V.W.H. Campbell , Post-Gazette Ted Kopas, chief of staff for Tom Balya, chair of the Westmoreland board of commissioners, demonstrates the new "iVotronic" touch-screen voting machine for Vicky Wallbaum, of Blairsville, last night at the New Alexandria Firemens Club. This machine will also be used in Allegheny County. Click photo for larger image.

The county elections board voted last night to authorize a contract with Nebraska-based Elections Systems & Software to buy or lease 4,700 iVotronic touch-screen voting machines, 1,300 of which must be in place for the May 16 primaries.

The move comes just one week after Secretary of State Pedro Cortes told Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato that the Sequoia Voting Systems machines the county had planned to buy would not be certified because of software problems.

The state decertified the lever voting machines the county has used in the past. Also, the state requirement that these changes be made so close to the primary prompted a pre-vote venting from elections board member John DeFazio: "This is not right, this is not fair and it's going to be a catastrophe."

One concern of the board and the public is the haste with which $11.9 million has to be spent.

Board member Dave Fawcett, R-Oakmont, amended Mr. Onorato's motion with a lease option. He was the dissenting vote on the motion. The board is made up of Mr. Fawcett, Mr. DeFazio and Mr. Onorato.

Mr. Fawcett does not approve of the iVotronic because it does not allow a voter to verify his ballot on paper before committing it; the print-out of votes on each machine -- which is randomized -- is done only after voting is closed.

As a back-up during the primaries -- specifically to keep voters from having to wait if a line forms in polling places -- voters will have the option of committing a paper ballot into a precinct scanner. That will only be used in the May election, said Mr. Onorato.

About 25 people attended a hearing last night, during which debate centered on whether the county will be in compliance with new standards of the Help America Vote Act by using the touch-screen machines. The law was codified in 2002, but its standards were updated last year.

Paul O'Hanlon, an attorney with the Disabilities Law Project, said the iVotronic is not accessible based on the Help America Vote Act standards ratified late in 2005 and, because of that, the county could forfeit $12 million in HAVA funds to pay for the machines.

Mr. Onorato, visibly frustrated, waved a color-coded map of Pennsylvania counties and said, "I'm sitting here with 22 counties with the same machine, and the secretary of state tells me it's HAVA compliant.

"I'm trying to play by the rules they gave us and balance all these issues," he said.

In one year, he said, the county has upgraded 120 of 248 polling places that were not accessible by people in wheelchairs, he said. "I'm committed to this," he said.

Advocates for voters who have limited use of their hands and other motor dysfunction say the county should consider only a machine that anyone and everyone could use. Some optical scan units have "sip and puff" components for voters with limited or no manual dexterity.

Lucy Spruill, who said she has been disabled her whole life, said she has voted for 40 years asking people to help her, specifically when levers were too high. "But many people who have acquired a disability and are used to voting privately and independently will find it agonizing and stay home," she said.

"You can pretty much guarantee there will be lawsuits. There's a lot to lose getting this wrong."