County Government Committee of Columbia County Supports Joining Litigation

After a January 26th report on the state's required switch to optical scanners, presented by Columbia County Election Commissioners Virginia Martin and Jason Nastke, Supervisors on the Columbia County Government Committee agreed that the county should support litigation to have ERMA declared unconstitutional.

As reported by Francesca Olsen of the Register-Star:

• Democratic Commissioner of Elections Virginia Martin and Republican Commissioner Jason Nastke presented documentation on the State’s required impending switch to optical scanners and ballot marking devices at the January County Government Committee meeting Jan. 26.
  
  Martin said that several counties, including Nassau County in Long Island, are interested in joining proposed litigation to declare the state Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 (ERMA) unconstitutional. Supervisors on the committee were in general agreement that Columbia County’s involvement in the litigation was the right move.
  
  All counties in New York are expected to use optical scanners for the 2010 primary and general elections. Nastke told the committee that just to print the paper ballots from BMDs — ballot marking devices — and optical scanners, it would cost the county $100,000 per year. “The county could put that towards a bridge!” he said. “There’s nothing for us to lose by joining in this lawsuit.”
  
  “Election administration gets a lot more complicated, and there are a lot more opportunities for errors,” Martin told the committee about the switch from lever machines to BMDs and optical scanners. For example, the paper ballots the new machines use (and the machines themselves) can take up a lot of space, and must be stored securely year-round with “fort-knox style security, bipartisan locks, environmental controls,” according to materials handed out by Martin at the committee meeting.
  
  It was suggested that if the lawsuit just delays the implementation of ERMA, it would save taxpayers the cost of new machine implementation for a little longer. “I’m not too thrilled with these scanning systems,” Nastke said, “but I’m required by law to implement them.”
  
  Optical scanners were certified by the State Board of Elections in December, and ERMA would require the discontinuing of lever machines. “There’s a difference with what the federal government asked, and what the state wants us to do,” said Supervisor Leo Pulcher, R-Stockport.
  
  The Help America Vote Act of 2002 does not require states to replace their lever voting machines.

The Plunging Pilot Project: Impossible Vote Totals in NY-23

Re-posted from our "Levers" site

Last night, on the eve of Thanksgiving, election fraud investigator Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. published an article in the Governeur Times revealing Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23. Phillips is best known for his book, Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election, detailing the investigation he led of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio. But he actually lives in St. Lawrence County, NY. So when questions began being raised about the vote counts in the special Congressional election earlier this month, Phillips was quickly on the case.

His article released last night reveals, “The election results certified by the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections for New York’s 23rd Congressional District contain some numbers that are mathematically impossible.” The article goes on to detail the negative numbers included in certified vote totals. Read it. It reveals important information everyone concerned about democracy should know.

St. Lawrence County was part of the State’s “pilot project,” an early rollout of the optical scan voting technology that will be required to replace lever voting systems by our next election — if not stopped by legal action. The Election Transparency Coalition is preparing to file litigation to have concealed vote counting — such as the counting that takes place inside optical scan voting systems — declared unconstitutional.

St. Lawrence County’s now-certified election results cannot be accurate. The true vote count cannot be known. And while other counties involved in the early rollout of electronic vote-counting systems may have produced possible vote totals, their true vote counts are no more knowable. Only with a system where the public has access to meaningful observation of every step of the vote-counting process do we have a basis for confidence in election results.

This is why Virginia Martin, Democratic Election Commissioner from Columbia County, recently testified that she would refuse to certify an election in which she could not verify the accuracy of the vote count.

Richard Hayes Phillips joins ETC in supporting NY’s time-tested and transparent lever voting system. The reasons for his support are detailed in his article, “In Defense of Lever Voting Machines,” published on his own website, and reiterated in the Gouverneur Times piece.

While the pilot project is clearly in a nosedive, the State is proceeding with its plan to certify the very electronic voting system responsible for the impossible numbers in the NY-23 race. This certification would be meaningless and would lead to elections that are just as meaningless. As Phillips says, “How can we have a democracy if we cannot know if the vote count is accurate? If election officials cannot know, and if the candidates cannot know, and if the voters cannot know that the official results are true and correct, why even have an election?”

Please join us in our work to stop the abandonment of NY’s working, affordable, trustworthy voting system and its replacement with systems that keep the true vote count secret from the voters themselves.

by Emily Levy

Emily Levy is the Election Transparency Coalition project coordinator.

—–

On this Thanksgiving, we at ETC are thankful for the work of Dr. Phillips, Commissioner Martin and all those who dedicate themselves to the constitutional principles of transparent democracy.

Columbia County Election Commissioner Rejects "Pilot Project."

Columbia County Election Commissioner Virginia Martin writes on why her county will continue to use lever voting machines in the fall elections:

Uncertified Machines Do Not Serve Voters

A sentence in the June 17 editorial, "Iranians' fight for democracy," sent a chill down my spine.

"...Iran's supreme leader ... has called for a limited recount."

Hold that thought. Something else -- that I literally shudder to connect to the above -- has been nagging at me for some weeks. It is this:

How many candidates running for office this fall know that the votes that will decide their fate will be counted by an uncertified computer program?

And how many of those candidates know that only a small fraction of those votes will be hand counted after the fact to see if that uncertified computer program (which also has not yet proved to be accurate, reliable or tamper-proof) worked as it was intended to and was not hacked into?

"A limited recount."

Across New York, 47 counties with 1.4 million registered voters will participate in a "pilot project" in which uncertified optical-scan voting machines, manufactured and programmed by Sequoia Voting Systems or Election Systems & Software, will count the votes. Some of these counties signed on for full participation, so that all the votes in every election district will be cast and counted using uncertified machines. Other counties signed on for participation of a more modest scope, in which just a few districts, perhaps, will be involved.

And the recounts of these votes?

They'll be limited.

Right now, and the regulations are now being considered, it appears that three percent of all machines will be subjected to a hand recount. Additionally recounted, and fortunately at 100 percent, will be any race in which there is a margin of one percent or less between candidates. (Think about that one. If Candidate A receives 51 percent and Candidate B receives 49 percent, there will be no full recount.) Fortunately, it does seem that each race will be subject to at least a partial recount.

It's been suggested that any candidate will have the option of going to court to request a full recount. Yet that unfairly puts the onus on the candidate, who risks charges of sour grapes or of running up expenses to add to the taxpayers' tab. Remember that this year, an "off year," is the election for modest candidacies -- for town board members, tax collectors, highway superintendents. These are not races in which high-powered attorneys backed by deep-pocketed interests stand ready to spring to action, to demand the recounts their clients deserve.

