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:
______________________________________________________________