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For Immediate Release: Wednesday, May 18th 2005Senate Democratic Conference Calls for
Uniform Statewide Standards for Voting Machines State Must Ensure All
Machines are Secure and Reliable Senator Paterson decried proposals giving "Such a delegation of power would be tantamount to
shirking our responsibilities under the constitution and a clear evasion of
our mandate under HAVA," Senator Martin Dilan, Democratic
Ranking member of the Senate's Elections Committee said the State stands to
lose millions in Federal funding if it delays further. “We must have modern
voting machines in place for the 2006 elections,” Dilan
said. “Otherwise we risk more than $200 million in HAVA funding if the new
systems are not in place.” "We have an obligation to make sure that our
statewide system is auditable, secure, accessible and cost effective -- the
best way to do that is to select voting machines under the same standards all
across the state," Dilan said. Senator Liz Krueger said turning the choice of voter
technology over to the state's counties would unleash millions of unregulated
lobbying dollars on local and county officials. "Lobbyists for this
industry have already flooded the halls of the State Capitol trying to influence
the outcome of how we implement HAVA," she said. "To allow each county to choose their own voting
system would lead to more delays and confusion, and the potential for unfair
elections and outcomes," Krueger said. "State legislators need to
do what is best for New Yorkers and that is to
commit to one standard across the board and work toward ensuring the future
integrity of our electoral process." On the question of appropriate technology to be used on a
state-wide basis, ATM-style, touch-screen voting machines, also known as DREs, would not be an appropriate choice for Krueger echoed Dilan's analysis.
"New Yorkers deserve reliable voting equipment that instills confidence
and ensures transparent, publicly verifiable elections." Optical scanner
systems would "save many millions of dollars in acquisition and
maintenance costs compared to touchscreen systems.
More importantly, they are far more reliable and trustworthy!" Further, the optical scanner systems are easy to
understand and to use. "Paper ballot systems are simple to fill out and
verify. The simplicity of the system would lower the costs to train poll
workers and voters," A system using paper ballots and optical scanners can also "be easily augmented by paper marking devices to provide full accessibility to voters with disabilities," Dilan said. Optical scanners are currently used in 25% of all the
precincts in the A recent report by the California Institute of Technology
(Cal Tech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that
manually counted paper ballots have the lowest average incidence of spoiled,
uncounted, and unmarked ballots, followed closely by optically scanned
ballots. Touch screen systems, on the other hand, had the highest average rates
of spoiled, uncounted and unmarked ballots. In contrast, computer researchers from Johns Hopkins and Editorial writers at several of the State’s largest
newspapers have all endorsed voting machines that utilize optical scanners.
Good government groups, including the League of Women Voters, Citizens’ NYPIRG and Common Cause have expressed concern that
political pressure from voting machine manufacturers and their lobbyists are
undermining the selection process. NYPIRG noted that the touch-screen
voting-machine industry alone spent about $1 million last year on lobbyists
at the state Capitol. "We have already waited far too long to resolve a
challenge that strikes at the heart of our democracy," -30- |
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