Will Your Vote Count Next Year?

Written October 2006

On Thursday, October 5, 2006, Bo Lipari (Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), presented a very informative program on the new voting machines to replace the current lever machines used in all New York elections beginning in September of next year (2007).  NYVV advises the State Board of Elections!  I had heard of some negative discussion on CNN of the required new machines and I believe that if the voters don’t have confidence in the new machines, they won’t bother to come out and vote!  As Bo said, “it’s about Democracy”!

In New York, the State Board of Elections is going to approve some of the new machines and it will be up to the individual Counties to select which type to use in the elections. The timeline is near, with all counties, Tioga County Board of Elections, in particular, to select the machines from December 19th of this year (2006) until January 5, 2007. That means there could be several types of machines selected by the counties in all future NY elections, posing questions like how are election records at the state and federal election level going to be collected!

Currently, the state is in a certification process including conducting usability testing of the new machines.

There are basically two kinds of machines; Electronic Touch Screen (called DRE's for Direct Recording Electronic) and the Optical or (Paper Ballot) Scanner.

Bo described in detail each type, but it was obvious the NYVV advocated the Optical Scanner (OS) for the following reasons:

• The DRE's cost more than the OS's, have had failures and problems in real elections in Indiana, Texas and Maryland. Their MTBE (mean time between failures) is only 50 hours. Suppose you bought a washing machine and it was guaranteed to work only 50 hours! They also have documented security problems and do not have a secure paper trail. A disabled voter could take up to 35 minutes to vote on one of them.
• The OS's count ballots and each ballot is saved for a recount. They have been successfully used for 20 years in real elections and will cost NYS $100 million less than the DRE's. Privacy booths allow several people at a time to mark their ballots before casting their vote. A number of lost votes is higher on DRE's than OS's. Also, the New York State League of Women Voters supports the OS's because they have an established and good track record.
• For Tioga County, Bo estimates that DRE's will cost the county $912,000 vs. $469,680 for the OS's.

Bo emphasized that since the county Board of Elections will make a decision soon, that it is imperative that the voters lobby the Board soon to influence their decision! The program was sponsored by the Ti Co Womens' Democrat Club, but was completely nonpartisan!

Duane Palmiter Sr.

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