Wednesday, February 15, 2006
One official is requesting information from Affordable Housing of Lawrence County.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Lawrence County commissioners have again delayed deciding on a countywide voting system.
At Tuesday's regular meeting, Commissioner Dan Vogler announced that they are awaiting clarification on a Commonwealth Court ruling from the previous day.
Vogler said a lawsuit filed in Westmoreland County, south of Pittsburgh, prompted a judge to rule that the federal Help America Vote Act does not supersede the state constitution, which requires a county referendum asking voters if they want to switch to electronic voting.
HAVA requires counties to have compliant systems in place by the May 16 election or risk losing federal money allotted for new machines.
Vogler said the commissioners asked county Solicitor Tom Leslie to research a 1982 referendum passed by Lawrence County voters in favor of electronic voting.
Vogler, however, is unsure it will apply to today's technology. In 1982, voters were deciding whether to go with the current optical scan system which involves pencil marks on paper that are tabulated on a machine.
What's happening
Voting Director Marlene Gabriel again urged commissioners to go with a touch-screen voting system. She said election poll workers have noted there will be too much confusion if the county keeps the paper ballots but also places one handicapped accessible touch-screen machine in each polling place as required by HAVA.
Gabriel said the company she prefers, ES & amp;S, has set aside enough voting machines for Lawrence County and promises delivery by May. She noted ES & amp;S officials have told her they will hold the machines only until the end of this week.
Commissioner Ed Fosnaught voiced his support of electronic voting, noting it will cost more to retain a paper ballot system.
Vogler and Commissioner Steve Craig have said they prefer paper ballots. Craig said Tuesday he wants to take a wait-and-see attitude until the court case is resolved.
"The single most important issue is voter trust in the system. If we violate voter trust, we will have violated one of the tenets of our democratic system," he said.
Commissioners expect to discuss the matter again at Thursday's caucus meeting.
Question about spending
In other business, Fosnaught said he has not received a response from Affordable Housing of Lawrence County about how the $200,000 loan given by the Lawrence County Housing Authority was spent.
Affordable Housing came under fire at the end of 2005 after taking out a $250,000 bank loan to buy seven homes far above their county-assessed valuations, and five of its seven board members resigned.
"I think it's ridiculous that Affordable Housing has not accounted for this money," Fosnaught said referring to the housing authority loan. Affordable Housing members have said they had about $13,000 of the $200,000 left as of January.
County commissioners met with Affordable Housing and Housing Authority officials in January to talk about the problems.
Fosnaught said he received a letter from Affordable Housing Solicitor Ed Leymarie stating the group could not share the information about how the money was spent because a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development investigator has asked the group not to speak about its business.
"Why all the secrecy? These are public tax dollars. I still think the public needs to know what happened to the $200,000," Fosnaught said.
cioffi@vindy.com