Voters to Use Old Lever Machines March 15

Garden City's March 15 village election in Garden City will cost almost $9,000 less than anticipated.

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law legislation allowing local villages to use the old lever machines in upcoming trustee elections. Otherwise, village officials would have been required, as per state election law, to have ballots on hand for 110 percent of its 16,000 registered voters at a cost of approximately .55 cents a piece ($8,800).

The bi-partisan legislation, sponsored by Sen. Jack Martins, R-Mineola, and Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, D-Great Neck, enables villages to continue using the lever-pull voting machines until Dec. 31, 2012.

"The integrity of our voting system has been preserved," said Sen. Martins, chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Local Governments. "The alternative was simply not acceptable ... The ballots cost 55 cents each, placing a financial burden on our taxpayers. In a difficult financial time, our villages shouldn’t be saddled with unnecessary expenses. Furthermore, it would require villages to provide the manpower necessary to count the ballots by hand."

Garden City trustees wrote letters to Sen. Kemp Hannon, R-Garden City, and Assemblyman Tom McKevitt, R-East Meadow, and said they are grateful Sen. Martins helped "push" the bill through.

The electronic scanners first made their debut during general and primary elections last fall. If the governor didn't sign the bill into law, villages would have been required to rent the machines from an independent source, which village counsel Gary Fishberg said would have been costly, or use paper ballots.

Garden City’s March 15 village election will take place at village hall as usual, only this year residents will be voting in the boardroom – not the lobby, between noon and 9 p.m.