Building Momentum: Essex Cty to Consider Lever Resolution Monday

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The momentum is growing throughout NY State. Every day we read more about the problems emerging with electronic voting elsewhere. Every day it becomes clearer that operating costs for electronic systems will far exceed the purchase costs. So the momentum behind the effort to maintain NY's lever system is escalating.

Essex to join counties demanding to keep lever voting booths - Fox 44 - Burlington and Plattsburgh News, Weather and Sports - Fox44.net |: "ELIZABETHTOWN, N.Y. (AP) - Essex County in the Adirondacks is joining a growing number of counties trying to save old-fashioned lever voting booths.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to pass a resolution Monday morning supporting retention of the mechanical booths. The New York State Association of Towns is also calling on state lawmakers to keep the lever machines."

Election commissioners reflect on levers in the NY-20 congressional race

Image by R. Wahtera via Flickr

At the bottom of this article about the Murphy/Tedisco NY-20 congressional race I found an interesting discussion of voting machine technology with some quotes by the Columbia County election commissioners.

Challenges to second-home voters prolong House race count:

One factor that has not hindered the vote count is voting machine technology. The two commissioners agreed that the familiar, mechanical lever machines worked well during the March 31 election. Mr. Kline called them foolproof. Ms. Martin said they were completely reliable and functioned beautifully.

Asked whether the board had considered using the new electronic ballot marking voting machines for the special election, Mr. Kline said, “It would have been a nightmare. Every paper ballot might have been contested.”

Ms. Martin said that time did not permit using the new machines, and she said the cost to taxpayers of using them would have been considerable. Just licensing software for a one-candidate election would have cost up to $80,000, with ballots costing an additional $20,000, and that’s just the beginning. Prices for ongoing services from voting machine vendors will be going up soon, she said.

Both commissioners support a resolution adopted in January by the county Board of Supervisors asking the state for permission to retain the lever voting machines while augmenting them with the new, handicapped-accessible ballot marking devices that counties all over state were required to purchase last fall."

Clear evidence: Lever voting works -- Times Union - Albany NY

Today's Albany Times Union has an article by Andi Novick of the Election Transparency Coalition about the government's responsibility to assure its citizens that the system for counting votes is secure, accurate, and transparent. Levers provide that assurance.

Clear evidence: Lever voting works -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY: "In a democracy, it is the Legislature's responsibility to create a structure in which voting can occur in the most secure manner, one that produces demonstrably certain election results. Just as in a criminal trial, where the state must prove the defendant's guilt to the satisfaction of a jury, in an election the state must establish its innocence to the satisfaction of the public. In both cases, the state must sustain its burden with unimpeachable evidence."

How the NY-20 Congressional Race Demonstrates the Need for Lever Machines

Counting the paper ballots in the NY District 20 Congressional race is underway. I've been thinking about how lever machines make the counting different from Minnesota, or from NY if an op-scanner system is implemented.

Of course the first difference is that no one is calling for a recount of the votes cast on the lever machines. People have confidence in the lever machines. On election night, in full public view, the back of each machine is opened and the numbers are read off. All that's left are the absentee and affidavit ballots. In Minnesota, no one trusts anything. Count and count again.

Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition: "Unlike the recent close race in Minnesota that was decided by a manual recount of post-election night paper ballots, not shown to have been the same ballots cast at the election, today’s commencement of New York’s absentee paper ballots will be publicly observed from the moment they are cast, through the counting. Novick says, “New York’s Constitution has always required an observable, open electoral process that produces evidence of the count at the time the votes are cast, ensuring maximum protection against fraud.”

“The Republican Party will have the proof it seeks, at least this year.” “But,” she warns, “If we permit the State to abandon our lever voting system for software-based scanners, it will be the last time any one will have evidence of who won the election.”"

And the cost is different -- A lever election is cheaper -- no high price technician doing software changes, no printing of paper ballots, attorney's fees are lower, and the labor costs for election officials are lower.

And the amount of time is different -- no audit of paper ballots, or total recount of paper ballots.

The worry-level is different -- no wondering whether the software was hacked or contains bugs, the electronics malfunctioned, the audit is an adequate size sample, or -- as in Clay County, Tennessee, where election officials have been indicted -- worry over old-fashioned election fraud.

Seems like keeping levers is something we could all get behind! (I think I've said that before.)