But Columbia County candidates and voters will be far better served. None of our races will require "limited recounts" because none will be counted by an optical scanner. Voters will select candidates using their choice of a lever machine or ballot-marking device.

That's because Commissioner Don Kline and I opted out of the optical-scan pilot project. We, along with the overwhelming majority of our custodians, inspectors, voters and county legislators, hope to continue using this voting system of lever machine with ballot-marking device, which meets all the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act, well into the future.

Virginia Martin is the Democratic commissioner of the Columbia County Board of Elections.

(First published in print in the Albany Times Union June 25th 2009.)
















































"...Iran's supreme leader ... has called for a limited recount."

Hold that thought. Something else -- that I literally shudder to connect to the above -- has been nagging at me for some weeks. It is this:

How many candidates running for office this fall know that the votes that will decide their fate will be counted by an uncertified computer program?

And how many of those candidates know that only a small fraction of those votes will be hand counted after the fact to see if that uncertified computer program (which also has not yet proved to be accurate, reliable or tamper-proof) worked as it was intended to and was not hacked into?

"A limited recount."

Across New York, 47 counties with 1.4 million registered voters will participate in a "pilot project" in which uncertified optical-scan voting machines, manufactured and programmed by Sequoia Voting Systems or Election Systems & Software, will count the votes. Some of these counties signed on for full participation, so that all the votes in every election district will be cast and counted using uncertified machines. Other counties signed on for participation of a more modest scope, in which just a few districts, perhaps, will be involved.

And the recounts of these votes?

They'll be limited.

Right now, and the regulations are now being considered, it appears that three percent of all machines will be subjected to a hand recount. Additionally recounted, and fortunately at 100 percent, will be any race in which there is a margin of one percent or less between candidates. (Think about that one. If Candidate A receives 51 percent and Candidate B receives 49 percent, there will be no full recount.) Fortunately, it does seem that each race will be subject to at least a partial recount.

It's been suggested that any candidate will have the option of going to court to request a full recount. Yet that unfairly puts the onus on the candidate, who risks charges of sour grapes or of running up expenses to add to the taxpayers' tab. Remember that this year, an "off year," is the election for modest candidacies -- for town board members, tax collectors, highway superintendents. These are not races in which high-powered attorneys backed by deep-pocketed interests stand ready to spring to action, to demand the recounts their clients deserve.

But Columbia County candidates and voters will be far better served. None of our races will require "limited recounts" because none will be counted by an optical scanner. Voters will select candidates using their choice of a lever machine or ballot-marking device.

That's because Commissioner Don Kline and I opted out of the optical-scan pilot project. We, along with the overwhelming majority of our custodians, inspectors, voters and county legislators, hope to continue using this voting system of lever machine with ballot-marking device, which meets all the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act, well into the future.

Virginia Martin is the Democratic commissioner of the Columbia County Board of Elections.

Greene County Lever Resolution

Greene County Resolution
to Keep Lever Voting Machines

Whereas, Greene County has successfully used highly accurate lever voting machines for many decades with very few problems and wants to continue using them, and

Whereas, Greene County believes that continued use of lever voting machines is in the best interest of the public, that unlike optical scan computers, our time-proved lever machines can be relied upon to accurately count votes as cast and cost far less, and

Whereas, our lever machines now comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) because New York has installed ballot marking devices for voting by disabled persons, and

Whereas, New York State's enactment of the Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 (ERMA) predates installation of the ballot marking devices for disabled-person voting and New York now complies with HAVA, and

Whereas, the State's statutorily required elimination of lever machines through ERMA is no longer necessary, is inappropriate, and exorbitantly costly to Greene County tax payers, therefore be it

Resolved, that the Greene County Legislature hereby requests the New York State Legislature and the New York State Board of Elections to enact laws, rules, and regulations that specifically authorize continued use of our lever voting machines, and

Be It Further Resolved, that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to Governor David Paterson; New York State Senators James Seward, Malcolm Smith, and Dean Skelos; New York State Assembly Members Peter Lopez and Timothy Gordon; Co-Executive Directors of the New York State Board of Elections Todd Valentine and Stanley Zalen; New York State Board of Elections Commissioners James Walsh, Douglas Kellner, Evelyn Aquila, and Gregory Peterson; and Greene County Elections Commissioners Frank DeBenedictus and Thomas Burke.

Close Congressional race in NY District 20 Demonstrates Need to Keep Lever Machines

From the beginning it was suspected that the race to replace Representative Kirsten Gillibrand in New York’s 20th Congressional District would be close, but as the margin between the two candidates tightened, with Democrat Scott Murphy taking a slim lead in the polls going into election day, the Chair of the NYS Republican Party filed a petition in the Supreme Court in Dutchess County to ensure that the normal procedures for ensuring accuracy and transparency of the vote counting process were followed and that the evidence of the count be preserved and available for judicial review if necessary.

The implications of the filing are either an abundance of caution or a wariness of the ‘Heinz 57’ variety of canvassing among the different county boards of election. Whatever the reason, the Republican Party is exercising its rights under New York Election Law to maximize the constitutional guarantees of publicly demonstrable vote counting. What is not being discussed is that if the lever machines are replaced by software-based electronic voting machines all these rights will become meaningless.

New York's Law still requires that votes be counted transparently either by lever machines or by hand. New York Election Law employs a system that was designed to provide evidence of how votes were counted at the time they were cast. According to New York Election Transparency Coalition legal counsel, Andrea Novick, it is this critical distinction which sets New York apart from the rest of the nation.

If New York replaces its mechanical lever voting machines with computerized voting machines, the evidence which the Republican Party is seeking to examine and secure will disappear. Had this election’s votes been counted by optical scanners, as New York’s Election Reform and Modernization Act (ERMA) will require in future elections, neither the Republican State Chair nor the Democratic State Chair nor the public would be able to obtain evidence of how the ballots were counted at the time they were cast. Unlike our lever machines where evidence of malfunction, malfeasance or mis-transcription of the vote count can be detected and corrected as has been occurring this week during the re-canvass of the machines in the 20th district, there is no evidence of how software does its work because software is undetectably corruptible and vulnerable to manipulation.

