OpEd News Interview With ETC's Joanne Lukacher

Joanne Lukacher, ETC advisory board director, discussed recent and ongoing developments in New York's experiences with computerized voting with Joan Brunwasser of OpEd News here.

Joanne Lukacher and Howard Stanislevic Interviewed on Activist Radio

"We were...assured...by one of our State Election Commissioners that the paper ballot count would be the certified count -- not the machine count.

"Now...a tightly contested election...has been certified, but the paper ballots were not the deciding factor."

-- Joanne Lukacher -- Election Transparency Coalition

On January 7th, ETC project director Joanne Lukacher and ETC adviser Howard Stanislevic of the E-Voter Education Project were the guests of WVKR radio hosts Fred Nagel and Gary Kenton on their program: Activist Radio. Fred is an active peace and justice advocate and Gary served on the Dutchess County Voting Integrity Task Force which delivered the report leading to the Dutchess County legislature becoming the first county legislature in New York to pass a resolution in favor of retaining their lever voting machines. The conversation covered: Columbia County's 100% hand count; the request for a hand count of the NY Senate District 7 contest denied by the state's highest court; the ongoing Nassau County lawsuit against electronic vote counting; and more. A podcast of the discussion is available here as a free mp3 download.

New York Primary Election Day: Op-Scan Round-up

Tuesday was primary election day in New York and the debut of optical scan voting machines in all New York counties. Reports from voters around the state were fairly consistent with my own experience in Poughkeepsie.

Although there were only about 4 people in line it took me about 10 minutes to get my ballot. One minute to fill it out - not as easy to stay inside those ovals as when seated at a desk with a pencil in the 10th grade, but I had only two choices to indicate. The markers were micron felt-tip and already the point was wearing down although I'm sure there had been no more than 15 voters there so far. A report from an ETC friend in Suffolk County indicated that although she was the 39th voter in her district, the pen was almost out of ink.

At my polling place only one of the two machines was working. I saw reams of machine tapes being pulled out and there was also some dispute as to whether each machine was dedicated exclusively to one of the two election districts accommodated by this polling place. When I inserted my ballot into the working op-scan I received an over-vote notice and chose to have the ballot returned rather then continuing since I knew I had not over-voted. I inserted the ballot again only to received a "one or more ambiguous marks" on the ballot notice and indeed there were very faint and very tiny smudges either from the privacy sleeve or the scanner itself. Voters in New York city apparently had the same problem, the result of the use of the felt-tip markers which were reported to be those recommended by the voting machine manufacturers.

In Poughkeepsie I stood in line again for a new ballot and carefully filled in those minute ovals, although now the pen had a felt tail dragging behind. After 2 more attempts this new ballot with no evident "ambiguous" marks was again being rejected on the grounds of those invisible ambiguities. Throughout the state there were reports of machines rejecting ballots. In the time I was at my polling place at least one person had to feed his ballot at least twice before it registered. Finally the attendant at my machine suggested I turned the ballot over with the blank side up and, ta-dah, my vote was "cast" indicating I was the 22nd voter of the day.

I know the scanners have the capability to read two sides but whether that feature was enabled today? Who knows? But then again, who knows anyway?

With the high percentage of rejected ballots, I was concerned that the spoiled ballots were not being as carefully tracked as they should have been. Again, during the 25 minutes I was at my relatively quiet polling place another voter (an experienced poll worker) over-voted and had to stand in line for a new ballot. I later saw her hand in her spoilt ballot only after her second ballot had been cast. At one point in one election district in Syracuse there were 14 ballots spoiled for 20 which had been cast.

NY Court Allows Optical Scan Inspection by Nassau's Experts

The state Supreme Court judge hearing Nassau County’s case against the NY State Board of Elections last week authorized Nassau County, as part of the discovery process, to have ES&S electronic vote-counting machines tested by an independent lab in Connecticut.

In delivering this order the judge affirmed many of the constitutional issues which ETC has articulated, finding that, among other things, “the Legislature may not adopt policies which deprive voters of crucial protections under the New York State Constitution,” and “any burden on the State is far outweighed by the public’s interest in the right to cast a meaningful vote and its right to know whether the new machines jeopardize the security and integrity of New York’s electoral process.”

Responding to the court ruling in a press statement, Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said, “It is my firm belief that these new voting machines adversely affect voters… in their ability to cast their votes and have them count. In addition, in my opinion, the new voting equipment is an invitation to high tech and low tech fraud. Finally these voting systems will explode the cost of running elections by a multiple of as much as ten times the cost of running an election on our reliable lever machines.”

Nassau is among a minority of New York counties to have opted for the ES&S optical scan machines, one of two systems certified for use in NY by the State Board of Elections. The ruling only applies to the machines of the petitioning county (Nassau). This currently leaves the Dominion system, which was chosen by the majority of New York counties, exempt from independent testing.

Most of the twenty counties that passed resolutions expressing concerns about the optical scan voting systems and petitioning to retain their lever machines are scheduled to use Dominion Optical Scanners in fall elections. ETC urges these counties to join the Nassau suit so that all the voting machines will be subjected to independent professional scrutiny.

Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli’s press statement and the full court ruling can be read here: Nassau Discovery Ruling & Statement.

Levers Can Be Used in March Village Elections

[Additional material was added to this post on 1 February]

The NY State Board of Elections (SBoE)has decided that villages may continue to use the lever voting machines in the March 2010 elections. According to a report in the Post Star "state Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin said officials concluded that counties that haven't participated in a pilot program for the new machines can have an extended grace period."

What is unclear is whether villages in counties that participated in a limited way in the November pilot, like Dutchess, which deployed an op-scan in one voting district in the city of Poughkeepsie, will be required to use the scanners in March.

The SBoE decision was in response to concerns like those in a January 4th memo filed by election officials in Washington County, which did not participate in the pilot, that "The training that we need for ourselves, the inspectors and the technicians is not going to be completed in time for your use." But the other anxiety expressed by the Washington county election commissioners is one which has been systematically ignored by the SBoE despite having been raised consistently by county officials across the state. The Washington Commissioners wrote, "Also a concern is the cost of programming the new machines, transporting them and the printing of the ballots that may be prohibitive to small villages."

Update:

Although electronic voting machines were used in the November 2009 elections, the village of Saranac Lake has asked permission to use lever machines in the March village elections. Village clerk Kareen Tyler said, "I just don't think the expense or availability of the (new) machines is something the village is going to be able to handle." If permission to use the levers is not granted Tyler said the village will go to paper ballots which will be counted by hand. "It would not be difficult to do at all," she said. "There would be rules and guidelines and safeguards so they couldn't be stuffed or anything like that."

The story is reported in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.