Greene County Lever Voting Machine Update

Greene County's legislature will vote on a save-our-levers resolution at their April 20th meeting. If you live in Greene County, make sure they know where you stand.

Somehow we need to renew Election Commissioner Burke's faith in citizen action, as well. Since he thinks levers are better, too, why give up without a fight?

The Daily Mail Online: "According to Democratic Elections Commissioner Thomas Burke, the decision is out of the county’s hands. While he agreed that the lever machines could conceivably work better than the newer optical scan voting machines, the state leaves them with no choice — everyone will soon make the switch.

“Are the new machines as good as the old ones? I don’t think so, but everyone in the State of New York will have to switch to the optical scan machine,” Burke said. “We don’t know when the change will happen, but it will happen.”

Nothing short of litigation will stop the switch, Burke added, and in other counties where that has been tried, it has failed."

Come on, Commissioner Burke, let's use every route there is to keep our levers until we can be sure a change is to an equal or better election system, and that means transparency, security, and cost.

What about this question of maintaining lever machines?

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Update 3/21/09: On March 18th International Election Solutions released a statement that they can provide the full aray of services on the 3.2 Shoup Voting Machines. PDF of the statement here.

2/09/09: Several recent articles mourning the end of lever voting make comments that the only company that maintains them has gone out of business. Fortunately, that's not true.

The Voting Machine Service Center in Gerry NY wrote a January 23, 2009 letter, now archived on Remedia Election Transparency Coalition's website, that confirms that they have been in business for 32 years, continue in business, and that they "can say, with confidence, that the AVB lever machines in the State of New York could be maintained indefinitely."

Here's the link to the pdf of the letter.

Schuyler seeks state OK to keep lever voting. Thank you, Schuyler!

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. It only took one email and a phone call or two to let the Schuyler legislators know that they weren't alone in this. They passed a resolution to keep the lever machines.

So, think what you can do in your county. If they haven't passed a lever resolution yet, make a few calls. Email your representatives. Show up at the Greene County hearing at 6 pm on March 16th.

Schuyler seeks state OK to keep lever voting | stargazette.com | Star-Gazette: "MONTOUR FALLS - Schuyler County legislators on Monday night asked the state to allow New York's counties to continue to use lever-style voting machines.
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The request was added to a resolution originally focused on asking for more funding for local governments to replace existing machines. The replacement was ordered by the state's Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005, a response to the federal government's Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA, approved by Congress in 2002.

The new language was based on a resolution approved last month by the Ulster County Legislature.

'The state's statutorily required elimination of lever-style voting machines is unnecessary, inappropriate and costly,' the unanimously approved resolution states.

'To throw out lever machines that haven't needed repairs in years is senseless,' Legislator Glenn Larison, R-Odessa, said."

We're making progress! Thank you, Schuyler County!

Staten Island Paper Ballots - a Follow-up

Last week we posted a story about the North Shore City Council special election recount of paper ballots scheduled for this past Wednesday on Staten Island. The Court said that candidate Tabacco should go back on the ballot. The Election Commission said it was too late to reprogram the lever machines; the election would use paper ballots.

Here are some telling comments from Staten Island Advance columnist Tom Wrobleski's polit.bureau as these Staten Island politicos reflect on the problems

Strictly Political for March 8, 2009 - SILive: Island Politics: "'They should have just put Tabacco on the ballot in the machine, [prior to the court ruling]' Lavelle said. 'The simplest way was to have him on there and then lock the lever so nobody could pull it for him.'

Attorney Marty Connor, a Democrat who used to represent part of the Island in the state Senate, agreed.

'There's no way to tamper with those machines without leaving a trace,' said Connor, the former Senate minority leader who is lawyering for Mitchell during the recount process.

Having the paper ballots also brought another interesting dynamic into play: What happens if the number of ballots in an election district is greater than the number of signatures in the voter books at the poll site?

Simple: BOE workers randomly remove ballots, in the presence campaign witnesses, so the numbers match up.

In a positively Colonial era procedure, seven ballots were removed from 'overvoted' districts during the first day of the recount.

The ballots were shuffled by hand like playing cards and placed in a plastic bin. Then Republican and Democratic BOE officials turned their backs and took turns removing ballots.

The ballots were folded without being examined and sealed in an envelope."

