May 18, 2009

Speaker of the City Council Christine Quinn

City Hall

New York, New York 10007

RE: KEEP OUR LEVER VOTING MACHINES, RETURN THE FEDERAL MONEY!

Dear Speaker Quinn

Please use your influence and leadership to pass a City Council resolution to keep our lever machines, and urge our state legislature to take all appropriate actions to enable this to happen.

HAVA, the federal law that funded America's rush to electronic voting, has always allowed lever machines if supplemented by accessible voting equipment for voters with disabilities.

Now our State Assembly and Senate, and our State Board of Elections, need political support to return the $50 million in federal funds that New York State accepted for replacement of our lever machines. It will cost us millions more of our own money to do it right, and the new equipment won't last more than 10 years. Then we will have no election equipment, and will have to spend more of our own money for new scanners!

With the new accessible Ballot Marking Devices ("BMDs") New York bought last year, we can have well-run, cost-effective, trustworthy, and accessible elections.

If New York has extra money, let's use it for our firehouses, hospitals, senior centers, parks, libraries, affordable housing, teachers and cops.

Our lever voting machines can work for another hundred years with routine maintenance. Most of their parts are standard items sold in hardware stores; the rest can be made in a machine shop. The lever voting machines are secure, easy to manage for poll workers, voters and election administrators, and inexpensive to maintain and use.

Please let me know what you are doing to keep our lever voting machines, and protect New York's future elections from privatization and unnecessary, expensive, unmanageable computerized voting equipment.

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