Software-based scanners conceal what must be visible and leave no evidence of the count to be examined by the parties, the public or the court. All that is left are the indistinguishable paper ballots, which are not evidence of how the ballots were originally counted. A post-election manual count of some ballots, required by ERMA because the software-generated tally is known to be exploitable, is no solution.

As Novick explained, “For 232 years our Laws have presumed that counted ballots, once removed from continuous observation, are so likely to be tampered with that their use has been prohibited. Unless the condition of inviolability is established, the ballots have no evidentiary value. Worse they provide a false sense of security cloaking what is already concealed by the software.”

Unlike the recent close race in Minnesota that was decided by a manual recount of post-election night paper ballots, not shown to have been the same ballots cast at the election, today’s commencement of New York’s absentee paper ballots will be publicly observed from the moment they are cast, through the counting. Novick says, “New York’s Constitution has always required an observable, open electoral process that produces evidence of the count at the time the votes are cast, ensuring maximum protection against fraud.”

“The Republican Party will have the proof it seeks, at least this year.” “But,” she warns, “If we permit the State to abandon our lever voting system for software-based scanners, it will be the last time any one will have evidence of who won the election.”

Schuyler County & Association of Towns pass Lever Resolutions

In March, the Schuyler County legislature and the Association of Towns of New York each passed resolutions requesting that New York be allowed to keep its lever voting machines.

In enacting its March 9th resolution

URGING THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY, SENATE AND GOVERNOR
AND THE NEW YORK STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS TO ENACT LAWS, RULES AND
REGULATIONS THAT SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZE THE CONTINUED USE OF LEVER STYLE VOTING MACHINES...

Schuyler joined Dutchess, Columbia and Ulster and became the fourth New York County within 3 months to formally express its desire to continue voting on the lever machines.

In February, at their annual meeting in New York City, The Association of Towns of New York also passed a resolution requesting that the United States Congress, the Governor of New York, the New York State Legislature and the New York State Board of Elections enact laws, rules and regulations and take all other needed actions to specifically authorize the continued use of lever voting machines. The Association and its members represent eight million New York residents, almost half the population of the State.

New York's Voting System Satisfies & Surpasses HAVA

Notwithstanding the plain language of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which expressly states that lever machines can be legally used, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) interprets HAVA to effectively exclude the lever machines as ever being acceptable. This interpretation contravenes the statutory language which explicitly refers to the lever system, along with the DRE and optical scan systems, as voting systems that may be used in federal elections as long as they comply with the five standards set forth in HAVA. This memo by Andrea T. Novick, Esq. explains why the the EAC’s advisory of HAVA as it pertains to New York’s lever voting system is erroneous and should be revoked.

Lever Resolutions in Columbia & Ulster Counties

Following the lead of Dutchess County, in February both the Ulster County Legislature and the Columbia County Board of Supervisors passed resolutions authorizing their county governments to formally urge or request respectively that the "New York State Legislature and The New York State Board of Elections enact laws, rules and regulations that specifically authorize the continued use of lever-style voting machines." The Ulster resolution was passed unanimously and the Columbia resolution passed with only one dissenting vote.

The Kingston Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) has also taken a position advocating for the retention of levers in New York. Although they had previously been concerned about being at odds with the League of Women Voters of NY over their position in favor of optical scanners over levers, an article by Teresa Hommel, who worked to write the LWV national position in 2006 clarified for the group that the LWV standards were never intended to apply to non-electronic voting machines and therefore should not be construed as a position in opposition to lever machines. A poll of the AAUW Kingston membership revealed that over 90% of the respondents thought that the group should work to help retain the lever voting machines.

Facts & Myths about Voting in New York State

Well worth a read: A short checklist of facts and myths about voting in New York State -- where we are, how we got here and where we could be headed -- "Let's Clear the Air" by Rady Ananda and Andi Novick at OpEdNews.com .

- Joanne Lukacher

[Introduction and footnote updated 7-28-08]

LET'S CLEAR THE AIR

By Andi Novick and Rady Ananda

--Optical Scanners and DREs Operate on Undetectably Mutable Software, Depriving New York Voters of the Accuracy and Transparency We Have Enjoyed for More than a Century.

--No Court Has Ever Ruled that HAVA Requires Lever Machines Be Replaced.
Now Let's Go to Court and get a Ruling that Lever Voting Machines are HAVA-compliant so We Can Continue to Enjoy the Security and Transparency Offered by Our Lever Voting System.

Fact: New York has a secure, reliable electoral system that has served the State of New York for more than a century – preventing dilution of the franchise from fraud and ensuring that the will of the people is preserved.

Fact: The lever voting system in New York (and the hand-count voting system as it existed since 1896) provide a transparent process by which many eyes are involved in securing the electoral process, particularly the count. Both systems are designed to detect, deter and expose fraud.

Fact: The State of New York decided that rather than fight the federal government, which would like every state voting on new, budget-breaking, shoddy, vulnerable-to-undetectable fraud, software-driven optical scanners or DREs, it would capitulate, passing laws in 2005 to have New York surrender its secure lever voting system for these unreliable computers. The Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005, Chapter 181, §11. (See NY Election Law)

Fact: The computerized voting systems that the federal government claims satisfy the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) - even in their "crappy," theft-inviting condition - disenfranchise those who are forced to vote on them, depriving citizens of the right to a transparent, open voting system and the ability to know that their votes are being counted as cast. See: LitigationSummary.pdf

Fact: These so called HAVA-compliant electronic voting systems are not transparent, concealing from the people the way in which the software is programmed to count our votes. Indeed optical scanners and DREs are nothing more than secret vote counting machines, anathema to any notion of a democratically run election.

Fact: Unlike New York's lever voting machine or a hand-count voting system -- which require a completed, verified count on election night (because exposing the count to the watchfulness of ongoing public surveillance has been considered the most secure way to count our votes for the history of the State of New York), the new computerized systems will abandon the security provided by ongoing public scrutiny and no longer provide a completed, reliable, secure count on election night. NY Election Laws, McKinney's Chapter 17 at New York State Board of Elections.

Fact: New York's lever voting system is far superior to the computerized voting system planned - in terms of transparency, security, expense, reliability, trustworthiness, theft-deterring ability and the protection it provides to New York Voters' constitutionally protected franchise. (See these July articles posted at Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition: Merits of the Lever Machine: A Scholar Speaks Up, and Eyes Wide Shut.)

Fact: The federal government's position is that lever machines are not HAVA-compliant, but no court has ever ruled on this issue because the State of New York never argued this position in any court.

