PA. ELECTIONS County officials doubt registry will be ready

The system's project manager is confident the kinks can be worked out.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- The most definite piece of election reform in Pennsylvania -- the creation of a statewide, electronic voter registry -- has been hampered by implementation problems, and county officials are skeptical that the system can be fully operational by the April 2004 primary as planned.
"We don't think it's ready," said Douglas Hill, executive director of the Pennsylvania County Commissioners Association, alleging that the state has provided inadequate computer equipment, software and support for the fledgling Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors.
But SURE project manager Ted Koval points to the lack of major problems during last May's primary in the four counties that used the registry as the best evidence that serious kinks in the system will be worked out before it is expanded to all 67 counties in the 2004 presidential primary.
The "testing phase" that began in the primary and will be extended to two more counties in the general election this fall is "our opportunity to find out how the system works, what we need to correct, what we need to make better," Koval said.
State, federal law
Though other important aspects of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 remain unsettled, including what kinds of voting machines should be allowed and how much federal money will be available to help pay for new devices, the centralized registry is mandated by both state and federal law. Plans for the Pennsylvania registry had been in the works even before Florida's 2000 presidential recount battle.
SURE, which will replace the separate voter registration systems that most counties currently maintain, is designed to make it easier for county officials to electronically cross-check and update voter registration information by sharing that information.
Last year, the state awarded a $19.5 million contract to a New York firm, Accenture Ltd., as the primary contractor for developing the system.
In the four counties that were the first to use the registry, the reviews were generally unfavorable.
Regis Young, director of elections in Butler County, home to about 102,000 voters, said scanners that the state provided to make digital copies of voters' signatures were unable to read blue or red ink.
State officials advised him to make black-and-white copies of the original document and then scan the copied signatures, but he refused -- leaving hundreds of signatures still unscanned as of Wednesday.
"To me, that is not a true copy of the original," Young said.
Same problem
In Beaver County, elections director Dorene Mandity reported the same problem, although she took the state's advice and scanned copies of the red- and blue-ink signatures.
Mandity echoed Young in complaining that the new system does not allow as wide a range of customized voter lists as the counties previously were able to offer candidates, who pay for them, and said printers do not allow data to be printed on both sides of a page, which saves money.
Koval said that the state is in the process of replacing the scanners and that enhancing the array of reports that the system can produce is "a priority on our list."