Wrobleski had an earlier column, Recount Notebook, which tells a fascinating recount story. But since this blog is focused on the benefits of keeping our levers, let me share these comments from his column:

While occasionally mind-numbing, the process is a good "spring training" for what's coming down the line.

When the city begins using optical-scanning machines sometime in the near future, paper ballots marked by voters in pen will be the standard. No longer will votes use the familiar lever machines.

The difference is that that ballots will be tabulated by an optical-scanning machine, like those used to grade standardized tests.

Still, there could come a time when the individual paper ballots in a tight election might have to be recounted by hand.

Officials and other observers here are dreading the possibility that a recount might have to be done in a mayoral, congressional or borough presidential race, where there could be tens of thousands of ballots in the pool.

Well, it took four days to recount the 11,177 votes cast. Unofficially, Ken Mitchell won the City Council race by 342 votes . 51 votes were removed due to overvotes or other reasons. It becomes official when the results are reported to the Supreme Court Justice next Wednesday.

Four days for 11,000 ballots. Shouldn't we just keep our levers?

Why Fight to Keep Our NYS Lever Voting System?

Our lever system works

The lever machines and election procedures that constitute our New York State lever voting system provide us with the only system that can meet our constitutionally- guaranteed right to a reliable and transparent election process. In the 1880s and 1890s, paper ballots were at the core of NY’s history of rampant voter fraud. This fraud stimulated our state’s commitment to finding a system that minimized the risk of tampering. By 1925, the entire state used lever voting, except New York City, where Tammany Hall fought levers to the bitter end. The 1926 election results reassured Democrats and Republicans in NYC that lever voting machines meant clean elections. Since then, and precisely because lever machines are mechanical, the NY election system, equipment, and accompanying procedures, have evolved to the point where New Yorkers have great confidence in and affection for our lever system.

Ballot marking devices make the lever system HAVA compliant

The claim that retaining our lever machines keeps NY out of compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is erroneous. The Federal Court accepted the State’s plan to comply with HAVA by installing ballot-marking devices for people with disabilities in every polling place. That plan was implemented in 2008.

Why spend this money now?

In this time of economic crisis, New York taxpayers should be spared the excessive and recurring costs imposed by a switch to an optical scan voting system. Let’s decrease, not increase, costs.

An electronic system requires funding for equipment purchase, initial and on-going staff training, and recurring costs for climate-controlled warehousing, sophisticated system maintenance, software verification, and technicians on call. Certification requirements will change over time; the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is presently debating new standards, imposing additional costs to recertify previously purchased scanners and replace those that can’t meet the new standards. All of this would cost New Yorkers millions of additional dollars, even in small counties.

Why spend these millions when our current lever system has proven reliable and tamper-proof over many decades, and maintainable at very low cost? In 2006, our state legislators passed the Election Reform and Modernization Act (ERMA) which requires that the Election Commission use certified, software-based voting machines – far beyond what HAVA requires. Reversing the electronic voting requirement is a budget cut we could all get behind.

The technology proposed to replace levers doesn’t secure the vote

Some believe that “certification” means secure, tamper-proof, or not hackable. It doesn’t; nothing in NY’s standards or the EAC (2005) standards currently in effect guarantees it, nor does anyone claim that it does. Computer scientists currently agree that, today, threats to the security of touch-screen and optical scanner software continue without foreseeable solutions. Maybe someday a system to handle these threats will emerge, but currently software, by its nature, can be tested today and hacked tomorrow; verified now and changed minutes later, without a trace.

Many believe that the law includes a solution to the software security issue -- voter-verified paper records for audit purposes. However, three issues remain unresolved: determining 1) a statistically valid sample size and methodology for audit; 2) a process for resolving discrepancies; and 3) a chain of custody procedure for the paper ballots.

Statisticians warn that ERMA's 3% sample is inadequate to ferret out fraud and no methodology for selecting the sample ballots or resolving discrepancies exists. Historically, most vote tampering occurred during the transport of paper ballots from the polling place for counting or recounting elsewhere. Paper ballots must be counted in plain view before they leave the polling place, or strict chain of custody procedures must be in place. NY State’s present law calls for neither.

