July
4 Petition Project!
1. Commissioners, who will choose our future voting machines.
2. County Leaders, who designated the commissioners and may advise them what to choose.
3. City Council Members, who have influence and power -- and responsibility to the public! First, they participate in selecting the county leader. Second, if our NYC commissioners deadlock at 5 to 5, the State Board of Elections will make the decision for us – in that case City Council resolutions will be HIGHLY influential. Third, commissioners and county leaders are not elected by the people, so they don’t have to listen to the public or meet with activists. But City Council Members, as elected officials, have responsibility to listen to us and voice our concerns!
July 4 Petition to Commissioners and County Leaders
City Council Members who need to be contacted
New York law now bans our lever machines as of September, 2007, and requires each county and New York City to choose new machines. Our law allows two choices:
· PBOS -- consists of paper ballots to be marked by hand (or by ballot-marking devices for voters with disabilities or minority languages), and optical scanner machines in each polling place to check each ballot for correctness before it is cast and to print a tally at the end of the election day.
· DREs -- consist of "Direct Recording Electronic" voting machines (computers) with a touchscreen or pushbuttons, and a tiny printer to print a receipt-like list of each voter's choices for the voter to verify before pressing "Cast My Ballot." The printout then goes into a secure storage box in the machine.
· Res. 131 -- urges adoption of PBOS. Lead sponsor Charles Barron. 33 sponsors
· Res. 228 -- urges public tests before selection. Let’s see it work before we fork over $100 million! Lead sponsor Robert Jackson. 34 sponsors
Find your council member here or here or call the League of Women Voters, 212-725-3541
Do you want wheresthepaper.org to send letters for you? Please send your name and address to admin@wheresthepaper.org (Please tell us if you wish to be on an email alert list.)
July 25, 2006