Fact: In litigation commenced by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in 2006 to force New York to become HAVA-compliant, the DoJ claimed lever voting machines were not HAVA-compliant because: a) they could not be made accessible to disabled voters; and b) they don't produce a piece of paper that can be manually audited. While many in New York believed the DoJ's interpretation of HAVA to be an erroneous interpretation, the State of New York declined to put this in issue before the court, having already decided in 2005, before the DoJ sued, that New York will replace our lever voting machines with software-driven machines.

Fact: In 2004 Co-chair and State Board of Elections (SBOE) Commissioner Douglas Kellner testified that our lever voting system is HAVA-compliant but for one HAVA standard - the accessibility requirement.

Fact: In 2008, the State Board of Elections agreed to install ballot marking devices in every poll site and is in the process of completing that, thus complying with the only federal standard New York's lever machines did not meet. Hence, with ballot marking devices in every poll site, there is no longer an impediment to the lever voting system's compliance with HAVA.

Fact: The federal government's remaining objection to lever machines, to wit they don't provide a manually auditable piece of paper, is not true. Our lever voting system does create a piece of paper that can be audited. In any event, this is the DoJ's interpretation of HAVA, but since no court has every ruled on this, it's just an interpretation. It is not what the law says and no court has ever interpreted HAVA as requiring New York to replace its lever machines.

Fact: The State Board of Elections has found over a thousand defects in the ballot marking devices that have been bought for New York and has shipped the counties these computerized machines, many in an unusable state. (See Nassau County Letter 1, Letter 2, Letter 3, and NY Loves Its Levers as New Systems Fail.)


Common myth: HAVA requires us to replace our levers. It does not.

Common myth: A court has ruled that levers are not HAVA-compliant. No court has ever made any such ruling.

Common myth: New York's electronic voting system will be transparent. It will be anything but.

Common myth: "Auditing" the unreliable computerized results by counting a small percentage (or any percentage) of ballots after the election is over, after the press has announced the winner, after the ballots have been exposed to heightened opportunities for post-election tampering is good enough for a secure, democratic election. This is not true. In fact, using post-election ballots to verify secure election-night results is considered so insecure that New York has never in 231 years permitted post-election ballots to be used to verify secure election-night results, until now.

Common myth: New York State's more stringent certification testing requirements, if complied with, will make optical scanners or DREs accurate and safe to vote on. This is not true. No matter how much testing is done, because software is by its nature mutable, the pre-election testing cannot tell you how the optical scanner or DRE will count the votes.

Since no court has even been asked to rule on the issue of whether lever voting machines are HAVA compliant, and since the computerized voting system New York has enacted is the antithesis of a secure open electoral system, violating in its enactment existing laws, two centuries of accumulated experience and wisdom, and a myriad of safeguards that have protected New Yorkers' "consent" from corruption by fraud, we would hope that the "People's attorney," the Attorney General, would have fought for the People's right to not be disenfranchised. But because Mr. Cuomo's office has decided to side with the State Legislature against the People, the People have no choice but to pursue their own litigation against the State of New York and the State Board of Elections to stop them from forcing us to vote in this highly unsecure and unconstitutional manner.

Our federal constitution is in tatters, our once independent Department of Justice has become a tool of a corrupt federal government hoping to disenfranchise as many people as it can. But New York's state constitution is alive and well and the State of New York's electoral system is vibrant and constitutionally-compliant. New York Voters need to take action to stop the State from abandoning our lever voting system for the theft-enabling computerized system, while we still have a functioning electoral system.

We are the only state not to have exposed our electoral system to increased and unprotected opportunities to unseen fraud. We are the only state with an existing strong, secure voting system. We must stand up to the Department of Justice and its disregard for our laws and our democratic, transparent, reliable voting system. We must stand up to our State Legislature that have caved to a corrupt Department of Justice and violated the rights of the Voters of New York. We must fight to retain what is constitutionally ours before it is taken away.

With your help we will commence this lawsuit against the State of New York. Please tell your neighbors. Please give them the facts. The facts speak for themselves and loudly beg the question–

Why in the world would we abandon our lever voting system?

FOOTNOTE: All of the above lays out why we believe it is critical to keep the facts accurate in the public's mind. Accordingly, we have withdrawn the original footnote to Let's Clear the Air in order to end the distraction over he said/she said. This diverts us from the facts and harms the efforts of all of us who are trying to secure what each of us believes to be the best voting system for New York. We are all entitled to our beliefs. So, in the spirit of respecting each other's beliefs, here are ours:

Based on 231 years of history in New York State, we know what a secure, transparent electoral system requires because we can look at the case law and statutes and see what has worked for New York. Relying on the law as written over the past two centuries:

We believe a democratic electoral system requires that ordinary people be able to observe that the system accurately counts our votes.

We believe it requires that many eyes be able to check each other as we witness the process that results in the count.

We believe it requires the production of reliable, publicly accessible evidence of both how the votes were counted as well as evidence of tampering, should it occur.

We believe a democratic electoral system must be designed to detect, deter and reveal fraud, without which there is no deterrent to committing fraud.

We believe a democratic electoral system must contain safeguards that prevent every known opportunity for tampering.

According to the law as written by successive legislatures and repeatedly interpreted by the highest court of the State, New York's lever voting system satisfies all of the above criteria and has served us well for a century.

New York's new law, ERMA, permits software-driven optical scanners or DREs to count our votes. Computer security scholars and professionals corroborate that software can be undetectably altered before, during and after Election Day, despite the most rigorous certification testing anyone might provide. ERMA, therefore, fails to ensure that the election night count is reliable. All we can do to attempt to verify the uncertain computerized count is manually count the paper ballots, but ERMA requires that the "audit" be done after the election is over, after the results from all other precincts are known, after the press has announced the winner, and after ongoing public scrutiny of the ballots has ended.

The entire history of New York's Election Law, until ERMA, recognized that post-election ballot tampering is so probable that it has never permitted post-election verification of the secure, reliable, publicly observed first count. Under ERMA, not only is the first count (on software) undependable and concealed from the pubic, but the post-election "audit" is also unreliable, since the ballots being hand counted to verify the first count no longer enjoy the security of uninterrupted public scrutiny enabled by the many authorized watchers at the poll site. Under ERMA, the integrity of the verification is impugned, leaving the entire count unknowable and unreliable.

Moreover, since we believe that transparency in a public election demands that many eyes be able to observe the process that results in the count, we are opposed to optical scanners and DREs which hide that process.

