This past Wednesday, City Council Member Darlene Mealy submitted Resolution 961, which calls on the state Board of Elections to "promptly commission the development of a Precinct Based Optical Scan voting system that would comply with New York State voting system standards, which would be owned entirely by the State of New York."

Five years after passage of HAVA, New York remains the only state that hasn't done anything about it. Fortunately, we can learn from the mistakes of others; three states, at least, are throwing out their new computerized DREs in favor of a paper-ballot, optical scan (PBOS) system.

The current stumbling block is that under New York law all software running a new voting system must be put into escrow, including firmware and operating systems -- and practically every voting system on the market uses Windows. Naturally, Microsoft doesn't want to make their OS available to anyone.

So what can be done?

Darlene Mealy's resolution is the obvious solution -- a PBOS created for New York state that the state would own. This type of solution has worked in Oklahoma for over 15 years. Under this plan, the software would be public, ensuring complete transparency. This solution would also cut long-term costs, since we would not be dependent on a vendor to maintain and upgrade everything.

The resolution already has 18 co-sponsors, and things are just getting started. You can see the full text, plus the list of sponsors, on the City Council's webpage. Feel free to contact your City Council representative about this issue.