Press
Conference Announcement
A press
conference will be held on Monday, 2/28/05, at 1:00 PM, in Room 130 of the LOB
in Albany. Assemblywomen Sandy Galef
(Westchester), Barbara Lifton (Tompkins), New Yorkers for Verified Voting, and
a coalition of organizations are calling for New York State to consider all
voting equipment alternatives, and not allow our choices be limited by
lobbyists and vendors.
Bo Lipari of
New Yorkers for Verified Voting (www.nyvv.org) will be advocating for paper
ballot/scanner/ballot marking systems as the best choice for NY. Other groups
who do not specifically endorse PBOS will speak about the need to evaluate all
of our options, and not let lobbyists limit our choices.
From Bo
Lipari:
Citizens
Groups Call for Full and Open Exploration
of All
Available Voting Machine Technologies
Press
Conference to be held Monday, February 28 at 1:00 PM in LOB, Rm. 130
A press
conference will be held in Room 130 of the Legislative Office Building in
Albany on Monday, February 28th at 1:00 PM. A broad non-partisan coalition of
citizens groups will urge the Legislature and state election officials to
review all available voting systems, including paper ballot and optical scan
systems. New Yorkers must not allow our choices to be limited by lobbyists and
vendors.
Adoption of
a paper ballot and optical scan voting system could provide New York State
voters many advantages over electronic touch screen technology. Ballot marking
technology allows a paper ballot based system to provide accessible, private
and independent voting for voters with disabilities.
Optical scan
systems have been used in elections around the United States for over 20
years. Currently used in 25% of all the
precincts in the US, the states of Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio have
all decided to use optical scanners to comply with the Help America Vote Act
which mandates new machines for New York. Why has New York not considered this
option?
The decision
on the replacement for our current mechanical lever machines should be based on
a full review of the best system available, not what vendor has the best
lobbyist or which machine will make vendors the most money.
"A new
era of computerized voting presents many dangers and challenges to citizens in
a democracy" said Bo Lipari Director of New Yorkers for Verified
Voting. "But, the same vendors who
supply the flawed touch-screen technology also make reliable, verifiable and
fully accessible systems based on a hand marked permanent paper ballot coupled
with an optical scanner at a significantly lower cost" said Lipari.
"The
League of Women Voters of New York supports an open and full exploration of all
available voting technologies which meet our criteria of being secure,
accurate, recountable and accessible," said Aimee Allaud,
Elections/Government specialist for the League. "Marking a paper ballot is
familiar to anyone who has taken a standardized test or filled out a form at
the DMV" said Andrew C. White of *Democracy for the Hudson-Mohawk Region.
"It's a reliable and auditable system that will be easy to learn and use
for poll workers and voters. New York must evaluate this alternative to
electronic touch screen voting machines."
For detailed
information on paper ballot and optical scan voting systems
please visit
www.nyvv.org <www.nyvv.org/>
CONTACT:
Bo Lipari
: bolipari@nyvv.org