Since we believe in the democratic requirement that everyday people be able to witness the process that results in the count, we are opposed to optical scanners and DREs which conceal the count.

Since we believe that a democratic electoral system requires the production of reliable, publicly accessible evidence of both how the votes were counted as well as evidence of tampering, we are opposed to optical scanners and DREs which computer scientists have agreed can be programmed to destroy evidence of the count as well as evidence of the tampering. Without reliable evidence of the count or of fraud, there is no way to challenge the results in a court of law, potentially disenfranchising the electorate and depriving them of their legal recourse to vindicate the loss of their constitutional right.

Since we believe a democratic electoral system must be designed to detect, deter and reveal fraud, we are opposed to optical scanners, DREs, and election management systems which have been shown to be hackable without detection on a massive, outcome-determinative scale, by a single person who doesn't even have to be physically present.

Since we believe a democratic electoral system must contain safeguards that prevent every known opportunity for tampering, and indeed this is what New York's case law has consistently required of the legislature, we are opposed to optical scanners and DREs which subject the count to known opportunities for tampering and expose the count to new and greater risks made possible by software. The highest court in New York has repeatedly found that dilution of the count by tampering amounts to unconstitutional disenfranchisement.

We therefore reject software driven voting systems and demand that New York hand count the ballots marked by accessible ballot markers for voters with special needs, and retain its secure, transparent, and reliable lever voting system, with all the attendant laws enacted to secure the lever count.

Sign this petition if you agree with us.

Eyes Wide Shut

An Imperative SOS

New Yorkers Struggle for the Soul of Democracy

New York State, the State Board of Elections and New York’s Attorney General are Preparing to Violate Our Constitutional Right to be Protected From Disenfranchisement -- Even as They Know Computerized Voting Systems Cannot Secure our Votes.

At a recent (June 19th 2008) meeting of the four commissioners of the State Board of Elections (SBOE) the discussion focused on the myriad problems New York State is having with the voting vendors who continue to sell the only product they offer – “crap.” As SBOE Co-Chair Douglas Kellner (D) stated:

“[T]he voting industry sells crap. And that's the problem.”

Of course we know that because it’s been well documented. And if we know it, certainly our legislators and commissioners and Attorney General must be familiar with the dozens of independent studies in which computer scientists have repeatedly found that no amount of certification testing is going to make software-driven systems secure enough. Even the National Institute of Standards and Technology, acknowledged:

"[E]xperience in testing software and systems has shown that testing to high degrees of security and reliability is from a practical perspective not possible."

Across the nation the vendors have been selling crap that breaks down, is defective, can be easily rigged, and time and again independent computer scientists reveal how easily the scanner or the DRE can be penetrated and corrupted by unaccountable unseen programmers. See www.bradblog.com for ongoing reporting of the nation’s woes as every state suffers from the crap sold by the voting industry. Yet New York,the only state with the benefit of learning from the nightmare that has befallen the other 49 states who bought the snake oil, is proceeding, eyes wide shut.

“BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL” -The Crappy Ballot Marking Devices Have Thousands of Defects but at Least They Aren’t Counting Our Votes

New York has now bought software-driven ballot marking devices (BMDs) because the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) said that we have to provide a means for the disabled to vote without assistance -- a worthy goal -- but the most able-bodied person in the world couldn’t vote unassisted on these pieces of crap. Still, we have bought what the vendors are selling for BMDs and we are experiencing precisely what everyone else who is forced to buy crap gets -- no surprise there. At this same 6/19th meeting the commissioners were having a lot of trouble with the BMDs because the both the pricey new combo BMD/optical scanner purchased by most of the counties and the less expensive single unit BMD without optical scanner, showed up with thousands of defects in testing by the SBOE. At this point the SBOE is only performing testing for the BMD functioning and not for the optical scanner counting function in order to get the BMDs in every poll site for the 2008 elections.

Last week Nassau County wrote to the federal judge, who’d accepted the State’s shameful surrender of our constitutionally protected right to vote, justifiably complaining that “85% of the 156 BMDs received [so far] ... have substantial operational flaws that render them unusable or that require major repairs”. (see Nassau County's Letter to Judge Sharpe 6/27/08) Nassau blames the SBOE for certifying these machines and forcing them upon the counties. While there’s plenty of blame to go around, the bottom line is the machines are crap; the vendors have a captive consumer and they sell machines that don’t work because the forced consumer feels compelled to have the crap in place for the next election.

And so the state commissioners agreed (at the 6/19 mtg) to relax the rules regarding the BMDs- even as they found literally thousands of defects, because while they may be defective and not work, at least we’re not talking about how vulnerable they are to tampering since these BMDs aren’t being certified to count the votes (yet). But warned Commissioner Kellner, he’s not going to “get caught in this bargain with the devil” when it comes time to certify the scanners to count votes. So what is he going to do when it comes time to certify the counting function on the BMD?

Commissioner Kellner’s efforts are truly heroic, even as he’s wrongly trying to certify equipment that will never be able to safely and accurately count votes. He’s really trying to do the best he can with an impossible situation- the use of computerized voting systems to reliably count our votes. We know he can’t succeed because the evidence overwhelmingly shows that no software-driven voting machine can accurately and safely count votes. It’s not just that the voting vendors sell crap- even if they sold quality computers, software is vulnerable to undetectable tampering. If we had millions of tax payers’ hard earned dollars to burn, someone could conceivably devise more secure software-driven voting machines than these vendors peddle, like Las Vegas does, but it still wouldn’t be secure enough for a democratic election: the software can always be altered without anyone knowing because that’s the nature of the beast (close friend of the devil the SBOE is in the midst of negotiating with).


SOS- (SAVE OUR STATE)– THIS SHIP HAS NOT SAILED

New York State’s Lever Voting System Is Secure, Supported by Most People in the State, and it Works

What is to be the fate of the great state of New York? That at this moment is in the hands of the electorate because our state government has turned against us. Unlike every other state in the nation, we are the only ones who have not yet computerized our electoral process. We are also the only ones with a functioning, secure, reliable and affordable electoral system. Why are we abandoning our levers when they have been described by one scholar studying the issue as “[O]ne of the most astonishing achievements of American technological genius.” Why are we casting off a century of wisdom that has shown how the mechanical processes of the lever machine can be relied on for precisely the reason computerized processes cannot be– lever voting machines are designed to prevent and reveal tampering.

Why are we buying crappy, theft-inviting computerized machines?

