September 14, 2007

Co-Executive Directors Peter Kosinski and Stanley Zalen
Commissioners and Co-Chairs Neil Kelleher and Douglas Kellner
Commissioners Evelyn Aquila and Helena Moses Donohue
New York State Board of Elections
40 Steuben Street
Albany, New York 12207

Dear Members of the New York State Board of Elections:

I urge you to adopt a policy to enable you to waive the certification testing fee for 100% open-source, free software that run on COTS hardware.

Waiving the certification testing fee for software like this would be in the state interest and would serve the public. The State Board’s budget has sufficient funds for this purpose.

The cost of systems with this kind software would be lower than the cost of systems with secret software from commercial vendors. The initial cost would be lower because the software is free. The continuing costs would be lower because there would be no licensing or use fees for the software. In addition, many companies could competitively bid to provide services because they could easily learn the software.

The public's money should be spent wisely. The fee-waiver policy would help make available new voting systems that the state could maintain without dependence on one vendor who could then charge exorbitant fees for services.

The fee waiver policy is fair, and beneficial to the citizens of New York State. Please adopt this policy.

Yours truly,