Let the Ulster County Leadership Know We Want to Keep Our Levers

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From Ruth Wahtera, for the AAUW Public Policy Committee:

Back in December, our AAUW Public Policy Committee sponsored a viewing of the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy and a presentation by attorney Andi Novick. Andi is leading the suit against NY State to retain our lever system.

Glenn and I usually disagree about things political; he usually votes Republican and I vote Democratic. But we both came away feeling this is a non-partisan issue we can work on together.

Well, things are heating up. Dutchess County has passed a resolution to keep lever machines. Columbia County will vote on a similar resolution this week. We need to make our voices heard here in Ulster County.

Why keep our lever machines?

• Optical scan and touch screen voting machines can be hacked; to date, no electronic voting system has been able to meet the NY State standards for certification. In fact, testing for certification was suspended in October 2008 because the company contracted to test equipment, SysTest Labs, lost it's Federal certification as a testing lab.

• The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) does not mandate a statewide switch to electronic voting. NY filed a HAVA plan, accepted by the Federal Court, and implemented it. NYS has met the HAVA requirements.

• NY's constitution requires that voters be able to see how votes are counted -- paper ballots and lever machines are the only systems that meet these criteria.
  

• Costs - this is no time to spend millions of our tax dollars implementing a flawed electronic system when the current system works better. This is a budget cut we can all get behind.
  

I've set up a Citizen Speak message you can send NOW to Ulster County Legislature Chairman Donaldson and our new County Executive Michael Hein. You can add your personal comments at the bottom. It will only take a minute. Here's the link.

If you'd like more information, you can find it on our new blog Save NY's Lever Voting Machines or on Andi's blog Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition.

And please ask your friends to send a message, too.