News Copy, New York

New Voting Machines: Hacker's Delight

Governing magazine's blog, The Thirteenth Floor, had this story on an elections inspector getting in trouble for demonstrating how electronic voting machines can be hacked into.

...Ion Sancho, the elections supervisor of Leon County, Florida, has gotten himself in trouble by emphasizing this point. Sancho let some scientists try their best at hacking into some of his machines. They proved that there were, in fact, vulnerabilities.

Here is a case of a civil servant doing his job right and being penalized for it.

"I've essentially embarrassed the current companies for the way they do business, and now I believe I'm being singled out for punishment by the vendors," Sancho told The Washington Post.

The companies agree. Or, at least, a lawyer for Diebold has vowed not to sell Sancho any equipment unless he promises not to run any more tests on them.

Sancho has also lost over half a million dollars in federal grant money for his hacking demonstration.

We would think that the federal government would be thanking this fellow.

Diebold has continued to have problems with certain electronic voting machines.

43 percent of newly registered Los Angeles voters stricken from rolls?

Over a middle initial!!!?

Daily Kos had the story on a series of malfunctions that seems to be getting worse each time we check Google.

Meanwhile, the diligent Sancho is getting support from his community.

The Tallahassee Democrat had the following story on his supporters calling a press conference.

"We need to give him some encouragement," former Leon County Commissioner Anita Davis said. "I know it's going to work out because he did the right thing. He opened up something that nobody had the nerve to do."

All we know is that commercial software is constantly being patch and updated, so Diebold better get those noses out of joint.

This Miami Herald editorial noted that California election officials conducted similar tests on potential hacking and got the same results as Ion Sancho.

"Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb should take a cue from Attorney General Charlie Crist. Instead of berating Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho for trying to improve ballot security, the state should question vendors who can't guarantee tamper-proof systems.

"Mr. Crist is right to initiate anti-trust and civil-rights investigations of Diebold Inc., Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems. The three companies refused to sell voting equipment to Leon County after Mr. Sancho conducted a test that showed Diebold machines were vulnerable to inside hackers."

We're missing those old mechanical voting machines everyday.

New Yorks Voting Machine Woes

Meanwhile, New York State has missed so many deadlines and allocated so little money that The North Country Gazette noted that Albany's bureaucrats are headed to federal court if they don't do something productive by April 10.

The state has the dubious distinction of being the first state ever sued by the Department of Justice for its worst-in-the nation record of complying with the Help America Vote Act.

The federal government filed its lawsuit against New York State last month in U.S. District Court, Northern District in Albany, after the state’s election commissioners said that they wouldn’t have new machines in place by this year’s election. Voters would have to continue to use the lever-action voting machines which have been used for decades.

The first deadline was January 1.

A sum of $2.3 billion in federal aid was awarded to the states and territories to modernize voting machines and update the elections process. The changes to improve the voting system was made following the 2000 presidential elections and recount which was necessitated.

The state has to date received $220 million that was earmarked to replace the 20,000 old voting machines statewide and for training of election officials in how to use new machines but so far, the money is just sitting collecting interest and the state has taken no steps to create the voter database, purchase and implement the new machines or provide the training. Critics of the lawsuit say that it forces municipalities into buying technology that might become quickly obsolete.

Locally in Fishkill, Dutchess County officials tried to explain what's coming to 100 residents this past week, according to Mid-Hudson News.

“The paper ballot in an optical scan system is the paper ballot that the voter marks and it goes into an electronic computer that reads it and drops it in a box,” he said. On a DRE, the voting machine, as the voter is selecting a ballot, requires there be a paper trail that they review and that they accept, and when they say they accept it, it marks on that paper trail that they have accepted it.”

We don't like the paper ballot system either.

It's less machine and more human, meaning more personnel (which never happens) and more potential for human error.

We won't the old reliable mechanical voting machines back.

Newsday ran an editorial that was skeptical about the federal lawsuit -- and its timing.

"With barely five months to go to primary day, it is nothing short of fantasy for Justice to contend that an orderly process could be successfully completed by then. Thousands of voting machines would have to be purchased. Training materials and seminars would be needed for tens of thousands of election workers. Political parties and the general public would need to be educated in using a new system. These involve staggering logistics. No responsible person would advocate doing all of this in such a short time."

