To the Editor:
Your Oct. 7 article on rising voter registration numbers and the
need to rent voting machines for the November election said that Bucks County
still did not know how many machines it will be renting. Donna Snyder, county attorney, said, “State statute calls
for not less than one machine per 600 voters.” However, the article continues, the Pennsylvania state election director says “that counties using Danaher machines should have
one machine per 350 voters.”
At present Bucks County does not appear to be renting enough machines to meet either of
these numbers and, thus, prevent long wait times on line. Some voters, because of job and family responsibilities or
health reasons, cannot wait on a long line. A voter who needs to leave the line loses his or her vote. This should not
happen in a democracy.
In order to comply with the one machine per 600 voters statute,
the county needs to have 877 machines allocated to the 304 polling places. As of Sept. 27, the county was planning to
deploy only 812 machines. Sixty-five more machines need to be rented to comply with the statute; hundreds of more machines
are necessary to meet the Pennsylvania Department of State's directive of one machine per 350 voters.
In addition to renting enough machines, election officials need
to streamline the process inside the polls by eliminating the unnecessary step of having voters stop first to have their names
looked up in an alphabetized list of voters book. Voters should go directly to the district register signature books
and sign in. Having these signature books split into as many sections as there are voting machines will speed up the process
further.
Voters need to let the county commissioners know that they should
rent enough machines and establish efficient polling place practices so that all voters are able to cast their votes in November.
Madeline Rawley
Doylestown Township
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/320-10122008-1604393.html
