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A Resolution of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, requesting an alteration in County policy regarding the purchase and use of a new election system under the terms of the Help America Vote Act.
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WHEREAS, under the terms of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Allegheny County is provided with approximately $12 million in federal funding in order to cover the costs of replacing its current lever voting system; and
WHEREAS, in order to maintain its eligibility for this federal funding, the County must ensure that its lever voting machines "will be replaced in time for the first election for Federal office held after January 1, 2006," per the terms of Section 102 of HAVA; and
WHEREAS, as of April 1, 2006, the County had not yet received the Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machines that Allegheny County Board of Elections chose to acquire, nor had these machines even been certified as HAVA-compliant by the Pennsylvania Department of State; and
WHEREAS, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has also not yet certified any voting system as HAVA-compliant that provides a paper record of voters' choices to them for verification before votes are tabulated; and
WHEREAS, although there were over 877,000 registered voters in Allegheny County in 2005 and there are currently 1,314 voting districts in Allegheny County, only approximately 2,800 new voting machines are being purchased; and
WHEREAS, this comparatively low number of machines per voter and voting district both limits the County's ability to react should a problem arise with a number of machines and creates the potential for long wait times as a large number of voters use a small number of machines; and
WHEREAS, the Allegheny County Elections Division is budgeted for only 42 staff members in 2006 with which to administer and oversee the County's transition to an entirely new voting technology, as well as educate the public and poll workers about that technology; and
WHEREAS, under these conditions, and with the knowledge that the May Primary Elections are only approximately six weeks in the future, Allegheny County Council has grave concerns about the ability of the Elections Division to adequately administer the transition to a new voting system such that the voters of Allegheny County can be reasonably assured both that the 2006 election cycle will proceed in an orderly fashion and that each of their votes will be correctly counted;
WHEREAS, Council finds that it is desirable to wait through both 2006 and 2007 to give the General Assembly adequate time to consider and enact laws pertaining to voter verified paper records, testing and reliability standards, and other matters relevant to safeguarding all Pennsylvanians' Constitutionally guaranteed right to vote; and
WHEREAS, Council also finds that it is desirable to wait through both 2006 and 2007 to give the Pennsylvania Department of State adequate time to complete the review and certification process for HAVA-compliant voting systems in Pennsylvania; and
WHEREAS, Council also finds that it is desirable to wait until after the standards for disabled access to voting machines become mandatory on January 1, 2007 before purchasing a new voting system, so that the new voting system must conform to these standards;
The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby resolves as follows:
SECTION 1.
County Council hereby expresses its desire for the County to pursue a more deliberate, circumspect approach to the acquisition of a new voting system. Accordingly, Council hereby requests that the Board of Elections pursue the following courses of action:
A. Leasing certified HAVA-compliant optical scan voting machines for use in Primary and General Elections to be held in both 2006 and 2007, in order to provide adequate time for the evaluation, certification, and purchase of a new HAVA-compliant voting system for use in the May 2008 Primary Election and thereafter.
B. Reopening the voting system selection process and devoting renewed attention to the following considerations:
1. The importance of open source code for direct record electronic (DRE) systems and vendors' willingness or ability to provide access to their source code;
2. The importance of testing and reliability standards, and the General Assembly's willingness or ability to create such standards; and
3. The importance of voter verified paper records and the certification and availability of hardware to produce such records for DRE machines;
4. Whether optical scan machines might provide the most cost-effective means of generating the functional equivalent of a voter verified paper record without having to wait for state certification of a DRE capable of generating such a record.
SECTION 2.
Copies of this Resolution shall be transmitted to regional representatives of U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate, as well as to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
SECTION 3.
If any provision of this Resolution shall be determined to be unlawful, invalid, void or unenforceable, then that provision shall be considered severable from the remaining provisions of this Resolution which shall be in full force and effect.
SECTION 4.
Any Resolution or Ordinance or part thereof conflicting with the provisions of this Resolution is hereby repealed so far as the same affects this Resolution.