We agree but new technology is expensive.  The State Legislature should have allocated the money over two years ago -- but such is the convenient budget habits of Albany porksters.

No pork for electronic voting machines, training or personnel.  Of course not.  That would be too practical and why spend money on things the federal government is paying for.

The State is being condemned -- and sued -- because they are cheap.  They're also tardy in implementing new voting standards, not just new voting machines, and a bunch of lawmakers would love to manhandle the ballot design until it suits the purpose of either major party.

You can't go halfway on implementing new voting machines.

The irony is that New York State's slow and underfunded response to federal voting reform legislation leaves them spared of any potential hacking in this year's elections.

We hope.

The Brad Blog has regular updates on voting machine nightmares.

Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA, Testing Shut Down After Machine Failures!

'Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'!

Ten-Year Old E-Voting Systems from NV Planned for First Time Use in PA This Year

It's enough to keep the conspiracy theorists busy for many months to come.

Anyone want to bet that someday we all return to those old reliable lever-pulled mechanical voting machines?

BRING BACK THOSE OLD RELIABLE LEVER-PULLED MECHANICAL VOTING MACHINES

Deadlines Were Made To Be Broken

One of the true hubs of Central New York's blogging activity is NYCO.

NYCO had this humorous observation on the federal government going after New York State over their failure to meet a deadline implementing electronic voting machines.

"While this isn’t exactly giggle material, I always find it perversely fascinating when the all-powerful federal government, so accustomed to snapping its fingers and sending mighty armies speeding across the globe on a whim, confronts the awesome inertia that is Albany. There has to be some kind of way to harness and use that mighty natural force for good."

New York State has 30 days to implement something.

New York State has 2-3 weeks to pass a budget. 

Deadline?  Did someone say deadline?

Time to start a betting pool on the likelihood of either deadline being met.

The ugly punchline on this transition away from those ever-reliable mechanical voting machines is that the less expensive optical scanning would generat more unreliable paper ballots than the existing system.

An Etch-A-Sketch being used as a voting machine would be more trustworthy.

The Southern Tier's Running Scared had an excellect overview of a column by Gannett's Jay Gallagher about New York's misadventures discovering the 21st century (entitled New York's new motto: 'Dead last and defiant').

"In case your state is not doing so well in terms of HAVA compliance, you might look into what put us in this sorry state of affairs. I'm sure you'll be shocked to find that it was politics, far more than any technical difficulties. (Though they certainly existed as well.)"

Gallagher's column touches upon the "dyfunctional" tag that Albany earned two years ago from the Brennan Center.

"That study found that New York lawmakers virtually never seriously debated bills on the floor or even considered them in committee and also almost never rejected a bill. It was also the only Legislature in the country that allowed lawmakers to vote without being in their seats. Then there was the matter of not passing a budget by the start of the fiscal year for 20 years in a row - by far the longest streak in the country.

"That report sparked enough of an outcry so that last year lawmakers now actually have to be present to vote in most instances. Some issues, including the budget, are debated in public instead of behind closed doors and the budget was passed on time. (Almost everyone gave them a mulligan for actually finishing about a week later when the last $1 billion in spending was decided on.) But if those actions were a step away from dysfunction, certainly the sorry history of the HAVA deliberations is a leap the other way. What happened?"

What has hamped implementation of electronic voting machines is mired in the final dollar figure.

"Last year lawmakers finally agreed on a wide array of proper IDs, with enough safeguards so that so that the chance of fraud was reduced.

"Then when it came time to look at which machines to buy, high-powered lobbyists entered the fray. The fight was between the lobbyists who wanted the state to buy the more expensive ATM-like machines and good-government groups who thought the simpler optical-scan machines were the way to go.

"The Legislature never did resolve that issue - it decided instead to pass the buck to the counties that now will have to pick their own machines."

Less expensive machine have problems that have resulted in computer fraud in other states, a point that the State Legislature has chosen not to highlight.

It's also a point that many bureaucratic-minded lawmakers, who seem to enjoy New York's daunting democracy, don't want resolved -- and it could result in a snowstorm of paper ballots in every county board of election.

Jazz of Running Scared had a conclusion could rightfully apply to any number of issues in New York's State Legislature.

