Progressive Democrat Issue 52: NYC FOCUS

Here in NY State we are having our own fight over voting machines. This is really urgent because we may soon be faced with unreliable and overpriced voting machines right here in New York. This is from Democracy for NYC:

Action Alert - NYS Board of Elections Must Require Certification of Scanners!

Voting machine vendors who make both touch screen/pushbutton electronic voting machines (DREs) and Optical Scanners say they will not submit their scanners for certification to New York, but only their DREs.

This is outrageous given that thousands of NYS citizens, state and county legislators, and newspapers are calling for adoption of the paper ballots and scanners rather than expensive, insecure, error prone DREs. It is vital that the NYS Board of Elections require that vendors who make both DREs and optical scan systems must submit both types of systems for certification.

But our NYS Board of Elections doesn't seem to get it. Perhaps they've forgotten that they work for citizens, not for the voting machine vendors. In an interview on WXXI last week, spokesman Lee Daghlian said the NYS Board will only certify machines the companies want to sell.

"We don't feel that we can force a manufacturer to bring an optical scan machine to us if they don't wish to," he said. "This is a free country."

Apparently, Commissioners and staff of the Board of Elections think it's a free country for voting machine vendors, but not for the citizens they serve.

In a huge state like NY, it's beyond absurd for the Board to claim that they have no power to require vendors to submit scanners. Vendors will provide absolutely anything that the NYS Board of Elections requires of them. If the Board requires that they submit NYS full face ballot compatible scanners, you can be sure they will do so.

TAKE ACTION TODAY!

Mail or fax a letter to the State Board of Elections demanding that they require vendors to submit NYS full face ballot compatible optical scanners if they submit DREs. Remind the Board that they work for us, not the voting machine vendors.

Don't let the voting machine vendors decide what machines we vote on. Please write the State Board of Elections today.

You can also find a sample letter and contact info for the Board of Elections on the NYVV website.

Please address your letter to:

Peter Kosinski, Co-Executive Director
Stanley Zalen, Co-Executive Director
Neil W. Kelleher, Chair
Evelyn J. Aquila, Commissioner
Helena Moses Donohue, Commissioner

NYS BOARD OF ELECTIONS
40 Steuben Street
Albany, NY 12207-2108

Fax: 518-486-4068