We have to buy BMDs because HAVA ordered this and because we should try to make these computers work to create ballots for those who can’t pull the lever themselves. But because software is so vulnerable to concealed tampering it has no place counting votes in an open, public electoral system.

New York’s lever voting system deters theft. The federal government’s computerized voting systems invite theft. We can outsmart the criminal Department of Justice that succeeded in pressuring our State Legislature and our Attorney General to agree to surrender our right to vote on secure voting machines. We can have BMDs for creating ballots, but stop there and not pretend these computers can be “certified” to secure the counting of our votes.

New Yorkers have to say NO to the federal government that would have us voting on unsecurable software which can be deployed to steal our precious franchise. NO to our state government that couldn’t find the courage to resist orders from the deceitful administration in Washington. NO to our Attorney General who has the courage to fight deception against crap, but only when it’s being dumped in the Oswego River, not when it’s being dumped on the people of New York. Thanks Mr. Cuomo for saving the river, but what about Saving our State!

SOS: Will anyone stand up for our secure lever voting system that has protected our democracy for a century?

Who supports New York’s lever voting system?

Just about all the county election commissioners in New York, in their personal capacity.
Just about all the state board of election commissioners in New York, in their personal capacity.
And I’d venture to say, most of the citizens of New York.

1) The County Boards of Elections

If you ask the county election commissioners, they will tell you that much as they would love to keep the levers and much as they know the nightmares of computerized voting and the excessive costs to taxpayers, “this ship has sailed.” They are beleaguered. New York State’s Legislature did not stand up and fight for the levers when they had the chance. The State caved- first passing state laws to replace the levers and then capitulating to the pressure of the feds in the litigation commenced by the corrupt Department of Justice agreeing to surrender your rights and the lever voting machine by 2009.

Nassau County Election Commissioner John A. De Grace (R) tried getting the State to stand up for the rights of citizens in his testimony before the SBOE in 2005:

“I can only speak for myself, although I am certain that all other Commissioners in the State of New York feel as impassioned as I do. My main responsibility is to the voters, to ensure that my Board does all it can to implement the law as well as to guarantee fair, just, accurate elections. Up until now I have felt secure and confident that I have been able to do this. Through the use of the Automatic Lever Voting Machines, though aged, I am able to certify election results and I am certain of the accuracy by which we conduct our elections.”

But the State insisted on going forward with its plan to buy crappy, unreliable, undemocratic computers and the SBOE is the State’s executioner. The county election commissioners are following orders from the SBOE. Rather than fighting to Save our System of lever-counted voting (and our democracy) everyone is busy preparing to go down with the ship.

2) The State Board of Elections

If you ask the SBOE commissioners responsible for certifying that these machines can accurately and securely count our votes, they will tell you:

Commissioner Evelyn Aquila (D) at the 6/19th SBOE meeting:
“I support the lever machines”

Newly appointed Commissioner Gregory Peterson (R) at the 6/19th SBOE meeting:

“If it doesn't work the way you said it was going to work [referring to software-driven systems], we're better with a lever-just pushing down levers. And if the judge doesn't understand that [referring to the DoJ’s lawsuit] then he's going to have to be made to understand that.”

But the SBOE does what the State Legislature tells them to do - certify software, abandon the levers. The SBOE doesn’t have to follow orders. Certainly since the Nuremberg Trials this excuse has been explicitly rejected.

Our lever voting system is secure and reliable, protecting the will of the people by preventing dilution of the franchise from fraud. It is a crime to knowingly rob the people of their sovereignty by forcing them to pretend to vote using secretly programmed software that counts votes under the cover of concealment: the perfect breeding ground for fraud. It is, in fact, un-American and unconstitutional.

We are still voting on our lever machines, at least through the 2008 election. THIS SHIP HAS NOT SAILED. Will Commissioner Kellner do what he said he’d do at the 6/19 SBOE meeting?

“I'm prepared to go back to Judge Sharp and to say: Judge, it would be unconstitutional to enforce the Help America Vote Act by requiring us to replace the lever voting machines with scanning equipment or DRE equipment or any equipment that does not comply with the current guidelines.”

Or will he and his colleagues continue to spend our money seeking to certify the reliability of machines that will never be reliable enough for an open, secure, democratic election.


3) The Good Citizens of New York

Ask most New Yorkers and they’ll tell you they are happy with their levers. That means for the most part they trust the results or they would not be happy with this system. They have good reason to trust the lever voting system and no reason to trust the computerized voting system the State plans on using to disenfranchise us.

But there are some who do not support the levers -- many of them are election activists who believe having a paper ballot is better regardless of how it’s counted: even if it’s counted on undetectably mutable software. Their argument: we know the optical scanners can be rigged without ever being detected, but we can hand-count some of the ballots to check against the computer results. It’s true -- we can do that, but we’re not. And even if we were -- why would we settle for an electoral system that is so insecure it requires us to vote on hackable software to deliver an unreliable result on election night, only to check that unknowable tally after the election, after the press has announced the winner, after the ongoing surveillance of the poll site has ended, when the opportunity for tampering with those paper ballots is at its highest.

In other words the new electoral system the State has designed forces us to vote on software that may very well have been tampered with and then checks by counting only a small fraction of the paper ballots that might have been corrupted!

Is that better than a lever voting system? Well, those opposed to levers and in favor of optical scan software will say if the lever machine fails or is tampered with there’s no trace of how the voter voted. That’s true too, but it’s not like optical scanners solve that problem. It’s not like we’re checking the unseen tabulations of the optical scanner by doing an immediate hand-count of the paper ballots on election night, before they leave the poll site to be exposed to the potential for tampering – before those ballots are changed leaving no trace of how the voter actually voted.

Levers vs Optical Scanners

The lever voting machine:

• Is difficult to tamper with (as opposed to the ease of tampering with software);

• Can function well without the large numbers of failures we see with software (and for hundreds of years if properly maintained- won’t need to be continually upgraded like the way software is designed); and

• Is mechanically transparent (unlike software which is not knowable by regular people and even the few experts who get to see some of the source code aren’t allowed to tell us what they find because the State has agreed to surrender the public’s right to know to the vendor’s desire to hide the way in which the software is programmed).

