Fwd: Legislature to allow counties select voting machines

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

FYI - A report from NY state. Pardon any duplication. -Joe

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Bo Lipari" <bolipari@xxxxxxxx>
> Date: May 11, 2005 9:07:16 AM MDT
> To: "Bo Lipari" <bolipari@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Legislature to allow counties select voting machines
>
> Yesterday, the HAVA conference committee made clear that they have decided
> to allow individual counties to choose their own voting equipment to replace
> existing lever machines.
>
> The legislature has ignored newspapers who have all editorialized in favor
> of optical-scan and against paperless voting. The legislature has ignored
> all of the evidence of problems with touch screen/pushbutton DRE voting
> systems. The legislature is going to let each county decide for themselves
> after being deluged by voting machine vendors and their lobbyists.
>
> We have a lot of hard work ahead of us to get paper ballots and precinct
> based optical scanner in each of New York's 66 counties. Not only do we have
> to educate county legislators and executives and local election officials,
> but we will have to ensure that the state Board of Elections allows optical
> scanners as a possible choice, which is not necessarily a given.
>
> The fact that we have gotten paper ballots and optical scan technology on
> the table here in New York is a testament to the hard work of thousands of
> citizens who have worked extremely hard on this effort. Please recall, just
> four months ago the state was poised to adopt DREs without any alternative.
> Our work has forced the legislature to at least allow for the optical scan
> option. This is a big step from where we were just a short time ago, and all
> of you who helped out should be proud of this success.
>
> We did remarkably well, but now we have an even harder job ahead of us. We
> are going to need everyone's help in this as we take the Paper Ballots for
> New York campaign to the local level, to the state Board of Elections, and
> as we pursue new legislation requiring state wide adoption of optical scan.
>
> We have worked very hard to get to this point. It's not the outcome we would
> have preferred from the HAVA conference committee, but we are not out of the
> game yet.
>
> We've got work to do folks. I hope you will join me in the next phase of our
> struggle!
>
> - Bo Lipari
>
>
> ******
> State ready to let counties select their own voting machines
> Yancey Roy
> Albany Bureau
>
> May 11, 2005
>
> Albany-Key politicians yesterday all but killed the idea of selecting one
> uniform voting machine for New York State, a move good-government groups
> lambasted as potentially setting the stage for a Florida-2000-style election
> fiasco.
>
> A legislative panel acknowledged it was poised to let each county select its
> preferred type of voting machines rather than the state.
>
> Backers, mostly from the Republican-led Senate, say it puts the power in the
> hands of local officials who are in tune with local preferences.
>
> Critics said it undermines the major goal of the Help America Vote Act,
> which Congress imposed on states as a way to prevent the type of election
> upheaval in the disputed 200 presidential contest.
>
> Instead, New York is setting itself up for similar problems, said officials
> from Common Cause and the League of Women Voters.
>
> Using different machines from county to county "is what Florida was all
> about," said Barbara Bartoletti of the LWV.
>
> "I think they're on the verge of making a big mistake," Bartoletti said.
> She conceived a scenario in which a state Senate election, covering multiple
> counties, triggers a recount and falls into chaos because the counties use
> different machines with disputes over how to verify votes.
>
> "You won't know if Mr Smith won or Mr. Brown won," Bartoletti said.
>
> She added that a joint Senate-Assembly panel that was supposed to make the
> decision on voting machines was "failing to meet if not the spirit, then the
> letter of" the election-overhaul law.
>
> As New York moves to replace its 22,000 or so lever-style mechanical
> machines, two types of replacements have emerged as leading contenders: a
> touch screen electronic device that largely resembles current machines and a
> pencil-and-paper system with an electronic scanner.