● The very close race in NY’s 20th CD proved lever machines succeed where software machines fail: New York’s lever voting machines provide reliable, observable evidence of the count at the election. Software voting machines do not.
● Officials and observers inspect each lever machine to see that machines are programmed to count properly. Software machines are secretly programmed. Lever machines cannot switch, flip or add votes; software machines can. Software machines can produce false election results.
● The Help America Vote Act does not require the replacement of lever machines. New York’s State’s Election Reform and Modernization Act (ERMA) does. ERMA is unconstitutional.
● The Election Transparency Coalition NY has prepared litigation seeking to declare computerized vote counting machines unconstitutional.
● Germany's Constitutional Court banned computerized vote counting machines last month, declaring them unconstitutional.
● In March, a CIA cybersecurity expert reported that computerized elections are vulnerable to rigging. He believes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's election was rigged and that the post-election audit confirmed the false results. The CIA investigated Venezuela’s elections because Smartmatic, a Venezuelan-owned voting vendor, owns the Intellectual Property rights to Sequoia. Sequoia will program the software for most counties in New York if ERMA is not stopped.
● A Pennsylvania legislator introduced legislation last month to allow counties in PA to return to the use of lever voting machines.
● Lever machines are affordable, reliable and with proper maintenance can last another century. Software machines are expensive, unreliable and will have to be replaced in short order due to technological obsolescence or limited useful lives.
If you have something that works and something that doesn't work, I vote for the thing that works. -- State Board of Elections Commissioner Gregory Peterson, regarding lever voting machines.A PDF version of this post is available here.
Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition is a non partisan, not for profit organization dedicated to transparent elections in New York through the use of non-computerized electoral systems. http://remediaetc.blogspot.com
ETC is a project of International Humanities Center, a 501(c)(3) organization.
