Democracy for NYC has an action alert that is really critical for all New Yorkers. Our voting rights are up for sale and several companies are bidding to provide the machines that we will vote on. This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of what machines are reliabe, verifiable and cost-effective. Some vendors are pushing heavily for expensive and unrelaibe machines with no voter-verifiable paper trail. We have to be certain that there is a paper trail because without one our elections will never be verifiable. Whether or not you believe election fraud has played a role in American politics, I am sure we ALL want to make sure that fraud is detectable if it does happen. Hence the need for a paper trail that a voter can check. Right now we have to push our election officials to reject machines that are more expensive and less reliable and urge them to favor machines that are verifiable. Currently these officials mainly hear from the vendors who are trying to sell their machines. We need to be the voice of the people standing up for fair elections.

From the DFNYC website:

Draft voting machine regulations reflecting changes in State law to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), were recently posted on the Board of Election's web site. These regulations will dictate the certification of voting systems for purchase in New York state. The Board will hold three public hearings on this issue including one in NYC on December 20...

"PB/OS" (paper ballots with precinct-based optical scanners) is the safest, most reliable and most cost-effective choice for a voting system in NY State. And yet, the state Board of Elections has recently taken two outrageous steps against this system...

(1) Allowing the vendors NOT to submit optical scanners, effectively taking away the PB/OS option

First, representatives of the Board recently claimed they cannot force the voting machines vendors to provide the PB/OS option to the counties of NY (by having vendors submit optical scanners for certification.) This is an outrageous position, given that so many citizens, civic groups, and newspapers all over NY State are calling for the PB/OS system, rather than the expensive, insecure, error prone DREs that the vendors would prefer to sell us.

In a huge state such as New York, it is absurd for the Board of Elections to claim that they have no power to require vendors to submit optical scanning machines. New York is simply far too large of a market for the vendors to ignore. Voting machine vendors will provide anything that New York State requires of them. (As explained by New Yorkers for Verified Voting, NYVV.org)

(2) Jumpstarting certification testing on an incomplete DRE machine (no paper ballot)

Secondly, the Board of Elections has also made the outrageous decision to begin preliminary certification testing of the Liberty DRE computerized voting machine. Testing voting machines for certification was not to begin until after the issuing of draft regulations and a comment period. And most importantly, the Liberty DRE machine still has no voter verified paper ballot or full accessibility features as required by law. Doing certification testing on this machine is completely pointless. Testing an incomplete system is dangerous and bodes poorly for the need for a robust, thorough and transparent set of machine certification tests. (Also from NYVV.org)

TAKE ACTION TODAY!

Mail or fax a letter to the State Board of Elections demanding that they (1) require vendors to submit NYS full face ballot compatible optical scanners for certification and (2) stop planned testing of the incomplete and illegal Liberty DRE machine. 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.

By mail: NYS Board of Elections, 40 Steuben Street, Albany, NY 12207-2108
By fax: 518-486-4068
By e-mail: ldaghlian -at- elections.state.ny.us (replace -at- with @)

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

I really want to make clear that the eVote DRE machines are a real threat to our democracy. They are unrelaible--can be hacked, do not have a paper ballot and have computer code that is propriatary so we, the voters, are blocked from knowing how the machine functions. In districts where DRE machines have been used hacking has been reported as have numerous computer bugs that changed votes. Not having a paper ballot severely limits the voters' ability to verify that their vote was accurate recorded and makes recounts difficult. Having the machines use code that is not reviewable by the public means we do not know whether the machines are fair and accurate. Furthermore, the DRE machines are far more expensive than the PBOS machines, need to be replaced more often and are more expensive to use. PBOS machines are the ONLY acceptable choice on the market today. DRE machines are not acceptable and that is the message we have to send to our election officials.