"Even in a blue state like New York, it seems that the two sides are willing to endanger the most basic, important right that their constituents have - the right to vote for their government representatives - for the sake of playing power politics. If your state isn't HAVA compliant yet, it's time to get moving and poke a cattle prod into some state officials' backsides. You may not make it in time for the 2006 mid-terms, but you'll most certainly want to be ready for 2008."

With what we're hearing lately about how the State Legislature handles business, we're afraid all three men in the room would enjoy the cattle prod.

Steal Some Other Election

The Associated Press reported that the state is trying to avoid a lawsuit for failing to fund and implement the Help America Vote Act soon enough.

In an effort to prevent "chaos" at the polls this November with poorly funded electronic voting machines, the New York State Board of Elections announced Tuesday that the lever-action voting machines used for generations will likely be in service again this November.

"There is no way New York state is going to be able to go forward with any kind of voting system other than continuing this year to maintain the lever machine system," said former state Assemblyman Neil Kelleher, a co-chairman of the state Board of Elections.

Voting inspectors need to be trained, technology needs to be purchased and the estimated costs were found daunting year after year.  The result is that New York State is not in compliance with federal standards, like a child who leaves the homework until last minute.

On Monday, state election board commissioners quickly ended a public meeting to go behind closed doors to continue the negotiations. The board is scheduled for another public meeting March 7.

Thus far, New York has received $220 million in federal aid to buy new voting machines, make voting fully accessible to the disabled and compile centralized voter registration lists, among other things.

We would not be surprised to learn that the $220 million has already been spent on everything but voting machines.

Daghlian said for the 2006 election, most New Yorkers will again be using the lever-action machines first demonstrated in Lockport, N.Y., in 1892 and which soon became the dominant system across New York and much of the nation.

"They always did their jobs," said Kelleher, who spent 25 years in the Assembly. "Sure, they had some breakdowns, but nobody is going to tell me that these new, fancy machines aren't going to have some breakdowns. There's going to be more recalls on this than you could shake a millions sticks at."

It might be true that the old machines are more reliable but what's shameful is New York State's inability to enter the 21st century with any proper investment in technology.

Now at least New York State is safe with old mechanical machines that can be "fixed" with a coat hanger, rather than electronic voting machines that can be hacked into by a college student.

Electronic Chaos Predicted For Election Day

Electronic voting is finally causing a panic, just as the State Legislature is approving it, and it leaves us wondering what took all the good government groups so long to catch on to this fine mess

The Albany Times Union reported this morning that New York is headed for an election disaster as bad as the 2000 Florida presidential debacle, with no field tests planned for new machines and poor oversight of the companies that make them, a coalition of election watchdogs warned Wednesday.

We agree.

But they all took too long.

They are six years too late.  Other states have been grappling with these matters for two or more years, including the potential fraud and failure of electronic voting devices.  The other problems include the costs of both the machines and the labor to supervise the ensuing madness as 2-3 generations of voters wish Bill Gates had gone into banking like his father.

"This could be a disaster that would make Florida look like a day in the park," said Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director for the state League of Women Voters.

We pay our lawmakers to do something for a living.  Sometimes, we're not sure what it is -- but we do know that 62 counties have County Clerks and Board of Election Commissioners who should be raising a lot of valid questions.

News Copy is on record predicting that the 2007 election will be the latest in history.

Our point is that we're all lucky the State Legislature certifies this election by April but February of 2007 should be a good bet, especially if the entire election is done over.

We're not kidding.

"Bartoletti, along with representatives from NYPIRG, New Yorkers for Verified Voting and Common Cause on Wednesday urged the state Board of Elections to make provisions for "mock elections," as a way to conduct true-to-life tests for voting machines."

Computer hackers will have a field day with this election, we predict.

It's going to be expensive to train poll watchers, educate voters and supply every election district in New York State with electronic machines that fulfill all the common sense needs of an election.  Right now, the debate is between cheap machines and not-so-cheap machines, with a crazy idea to allow counties to buy different technology.

Not all counties could be required to use electronic voting machines.

"Trying to get a new system in place by Election Day would be a total train wreck," said Bo Lipari, director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting.

Rick Karlin of the Albany Times Union reported that the state plans to replace approximately 22,000 aging lever-pull devices used across New York.

