank lin said. "We were hoping to try it again this year. But, with this, we just won't be able to do it."
Franklin did not doubt the machines' accuracy or usefulness, but "to buy all this equipment is really bad for us," he said. "The state has put out so many mandates. Another blow like this and there's only one thing left to do and that's to raise taxes again."
Franklin and Lubbock County Commissioner Patti Jones were among a group of county leaders from across the region who flew to Austin last week for a confab with five electronic voting machine vendors peddling their wares.
Jones said she was struck by the general frustration level she encountered among the 400 or so participants at the event.
"Several times, people made comments about being mandated to do things they don't have the money for," she said. "Their tax base is not changing, so their revenue is not changing."
Without any relief, "they'll have to cut services on something," she said.
The federal government has promised billions of dollars to help defray the costs of installing the machines, but no money has yet made it to the county level.
According to Elna Christopher of the Texas Association of Counties, county administrators have two concerns when it comes to HAVA compliance: "Is it reliable?," she said, "and, good Lord, what is the cost?
"It's an unfunded mandate from the federal government," she continued. "The help is arriving after the fact, but who knows how much it'll be. There's little chance that all the money spent (by the counties) will be recouped."
In Lynn County, some voting boxes collect only four or five votes in a typical election, Franklin said.
He wondered where's the sense in spending thousands of dollars on a machine that might be used a half-dozen times on election day.
The county plans to ask for the state's permission to consolidate voting precincts in hopes of reducing the number of machines needed to become HAVA compliant, Franklin said.
He figured that with early voting giving citizens more opportunities to cast ballots, residents of the smallest precincts won't object to traveling elsewhere to vote.
Christopher said she understood why county officials like Franklin are contemplating precinct consolidation.
However, she feared those moves will end up discouraging voters.
"Combining precincts, it confuses the voters, ticks them off and may cause them to blow off voting," she said. "We don't want people less inclined to vote."
She expects the Texas Legislature will be forced to look at the voting machine issue in its next session if only because "a lot of county officials are talking about it and, frankly, there's a lot of anger. There's only so much they can ask from taxpayers."
The state's tight budget outlook doesn't make Christopher optimistic, though, that help is on the way.
Franklin's ideal solution would be to allow counties more time — maybe as long as four years — to implement the HAVA requirements.
"I talk with a lot of (county) judges and they're all facing a tight situation," he said. "If we knew this was coming and we wouldn't have to hit it all in one year, that's what I'd like to ask for."
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