• If tampered with (although it’s time-consuming to break into a lever), the limited number of votes on a single lever machine are compromised, containing the scale of the fraud. (as compared to software where a single person with access to a single computer can infect every voting machine in the county); and

• Reveals error or fraud, visible upon opening the back of the machine. Regular citizens can be readily taught to see the problem (unlike computerized voting systems which conceal errors or fraud amid the hundreds of thousands of lines of software code, or by allowing malicious code to disappear, and which error or fraud can never be seen by regular people);

• Was designed and in fact functions to deter theft (unlike computerized voting machines that enable theft on levels never before possible in American democracy).


At the end of the day, given that for the history of our elections insider fraud has played such a prominent role, the lever voting machine along with the safeguards New York has in place, have succeeded where no other voting machine has-- deterring fraud and best preserving the will of the people.

New York’s Legislature, Supported by the Attorney General, Sold Our Souls (SOS): Levers Are HAVA-compliant Now That We Are Installing Ballot Marking Devices in Every Poll Site

Testifying before the NYC Voter Assistance Commission in 2004, before the State agreed to install BMDs in every poll site, Commissioner Kellner attested to the lever voting machines’ compliance with HAVA.

“Our lever machines satisfy all but one of [HAVA’s] standards, that there be at least one machine at each poll site that is 'accessible for individuals with disabilities, including non-visual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters.”

We have met the one standard lever machines could not satisfy. We bought the BMDs. We are paying plenty for our dance with the devil. The bleeding to our wallets and to our democracy must end with the Ballot Markers. We still have our levers. THIS SHIP HAS NOT SAILED.

As Nassau Election Commissioner William Biamonte (D) recently summed it up:

"All that's at stake is the credibility of representative democracy in New York State." See
http://blogs.trb.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/2008/06/nassau_vote_board_calls_3_in_5.html
So Who Exactly are We Buying these Crappy Theft-Inviting Machines For?

More to follow soon alerting you to the actions needed to protect us before the State succeeds in disenfranchising each and every one of us.

-- Andi Novick

New York VOTERS v. NY State and the State Board of Elections

Below is a synopsis of the litigation being prepared by New York VOTERS (Voters for Open, Transparent, Electoral Reliability and Security) challenging the constitutionality of provisions of New York's Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 (ERMA) :

- Joanne Lukacher

Synopsis

This litigation challenges the constitutionality of changes to New York’s Election Law, enacted by the Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 (ERMA), by which the State proposes to replace the lever voting system with computerized voting systems (DREs or Optical Scanners). Because software-generated results are unknowable, the State has proposed compensating for the loss of a reliable count on election night by providing for a post-election verification of the election night tally.

The electoral scheme that has existed in New York for more than two centuries has required an open, conclusive count of the ballots on election night, when the watchfulness of what is now election officials, authorized watchers, party representatives and the press could best deter fraud. To further preserve the integrity of the election, since 1896, the Election Law has required contemporaneously created, reliable physical evidence of the count or of fraud. A verified, completed count, publicly recorded and announced at each poll site on election night, before the aggregate of the total votes is known, continues to be mandated. For 231 years New York’s electoral system has protected the safeguarded election night-count from corruption by forbidding post-election recounts, it being historically understood that once the ongoing public scrutiny of the poll site ended and the results of the election night count were known, the count was at greater risk of subsequent tampering.

The newly enacted legislative scheme represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional reversal of existing and long-standing presumptions and requirements, permitting vote counting for the first time to be performed by concealed, undetectably mutable software, only to be verified after election night in a historically recognized unreliable way. Repeated scientific studies have shown software-driven voting machines to be vulnerable to unseen tampering and incapable of providing trustworthy election results. New York’s Legislature recognizes that the software-generated election-night count is not reliable and proposes to first attempt to verify and complete the count after the election with a partial hand count. Not only does the State unconstitutionally bifurcate the canvass, but its choice of software-driven systems further undermines constitutional safeguards by eliminating contemporaneously created evidence (or any evidence) of the count or of fraud. Indeed, because software cannot be secured, both the ballots and the evidence of how they were counted can be manipulated - leaving no trace of the count or the crime.

Pursuant to ERMA, the State will no longer strive to count every vote: in fact none of the votes will be securely counted. Instead, it will use computers to produce an uncertain count of all the ballots and once the election is over and the results announced, will then check the questionable tally by performing a manual count of a small portion of ballots that may or may not have been tampered, without determining whether those ballots represent the actual ballots cast on election night. The offenses to New York’s Constitution’s express right to vote and the right not to be disenfranchised (Article I, § 1, Article II, § 1) have been further exacerbated by the State’s failure to even consider constitutional due process procedures to determine chain of custody of the post-election ballots. This is particularly abhorrent in light of New York’s historic presumption that the risk of breach to the chain of custody is so high that post-election ballots have never been permitted to be used as a means to verify the secured election-night count.

The State has, until now, understood its responsibility to provide open, secure procedures in order to both safeguard the election and to demonstrate to the public that every vote is being counted as cast; to prove to the people that the election results are worthy of public confidence. Anything less has been recognized and condemned in the case law as unconstitutional disenfranchisement. First Amendment principles, also guaranteed by New York’s Constitution Article I, § 8, protect the public’s right to an open electoral process, essential for people to be able to evaluate the performance of their government in conducting public elections. There is no way for the electorate to know their votes have been reliably counted by software that has been shown to be vulnerable to exploitation outside the public’s view.

The proposed electoral system renders election officials’ historic oversight duties impossible to perform, creating a system in which undetected errors or willful frauds are not adequately restrained and the evidence of fraud is either exceedingly difficult to obtain or non-existent. There is precedence finding the constitutional inadequacy of such a system. At the turn of the last century, similar concerns in a less vulnerable electoral system - wherein a limited number of people had unobserved control over the count, had the ability to destroy evidence of fraud, and were not required to preserve evidence of the count - required the enactment of numerous safeguards to correct the deficiencies that had rendered “[V]oting … a useless formality as it depends upon the will of the inspectors of election…and not upon the vote of the people.” The safeguards instituted in 1896, still protecting the franchise to date, were designed to prevent the dangers wrought by precisely the type of electoral system ERMA invites, wherein the will of the people can be thwarted by the unobservable control held by a few private vendors and government insiders. These safeguards are fatally destroyed and effectively nullified by EMRA.

The public's right to the creation and preservation of responsible information to prove the election results as well as all of the fraud-deterring safeguards that have accumulated over the past two centuries will be sacrificed to secret, proprietary processes controlled by private vendors insisting that the public be prohibited from observing the very information required of an open, democratic society. Legislatively mandated procedures, which have demonstrated the reliability of the mechanical lever and hand-count voting systems, are abrogated by software-driven systems. Public scrutiny, fundamental to oversight and accountability, are eradicated by the new statutory scheme, depriving citizens of their constitutional right to an open, observable, reliable, completed count on election night.

