Fire districts scramble for vote

Long Island fire districts are scrambling to prepare for Tuesday's commissioner elections after learning they can't use new optical voting machines and are prohibited by state law from using the old lever-style machines.

Board of Elections officials say the new machines cannot be readied in time for the elections after being impounded by court order as part of the recent general election recounts.

Most fire districts in Suffolk and about a quarter of them in Nassau will use the old voting machines, election officials say, even though the state does not allow for it. As of Thursday, 90 Suffolk districts and 12 in Nassau had ordered the old machines from the county elections boards.

New York State Board of Elections officials said the state law is clear.

"No one should be using the old machines except for school districts," said John Conklin, state elections spokesman, adding districts had an alternative - paper ballots.

The law exempts school districts from having to use the new voting equipment through 2012. But Conklin said the law doesn't allow special districts to apply for waivers from the equipment requirements. And he warned that while the law contains no "enforcement" powers, using the old machines could open the districts to legal challenges.

But Massapequa attorney Joseph Frank, who represents several fire districts, said the law leaves them "in a difficult position." "The State Legislature addressed this for school districts, but not any other local government," he said.

The state "caused confusion" by not considering the law's impact on special district elections, said Jesse Garcia, assistant to Suffolk Commissioner Wayne Rogers.

"The law wasn't meant to tie people's hands and say, 'Well, nobody can vote because there's no machines,' " said Gordon Heights Fire Commissioner Maryanne Owens.

South Hempstead Fire District will use paper ballots, said Commissioner Paul Cartier. His district has an uncontested election that usually brings a low turnout.

But in Rocky Point, where as many as 600 people usually vote, the district has opted to use the old machines. "I'm concerned, to be honest," said Commissioner Anthony Gallino, also the Suffolk County Fire District Officers Association president. "I don't think anybody from the state reached out to tell us it was against the law to use the [old] machines."

Special districts, such as fire and water districts, libraries and villages, are responsible for running their own elections, without oversight from the state or county. They rent voting machines from the county boards of elections.

But the chaos this time has led Nassau's Board of Elections to require districts to sign a waiver holding it harmless should lawsuits arise from using the lever-style machines, said board Democratic Elections Commissioner William Biamonte.

Election officials from both counties said it takes time to reconfigure the new machines' software for a new election, and workers have to be trained to use them. The recount delay made it impossible to do that by next week.

When the new machines were introduced, the state recommended that all elections have the scannable ballots available for 110 percent of registered voters.

Yet only a fraction of the population votes in fire district elections. Many such races have less than 500 voters turn out, Biamonte said, and at about 50 cents a ballot, the cost can be prohibitive, officials say.

Commissioner Thomas Mastakouris of the South Farmingdale Fire District wondered why the state didn't allow special districts to "piggyback" on the school district exemption.

The Association of Fire Districts of the State of New York is planning to ask the State Legislature to give the districts a waiver that enables them to use the lever-style machines in next year's election, said William Young, the association's attorney.

"We're talking about a machine which historically, for the last 80 and 90 years, has worked very well," he said.

With Patrick Whittle

and William Murphy