Nassau loses bid to continue using lever voting machines

Nassau County has lost another legal bid to avoid using a new optical scan voting system this year and continue using the old lever machines.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday upheld a U.S. Circuit Court injunction in January that ordered the county to use the new machines. "We see no abuse of discretion by the district court in issuing the injunction," the appeals panel ruled.

The county claims the new electronic voting systems violate the state constitution because they threaten to disenfranchise voters due to unreliability and security problems. It also claims elections would no longer be controlled by public officials but by the private companies that own the software.

The county still has a suit in state court that challenges the constitutionality of the 2005 Election Reform and Modernization Act. "We are going to state court and we are going to have ERMA declared unconstitutional," Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said Tuesday.

He said it was doubtful that anything would happen with the state lawsuit before next Tuesday's primary election, but was unsure whether there would be any impact on the Nov. 2 general election.