Fran Baskin

 

Hearing before the Commissioners

of the Board of Elections in New York City

November 21, 2006

 

I support paper ballots and optical scanners with accessible ballot marking machines for voters with special needs.

 

With paper ballots, everyone votes on the same kind of ballot. After you fill it out, it goes through the scanner and into a sealed box.  If something goes wrong, the box can be opened and the paper can be read and counted. You don’t have to be a technical computer person to read and count paper ballots.

 

With electronic voting machines, you can’t be sure of the electronic records, and you can’t be sure that the voters have verified their voter-verifiable paper printout. A paper ballot filled out by the voter directly or with a ballot marking machine is better.

 

Thank you.