Abe Rosen

January 29, 2007

Testimony urging a vote on Resolution 131

Thank you very much for holding this hearing.

My name is Abe Rosen and I live in Flushing, Queens. I’m here on behalf of the United Hebrew Trades, a coalition of 38 unions in New York City with a combined membership of more than 30,000 members.

The United Hebrew Trades supports a voter-marked paper-ballot and optical-scanner system, the most reliable system among those being considered, for counting, and verifying the accuracy of a vote.

Democracy depends upon a system in which the voter can be certain that every vote will be counted accurately and preserved. Moreover, optical scanners employ a well-established, reliable, and universally-used technology that is not prone to malfunction. In addition, an optical scanner could accommodate five to ten times as many voters during a given time period than a touch-screen system could, thereby eliminating long limes of voters, In every respect, optical scanners have conspicuous advantages over any of the other systems being considered.

I am here to urge you to vote on Resolution 131 and release it from the Governmental Operations Committee so that it can be passed by the whole City Council.

Thank you very much for your attention.