The Board of Elections meets Monday, and Lipari told the Times Union that he fears it will pass guidelines that don't require testing of the machines.

California, he noted, had a 20 percent failure rate when it ran a mock election. And when hackers tested voting machine security in Maryland "they found a gauntlet of problems."

Other states have already tested machines because they are much farther along in meeting the federal Help America Vote Act that mandates adoption of the new machines.

As News Copy has previously reported and the Albany Times Union is zeroing in on, New York has missed HAVA deadlines and risks losing more than $200 million in federal funds. The New York Times has previously reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is threatening to sue the state for what the Times Union aptly characterized as "tardiness."

Our bet is that Election Day will be a failure, acknowledged as such by everyone -- except the winners -- and then the court fight will bring us all to New Year's or later before the election is either certified or rejected by the State Legislature.

We're missing the old voting machines already.

Electronic Voting Faces Numerous Hurdles

We had a "tongue and cheek" response to the many changes in voting machines that we should have clarified.

"The Daily Gotham pointed out that New York City groups like Democracy for NYC don't want "unreliable and expensive" voting machines.

No.  They want those good ol' mechanical voting machines that have "fixed" more elections than Americans will never know -- and that require expensive maintenance."

Part of our comment was rooted in the fear that these less expensive machines will be unreliable, more unreliable than the existing mechanical machines -- proven out by dreadful experiences with hackers and fraud in other states.

There are other types of technology that News Copy has written about that are now being actively considered by the State Legislature.  They are more expensive.  New York's solution to the cost issue is that counties would use the technology they choose, not one mandated by the state.  That inconsistent approach is no way to run an election either.

Admittedly, PB/OS machines endorsed by Democracy for NYC are the least expensive to purchase and maintain.  They also represent the most cohesive product IF the state cannot come up with the funding to pay for every county's new machines.  However, we're not certain yet if they are the most reliable -- particularly in terms of the human element and the historically fraudulent history of paper ballots.  Though they might be the least expensive to purchase and maintain, the staffing and verification issues could turn PB/OS into a bureaucratic nightmare.

We have  also tried to offer some background and history on the methodology of full face ballots and limited ballots.  It's a legal question that steps into the entire nature of political party tickets and how elections have been fashioned for over a century.

The Daily Gotham reported that new technology will comply with full face ballot requirements in New York State and Connecticut.

However, paper ballots strike us as a step back.  However, electronic ballots clearly could become an unaccountable mess -- especially with hacking -- and there is a lot of valid reasoning for optical scanning with paper ballots.  The only problem is that it could become people intensive (not so bad, yes?) but what ballot location ever has enough volunteers?

Meanwhile, computers seem like a clean way but the idea of some politically-inclined software hacker dwelving into the electronic voting machine -- with no fingerprints -- is frightful.

So we're not sold on anything to do with paper ballots or electronic ballots yet -- and we most desperately want to be educated on all the options.

Please post your perspectives on this issue.

The Daily Gotham and Democracy For NYC is ahead of the learning curve here.  The State of New York is lost, as usual, and about to be sued by the federal government, according the The New York Times.

"New York is behind all other states and territories in deciding how to spend its share of $2.3 billion in federal aid to modernize voting machines and other elections technology. So far the state has received $220 million to replace its 20,000 aging voting machines, train local election officials to use the new machines, and create the voter database. The money is unspent and collecting interest, officials say."

Newsday reported Thursday that the state is delayed in implementing federally required voting machines -- and the State Legislature has pathetically failed to address these issues in detail WITH the public.

In addition to not having voting machines standards adopted, New York has failed to compile a statewide, computerized list of registered voters, Kim noted.

"We are hopeful that we will be able to resolve this matter through a negotiated consent decree rather than through costly and protracted litigation ... (but) we are prepared to file a complaint if the matter is not resolved expeditiously," Kim said in the letter sent to the state election board and to state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer, through a spokesman, declined comment.

They are being too silent up in Albany about these new voting machines.

It's no laughing matter and we strongly suspect that those old mechanicals will be pulled out one last time after the September primaries for a last hurrah in November of 2006.

People need to be shown by our elected officials what is going on here and the media needs to help educate millions.

Will they?

We doubt it.

