Progressive Democrat Issue 58: NYC FOCUS ON VOTING RIGHTS

I want to keep everyone focused on the MOST IMPORTANT issue of the decade: our voting rights. All over the nation, state-by-state and even county-by-county people are fighting to keep verifiable paper ballots and are hoping to push for non-partisan or bi-partisan election boards. Both of these are CRITICAL for keeping American elections fair and accurate. Here in NYC, one of our point people on this issue is Marjorie Gerseten. This is from her newsletter:

The largely pro-forma hearing of the State Board of Elections on new voting technology, 12/20, Tuesday, a strike day, was a pretense of listening to our suggestions about the draft legislation language weaknesses. Only when asked a hard question about their intending to pre-certify partially built machines, did they get testy and still leave open the possibility of their doing just that. Claiming that an email was misunderstood and circulated in error, and weren’t really pre-certifying phase 1, as written, seemed a cover your derriere moment to me.

However, a welcome diatribe about the HAVA process and DREs from Council member Bill Perkins ended with the kicker. He advised that next day he would be joined by Charles Barron, Randy Jackson and Hiram Monserrate to introduce a resolution urging the New York State Board of Elections to promptly certify paper ballots with precinct based/optical scan voting systems for procurement by the local Board of Elections. Also, urging the New York City Board of Elections to select a PB/OS system as the new voting technology for the City of New York Governmental Operations. However, they need citizen support to convince others. Now at the end of the 2005 session, the resolution needs to be presented again. We must show our support for PBOS to the new point person, Charles Barron, as Bill Perkins was term-limited.

Please read Bill Perkins testimony.

Read the new resolution 1301 to Government Operation Committee

And keep writing letters to your state and local representatives as well as your local media and support a resolution urging the New York State Board of Elections to promptly certify paper ballots with precinct based/optical scan voting systems for procurement by the local Board of Elections.

The vote you are saving may be your own!