October 30, 2009

 

Council Member ___________________

New York City Council

City Hall

New York, New York 10007

 

RE: Keep our Lever Voting Machines! Please co-sponsor and work for passage of Resolution 2236 before the end of the session this year!

Dear Council Member:


Please co-sponsor Resolution 2236. It urges our state and federal officials representing New York State to take all possible actions to enable us to continue using our lever voting machines, rather than replacing them with paper ballots and scanners (computers to be used in each poll site to count the votes on the paper ballots).

Our city and state cannot afford to replace our lever machines now. If replacement plans move ahead, the cost of running elections will rise a lot, and will drain our limited resources away from jobs and essential services that people’s lives depend upon.

Worse, with our declining finances, New York counties will not be able to properly secure the paper ballots, nor properly audit the computerized scanners. This means that the outcome of many election contests will be subject to undetected innocent and malicious errors.

Twenty upstate counties have already passed resolutions similar to Res. 2236; the first was passed in December, 2008. In some counties the election budget has tripled due to use of the new equipment.


Resolution 2236 has great importance because it expresses political support for our state to take fiscally responsibility action immediately to safeguard our future elections and avoid making our budget choices even more difficult than they will be.

Please play your part to bring this resolution to a passing vote as soon as possible, because the New York State Board of Elections intends to ask the counties to sign purchase agreements for the replacement equipment in December this year.

Sincerely yours,

 

Signature: _____________________________________________________________

 

 

Printed Name: __________________________________________________________

 

 

Address: ______________________________________________________________