ALBANY - The state Board of Elections approved a new voting machine Wednesday despite advice from a citizens' committee that many disabled voters won't be able to use it.

The board approved the Liberty Election Systems machine for temporary and experimental use. The decision came after an independent testing lab determined it was technically sufficient, but the citizen's committee warned it didn't meet federal voting law standards for use by the disabled.

New York is years behind federal deadlines to conform with the Help America Vote Act, enacted to improve voting accuracy and access for the disabled after the contested 2000 presidential election.

Under a court-ordered timeline, New York must have at least one disabled-access machine at some 6,800 polling places for the fall elections. The old requirement was one per county.

The Citizens' Election Modernization Advisory Committee, which was created to advise the elections board about whether new machines meet the requirements of the HAVA, was particularly concerned about whether the machines allow the disabled to cast their votes easily, independently and accurately. The Liberty device and three others approved by the board Wednesday will be used this fall in the presidential elections.

The board had tentatively approved Liberty and five other machines so county election officials could place initial orders. This latest round of approvals elevated four of those machines to the next level of competition for the lucrative contracts.

Both SysTest Labs, an independent testing facility, and the citizens' committee rejected two machines previously in the running and the elections board voted against approving them. The machines - made by Avante International Technology, Inc. of New Jersey - were found to have intermittent technical problems and failed to meet various HAVA requirements.

New York has $190 million in federal funds to buy new machines. The state must replace all pull lever machines by the fall of 2009.