The proposed computerized electoral system has been demonstrated to be far less secure and far more vulnerable to fraud than New York’s existing lever voting system or hand-count voting system, and further exposes the count to massive unprotectable risks exclusively made possible by the use of software. The case law has consistently found the removal of those safeguards which have protected the count from dilution by fraud to be unconstitutional. The legislature has the affirmative duty to protect the right of suffrage from any and all opportunities for fraud. The 2005 Legislature abdicated its responsibility in enacting legislation permitting the use of un-securable theft-enabling software driven voting systems.

The complaint also seeks a ruling that in light of the State’s providing Ballot Marking Devices in every poll site, the lever voting system is HAVA-compliant.

- Andi Novick

Lever Machines - Who Says They Are Illegal?

One of the first questions most people will ask when confronted with warnings about Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Touch Screen voting machines and Optical Scan ballot counters (Op-scans) is: "But aren't these analogous to banking at the ATM, and aren't scanners used to mark standardized tests? Both are used on a regular basis without a problem." Indeed, one vendor/manufacturer of ATMs is also a purveyor of Touch Screen and Op-Scan voting systems, although both the Touch Screens and the Op-Scans are generally much more shoddily made and engineered than your average ATM. The difference is transparency. If your money suddenly and unexpectedly disappears you are immediately aware of the loss. If your vote is lost or changed, you would never know. A little thing called the secret ballot really complicates things!

Two simple and comparatively reliable alternatives to computerized vote counting are the hand counting of paper ballots (HCPB) and the continued use of lever machines. Most presentations on HAVA (Help America Vote Act of 2002) compliance begin with the assertion that Lever Machines are now illegal and must be replaced by electronic voting machines. However, according to 2004 testimony by New York State Board of Elections Commissioner Doug Kellner:


The federal Help America Vote Act, 42 USC §§15301 et seq., will require substantial changes in election administration for the 2006 elections. In particular, 42 USC § 15481, sets minimum standards for voting machines. Our lever machines satisfy all but one of those standards, that there be at least one machine at each poll site that is 'accessible for individuals with disabilities, including non-visual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters.

Ballot Marking Devices (BMD) which will comply with HAVA's standards for disability access and will produce a paper ballot for the disabled voter have now been approved for use in New York State. As required by HAVA one such device will be available at each polling place for the November 2008 elections. Non-disabled voters will continue to use the lever machines in November 2008 or may choose to use the BMD . These BMD paper ballots will be hand-counted in 2008 but most county election commissioners are anticipating the use of Op-Scans to count paper ballots for all voters beginning in 2009.

ReMediaETC in upcoming posts will be demonstrating the risks to our democracy posed by computerized vote counting and, in challenging the security and lack of transparency of Op-Scans, will argue that the continued use of lever machines is legal under HAVA and should be used until it is determined that New York is in need of some other transparent and secure means of counting our ballots

Here is Commissioner Kellner in an interview from 2005:


Machines similar to today's lever machines were at the center of a voter-fraud scandal in the 1940s. The machines had mechanical counters similar to odometers that recorded how many votes were cast for each candidate. Some of the people responsible for counting the votes used pen knives to change the counters and thus the votes. Similarly, the counters used on today's machines could be adjusted prior to the opening of polls to provide an artificial advantage to a candidate. Unlike e-voting machines, which have all of its inner-workings hidden away as code, the working parts of lever machines are exposed to the world. The fraud of the 1940s was uncovered because volunteers from the polling stations noticed that the numbers on their machines at the counting location were not the same as when they left the polling station. Similarly, any tampering with a lever machine today would be plainly visible to the volunteer preparing it for poll opening. Becoming aware of fraud on an e-voting machine would be much more difficult, because so much of their inner-workings are invisible to all but the software programmers.

Fighting fraud carried out by code is also particularly expensive. Some e-voting systems run on 150,000 lines of code and to uncover whether fraud has occurred, or by whom and how, requires an army of programmers, a number of years, and millions of dollars. Even then, there is no guarantee that their examination will produce results.


The Hand Counted Paper Ballot Alternative will be discussed in an upcoming post.

- Joanne Lukacher

Mission Statement - Counting the Ballots in New York State

The Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition was formed in response to New York State’s committed direction of replacing its lever voting system with computerized voting systems in 2008 or 2009.

While any voting system is subject to illegal manipulation the mechanics of our existing lever machines and the procedural safeguards which have been put in place have served us well. Illegal tampering with a lever machine is rare and easily detectable and while it may call into question the results from a single machine the effect is minimal relative to the potential for undetectable wholesale fraud which is possible on a single electronic vote counting machine. Manipulation of either a Direct Record Electronic touchscreen machine (DRE) or Paper Ballot Optical Scan machine (PBOS) can alter the outcome of an entire election. That is, a single person can rig the results of the whole state!

The right to vote is the most important of the rights inherent to a self-governing society. All of our inalienable, civil and political rights rely on our ability to elect or abolish our government. Since the founding of the State of New York the right to vote and to have our votes counted has been protected by a myriad of safeguards that rely on public scrutiny and access to information to provide a check against the abuse of power and the means for the people to evaluate how the State carried out its responsibility to count our votes and protect the integrity of the franchise. All of that will end if the State proceeds with its plan to let computers count our votes.

Every other state in the nation has switched to some form of computerized voting on either DREs or OpScans and the results have been disastrous. It is still possible to prevent this catastrophe in New York State. Over the past year Re-media has engaged in a variety of activities to educate and alert citizens and public officials to both the dangers of the path we are on and alternatives to safer and simpler non-corporate controlled secret vote counting. These have included public forums, film screenings, writing articles to better inform the public, intervening by way of an amicus motion in the case of the US Department of Justice vs New York State, and email communications regarding articles and actions. The efforts have been time consuming and expensive. We are preparing to commence litigation against the state of New York to prevent the evisceration of two hundred years of an observable safeguarded electoral system.

We need both money to pursue the litigation (legal expenses including transcripts, filing fees, depositions, etc.) additional lawyers and volunteers who are willing to support our efforts through letter writing and by their physical presence in a courtroom.
Donations may be made to the Coalition at Velvet Revolution. To add your name to our list of supporters contact joanne@re-mediaetc.org .

PLEASE JOIN US