Progressive Democrat Issue 67: NYC FOCUS

KEEP ELECTRONIC VOTING OUT OF NYC:

URGENT ACTION TO PRESERVE OUR VOTING RIGHTS

Help PASS City Council Resolution 131, urging selection of PBOS.

Just contact four Council members with the information below. That’s all we're asking.

Message from Wheresthepaper's Teresa: PBOS voting systems have been used for 20 years - they are time-tested, reliable, cost less, and retain local public bipartisan control of elections. DREs have a history of failures during elections, cost overruns as high as 1000%, loss of votes cast in minority languages, and reporting more ballots than voters. DREs require privatization of elections because DREs use secret software -- our Board of Elections would have to turn over our elections to vendors because vendors are the only ones who know how to service and program their own equipment.

Who to call, fax, email, and send letters:
Sample letters you can cut and paste: http://www.wheresthepaper.org/ny.html#whattodoNYC

1./ Speaker of the City Council Christine Quinn: Please co-sponsor Resolution 131, and use the power of the Speaker's office to pass it ASAP.
Speaker Christine Quinn, The Speaker's Office, City Hall, New York, NY 10007
Office (212) 788-7210, Fax (212) 788-7207, quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

2./ Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee, Simcha Felder: Please co-sponsor Resolution 131, and to use the power of your committee to pass it ASAP.
Council Member Simcha Felder, 4424 16th Ave., Brooklyn NY 11204
Office (718) 853-2704, Fax (718) 853-3858, felder@council.nyc.ny.us

3. Lead Sponsor of Resolution 131 Charles Barron: Thank you for introducing Resolution 131. Please act to get it passed ASAP.
Council Member Charles Barron, City Hall, New York NY 10007
Office (718) 649-9495, Fax (718) 649-3111, barron@council.nyc.ny.us

4. Your Own Council Member: Please co-sponsor Resolution 131, and do everything in your power to get it passed ASAP. Find your Council Member: www.lwvnyc.org/TRY_find.html

Always include your name, address and phone number.

Want us to send your letters for you?
Please send your name, address and phone to- admin@wheresthepaper.org
If the link doesn’t work, you may have to cut-and-paste this email address.
Your info will be used only to send letters on your behalf.

More info:
Where's the Paper
New York Verified Voting


THE SITUATION
DRE technology has been notoriously unreliable. It also is not transparent so that, ultimately, there is no public way to check the accuracy of an election. Finally, they are vastly more expensive thab PBOS The Democratic Party leadership has been strangely neutral and mute. WHY??? We have to wake them up before we find our elections privatized and our rights controlled by a company whose CEO is a biased Republican.

Suggestions to better safeguard and amend our regulations have twice been ignored. Trying a third time, with no sign that the State Board of Elections is serious about testing equipment. Reading through, the law seems more about limiting vendor liability than about accurate and verifiable elections.

If our elections are not accurate and verifiable, we are NOT a democracy.

PBOS is a far better solution for counting the votes electronically, with less cost and less risk. It is established technology, transparent and ultimately verifiable. However, all electronics need safeguards. In other states, partisan election boards have blocked verification of PBOS elections. However, those elections are STILL ultimately verifiable if the political will was there. DRE elections are NOT ultimately verifiable because the software is proprietary and the elections run by company employees, not by the public.

Many recent articles have been written about Albany dysfunction and the Department of Justice fines over the state’s non-compliance with HAVA. However, many states are finding HAVA an underfunded mandate. HAVE funding WILL NOT COVER THE COST OF DRE MACHINES.