GREENSBURG: When voters go to the polls today, it might be one of the last times they use those old mechanical voting machines that have been staples in Westmoreland County for the last half century. Pulling the lever for a candidate will become a thing of the past in about two years as county officials face a Jan. 1, 2006, deadline imposed by the federal government to cast out the old voting machines in favor of a new-and-improved, computerized method of choosing candidates. “They were state-of-the-art once,” Paula Pedicone, director of the county Elections Bureau, said of the old voting machines. “I still think they are OK.” The voting machines were first purchased about 50 years ago, in the mid-1950s. The county currently has about 700, with many in use at the county’s 306 polling places. The machines are no longer in production, so replacement parts typically are culled from spare machines. The Help America Vote Act, signed into law last October by President Bush, authorizes $3.9 billion in federal money to upgrade voting machines, train poll workers and educate voters. The law mandates that all paper ballots and lever voting machines be abolished by the start of 2006 and replaced with a modern system that is more reliable and handicapped accessible. Federal officials moved to modernize voting across the county in the wake of the 2000 presidential election that had numerous problems with paper ballot voting. But Pedicone said there is no more reliable system in place than what is currently in use in Westmoreland County. “It’s a very secure system, but unfortunately we’re not going to be allowed to use them. One of the primary concerns with punch card systems is the fact that people could over-vote. You cannot over-vote with our voting machines,” Pedicone said. What the lever-based voting machines don’t provide is a paper trail to ensure there are no improprieties in an election. Lever machines operate without separate paper ballots. Voters go into the booth and pull tiny levers for candidates using a common ballot placed into each machine that is specific to each voting district. When the larger lever is pulled to open the booth’s curtain, votes are recorded via a counter on the back of the machine. Votes are tabulated at the end of the night by counting the number of clicks ticked off on the counter. Westmoreland, Allegheny and Fayette counties are a few of the 18 in Pennsylvania that still use lever-based voting machines exclusively. At least seven other counties use some type of paper ballots, according to Brian McDonald, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State. There are seven counties that have converted to computer balloting. Pedicone said she already has started reviewing some computer-based systems. Those systems primarily involve touch-screen voting, in which a computer screen is set up inside a voting booth. Officials anticipate the federal government will allocate $1 million to pay to replace one machine at each precinct in Westmoreland County. Pedicone said the county will still have to come up with about another $1.4 million to completely outfit all precincts with the computerized voting machines. And no one seems to know when the federal money will be forthcoming. McDonald said no federal money has been freed up yet, and it is unclear when those grants will be made and which voting systems will be approved for use. “We still don’t have any real idea about which type of machines will be compliant,” McDonald said.

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