Computer Hacking: Ghost in the New Voting Machines

Just some observations about computerized voting off The Hotline, The National Journal's blog on politics.

Diebold's Crack Up (?)

News Copy has been closely covering New York State's transition to touch screen voting machines -- and we expect some serious questions to be raised about computer security before Election Day comes in 2006.  We're also unsure whether the primaries in the second week of September, 2006 will have computerized machines or not.

What we do know -- and this is good news -- is that the New York State Board of Elections has opted for the more expensive machines rather than the less expensive models that apparently have been "error" prone in other states.

Electronic voting machines have caused "consternation" in California, as the Associated Press reported.

Diebold Election Systems has also been under fire since Florida officials found the systems could be hacked and the votes changed. California counties using Diebold systems are being told to put them through more rigorous security tests before use in 2006.

The New York Times has been covering this story but the Brad Blog noted a level of inconsistency in the coverage.

"The counting of votes is a public trust. So is the reporting on how it is done. Dan Mitchell, like Diebold, has never acted as if he understood this."

The Hotline has gathered its own share of opinions on this growing controversy.

The Brad Blog hasn't missed a speck of information on the problems with Diebold and electronic voting, outlining the history of what become a chaotic situation.

News Copy has noted the lack of coverage by New York State, New York City and national news outlets on the potential problems with electronic voting.  Ernest Partridge had this commentary on OpEdNews.com. 

"Despite abundant statistical, anecdotal and circumstantial evidence of fraud in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections, the mainstream media has placed a near-total embargo on any mention whatever of the issue of electoral integrity. Amazingly, and disgracefully, most Democratic politicians and liberal publications have joined this silence."

The New York Times called it The Business of Voting in this editorial.

"Diebold's voting machines have a troubled history. The company was accused of installing improperly certified software, which is illegal, in a 2002 governor's race in Georgia. Across the country, it reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the California attorney general last year of a lawsuit alleging that it made false claims about the security of its machines. Last week, the top elections officer in Leon County, Fla., which includes Tallahassee, concluded after a test that Diebold machines can be hacked to change vote totals."

It could all make the 2006 election season a very complicated and drawn out (as in court-drawn) process.

Big Screen Voting

If only it was as easy as going to the movies.

Buy your popcorn, hit a few buttons and vote on the big screen.

However, "full face" ballots aren't such a fantasy but voting on computer tablets or monitors is going to cost taxpayers some extra dollars next year.

The Albany Times Union has the story Monday; Paying for big-screen ballots.

There is a controversy brewing on the costs of new technology and how it's applied.

At issue is the full-face ballot, which shows all the candidates running for every office on one page. New York has long required full-face ballots in its mechanical voting booths, and new draft regulations from the state Board of Elections would mandate them in electronic machines as well.

An analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University estimated that a full-face ballot, rather than a scrolling menu showing one race at a time, requires larger, more expensive machines -- $1,500 to $5,700 apiece.  The Albany Times Union noted that the state uses more than 20,000 machines, putting the difference in the tens of millions of dollars.

News Copy has covered this story extensively in recent weeks:

Full-Face Voting Machine Controversy

We adore those cute Diebold machines too but there is a legal question about whether or not we have to smush everything on the face of a tablet, according to the Brennan Center.

"All ballots shall be printed and/or displayed in a format and arrangement, of such uniform size and style as will fit the ballot frame. ..." The center argues the law's intent was simply to ensure that all candidates for each office were on a single page, not every candidate in every race.

Of course, this would end the imagery of party tickets and the calculation of ballot position, all traditions in politics.

So the battle of the scrolling menu versus the Mr. Diebold beguns.

Full-Face Voting Machine Controversy

In addition to possibly becoming a year of multiple primaries, The Wonkster noted that 2006 will more likely be remembered as the year of the new voting machines.

Hopefully, it won't be like The Attack of the Killer Voting Machines

The Milwaukee Urban Star interviewed DRE, a Diebold voting machine.

Controversies are being roused over the cost and design of the ballot for 2006, expressed yesterday in this New York Daily News opinion piece by two staffers at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Getting out the vote just got tougher
Misreading the law has state eying machines that hinder elections

"New York is about to purchase new voting machines. Unfortunately, the New York State Board of Elections has taken the position that the state may only choose from among the most expensive, error-prone and inaccessible machines available."

