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November 4, 2010

By Jake Palmateer Staff Writer The Daily Star Thu Nov 04, 2010, 03:30 AM EDT

Many area residents went to sleep Tuesday night not knowing who won the 20th and 24th Congressional District races.

Preliminary election results -- which have traditionally been made public between when the polls close at 9 to 10 p.m. -- were slow to make it from the voting machine to the living room.

The slow results were largely because of protocols associated with new, federally mandated voting machines.

"I think we were not satisfactorily prepared for the amount of time it took to get returns," John Nader of Oneonta said Wednesday.

Nader is a former Democratic city mayor and staunch supporter of Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica. He is also a fixture at The Autumn Café on Election Night, where local Democrats gather to monitor returns.

"We were very surprised," he said. "We were not fully satisfied with the process."

Late Oneida County results prevented the 24th Congressional District race, which was won by Arcuri's challenger, Richard Hanna, from being called until nearly midnight, even though Hanna had apparently triumphed with a six-point margin. The district includes all or parts of 11 counties, each overseen by its own board of elections.

"We were faster than some and slower then others," Nader said of the county's results.

Otsego County results for the 24th District race became available on the county's website at around 10:30 p.m.

"With the lever machines, they used to call in the results," Otsego County Republican Elections Commissioner Sheila Ross said. "There is no more calling the results or reading numbers off the machines."

Ross said there have been accuracy issues in the past when the wrong, unofficial numbers were given to the board.

She outlined the procedure now followed in Otsego County:

The official results are contained in a 2GB SD computer data card, as well as a paper tape printed off from each machine when the polls close. Both are placed in an orange "speed bag" and sealed. It, and all other voting-related paperwork, such as affidavits, emergency ballots, absentee ballots turned in at the polls and unused ballots are put in a blue bag for transport to the Board of Elections office at The Meadows Office Complex in Middlefield. Otsego County used seven sheriff's deputies who traveled separate routes in the county to pick up the material. The deputies began arriving at the The Meadows shortly after 10 p.m. The SD card is uploaded to the Election Management System computer.

"Once they put a number of those SD cards in the EMS system, they then do their computer magic," Ross said.

The results are placed on a thumb drive and transferred to another computer, where they are then uploaded to the county's website.

"It's very fast once we get the cards," she said. "The best part about this thing is it is correct. This is what it's going to be."

Otsego, Delaware and Chenango counties all use the ImageCast Optical Scan Voting System.

But there is variation between the counties on what follows when the polls close.

In Delaware County, town clerks or poll workers were tasked with bringing the SD cards and tapes to that county's board of election, Republican elections Commissioner Bill Campbell said.

But there was another step in their process.

"They called in the results from the polling sites," Campbell said.

By about 9:30 p.m., five of the 19 towns in the county had filed unofficial results with the board, he said.

In Chenango County, poll workers at each polling place brought their SD card and tape directly to the Board of Elections, election clerk Carly Abbott said.

Results became available to the public shortly after the SD cards came in starting at 9:30 p.m The last, from Linklaen, 50 miles away from the county seat in Norwich, got there at about 10:45 p.m., she said.

Duncan Davie, a vice chairman of the Otsego County GOP, said some delay was expected but overall, the board handled it well.

"I think everybody realized all of our counties were on a maiden voyage in terms of these new machines and new procedures in a general election," Davie said.

But with U.S. congressional districts and state Assembly and Senate districts typically formed by meandering boundaries through several counties, there was no set path for the preliminary results.

The lateness of the Oneida County results in the 24th District race held up calling it for Hanna.

"That was really kind of a surprise," Davie said.

Poll watchers who view the tapes from the ImageCast machines and then phone in the results may be the solution and were used in at least one local race _ for Oneonta town highway superintendent, he said.

Davie said he expects discussions between the county party committees and their local boards of elections to find ways to expedite the preliminary results.

In terms of the actual voting on the new machines, indications from Davie, Nader and Ross were that it went smoothly.

Poll worker Jann Ewen of Oneonta said there was a steady flow of people Tuesday, most using the machines for the first time.

"People don't like change," Ewen said at the Oneonta Town Hall on Tuesday evening. "I think they are amazed when they are finished, and there was nothing to it."

There were some concerns about privacy because the voting stations are not fully enclosed like the old lever machines.

There were also some complaints about the size of the circles used to mark a voter's choice.

Ross said the system is here to stay and proved to be efficient for the board of elections, which ended its evening earlier than usual, even if the unofficial results to the public flowed at a slower pace.

"This is what it's going to be," she said. "For us, it is faster, really."