We trust the Brennan Center, who brought New York State a critical step closer to reform of its Legislature last year, but we're not sure yet what all the fuss is about.

We have to wonder if New Yorkers should have been given a ballot referendum to decide whether or not they wanted elections on a full-face computerized touch screen or those good old lever-operated voting machines (that one political operative in Yonkers demonstrated to us one night could be "fixed" with a coat hanger).

Well... We also know what computers could do to an election, especially with gifted hackers, so we expect the 2006 results should be finalized in court in a year or two.

Opponents of the new full face machine are complaining about the costs.

Proponents are pointing to an 1899 requiring that every race and ballot initiative be put on one big page.

Opponents say that law has always been flawed -- some of their reasoning caught our attention:

"The first version of that law was enacted in 1899 at a time when parties produced and distributed the ballots themselves. That law's purpose was to prevent party bosses from creating ballots that would place themselves (or their allies) on one side of a ballot, and their chief opponents on the other.

"The current version of the law was passed to ensure that each candidate's name fit within each of the machine's ballot frames. The Legislature never intended to require a full-face presentation with all offices presented at once."

The law's initial intent comes across as valid to us, so "full-face" machines could serve a valuable purpose.  The only problem is that computers are only as good as the mortals who program or handle the machine.

We suspect that the fear of a "full-face ballot" has to do more with some progressives' penchant for creating anarchy. There are groups with an agenda and there are bound to be multiple manipulations of the new ballot by all political quarters.

Still, as the Gotham Gazette observed, "the Shoup 3.2 lever machines, those awkward metallic boxes long in need of replacement, will be gone after November, if all goes the way it is supposed to."

Doug Israel of the Gotham Gazette noted that all the fuss is over the Help America Vote ACT or HAVA that was passed by Congress in 2002 following the Florida "chad" debacle.

Forging an agreement on machines in the New York State Legislature has proven to be nearly impossible. For two years now the legislature has made only piecemeal progress towards any decision, its delay pushing New York State to the brink of non-compliance with HAVA and the loss of over $153 million in federal funds for New York. As the State Assembly pushed hard for inclusive and uniform statewide standards to ensure greater and equal access for all voters across the state, the State Senate held firm on stricter language to ensure security and prevent against potential voter fraud. The clash of these positions has prevented a compromise.

The Daily Gotham pointed out that New York City groups like Democracy for NYC don't want "unreliable and expensive" voting machines.

No.  They want those good ol' mechanical voting machines that have "fixed" more elections than Americans will never know -- and that require expensive maintenance.

The Ithaca Journal has reported that counties should have be given a choice between "direct record electronic" (DRE) full-face ballot touch screens and what some estimate to be less expensive optical scanners.

"Each current lever machine would be replaced by one DRE. In contrast, a single optical scanner could accommodate an entire precinct, since voters mark their paper ballots in privacy booths before depositing them in a central scanner. The detailed analysis by New Yorkers for Verified Voting concluded that, were DREs deployed statewide, acquisition costs would be more than twice that for scanners."

The only problem with optical scanners being used on a large scale is that it would, rightly or wrongly, return New York State back to the days of the paper ballot

We can imagine a generation of two is going to be very confused on Election Day next year (and what about Primary Day in September?).

The Brennan Center's full analysis is fascinating and well worth reading, if only as a historical piece on how far New York has come with its elections.

New Voting Machines Coming

Election Day signaled the end of an era -- the last time New York's durable lever-action voting machines were used in a statewide general election.  The machines made their debut in Lockport, N.Y., in 1892.

Some of the old voting machines have been around since 1960, most since 1964.  State authorities will hold onto them, for backup, during the transition to new voting machines.

The lever-action voting machines may have seen their last general election. New York and other states are under federal orders, in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election, to upgrade voting systems in time for the 2006 election. That means either electronic machines or optical scan systems that can read marks on a paper ballot.

The New York State Board of Elections cannot predict when exactly the new computerized touch screen voting machines will actually be in their hands (possibly by January of 2006).  They only know that they will need time to train 3,200 inspectors and that they must use the new technology or false the loss of millions in federal aid.

WHAM in Rochester had more on the changes ahead with the Election Day ballot process.