Here’s what you can do

• Sign the petition
  
• Contact your elected representatives at all levels of government to let them know where you stand on this issue; ask them to follow the lead of Dutchess, Columbia, and Ulster Counties and the NY Association of Towns by passing a resolution urging the State to keep the lever system.
• Write a letter to the editor; ask why they aren’t paying attention to this issue
• Share this information with your friends; get the buzz going

Greene County Lever Voting Machine Update

Greene County Legislature has postponed the resolution urging that NY State maintain the lever system until March 16th. We'll remind people again when the date is confirmed.

So take tomorrow night off. Write to the Dutchess County legislators, instead!

Ulster County Passed the Lever Resolution! On to Greene County!

Many thanks and a special valentine to the Ulster County Laws and Rules Committee (Chairman Bischoff and Legislators Cahill, Decker, R.S. Parete, Rodriguez, Shapiro, Cummings, Maloney and Roberts) and Legislators Aiello, Cummings, Fabiano, Felicello, Gerentine, Hansut, Harris, Maloney, Noonan, Petit, Roberti, Roberts, Ronk, Terrizzi and Zimet for sheparding Resolution 47 through the Ulster County Legislature.

The Ulster County Legislature passed the resolution on Wednesday, February 11th.

Next Tuesday the Greene County Legislature will vote on the same resolution. Please ask your friends in Greene County to contact their representatives.

Meanwhile, the Kingston Branch of AAUW has committed to advocating to keep lever machines.

Photo credit: Matt Mahurin

How Lever Machines Provide a Reliable Count

Here's a thoughtful excerpt from an article, In Defense of Lever Voting Machines, by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. who wrote the book "Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election" about the Ohio voter machine issues. I have added formating and sub-headings to make reading easier. Use the links to read the full article.

[Link to read the full article]
I still prefer hand-counted paper ballots, but only if they are counted in full public view at the polling place on Election Night. I simply will not defend the use of paper ballots if they are transported to another location before they are counted. I would much rather have lever machines counted at the polling place than any system, paper or paperless, counted elsewhere.

Lever machines are mechanical devices. The voter pulls a lever, which turns a gear, which adds one vote to the candidate's total, much like the odometer on a car. The lever makes a sound which verifies that the vote has been recorded.

Oversight of lever machines
With lever machines, three oversight methods are always necessary to protect the integrity of the vote count. Election observers need to see:

(1) before the polls open, that the counts for all candidates and ballot propositions begin at zero, and that all the levers are functioning properly;

(2) throughout the day, that the total count matches the number of voter signatures in the book; and

(3) at the end of the day, that the machine counts are observed and recorded at the polling place, in full public view.

Honest elections officials will be doing these things anyway. It is our job, as vigilant citizens, to be sure that they do.

New York State, by law, does not allow post-election recounts. Rather, New York allows a "recanvass," that is, a comparison of the counts that were transcribed in full public view from the lever machines at each polling place on Election Night with the numbers tallied and aggregated at the county level, to be sure that all the vote totals were transcribed correctly. As explained by attorney Andi Novick:

"Since 1896, the Election Law has required contemporaneously created record evidence of the count or of fraud. A verified, completed count, publicly recorded and announced at each poll site on election night, before the aggregate of the total votes is known, is still mandated." It is "historically understood that once the ongoing public scrutiny of the poll site ended and the results of the election night count were known, the count was at greater risk of subsequent tampering."

For the same reason, in the case of hand-counted paper ballots, I distrust the idea of recounts at a central location utilizing an optical scanner, allegedly as a "check" on the original hand count at the polling place. If a discrepancy arises, which count carries the day? How do we know that ballot tampering did not occur after the ballots left the polling place and before they were run through the optical scanner?

In New York State, lever machines have a "full face ballot." Every candidate for every office, and every ballot proposition, is visible all at once. The offices are lined up in columns, and the political parties are lined up in rows, the order of which is determined by the order in which the parties' candidates finished in the preceding gubernatorial election. While this does help to perpetuate the dominance of the two major political parties, it standardizes the ballot layout all across the state. Any error in the ballot layout will be noticed, and the vote tallies will be assigned accordingly.

The levers are right next to the names of the candidates. The voter is unlikely to pull the wrong lever by mistake. Nor can votes be switched from one candidate to another, as this would be as difficult as jimmying a mechanical typewriter to type the wrong letter. Nor can votes be shifted by sending the voter to the wrong machine, because the ballot layout will be the same on every lever machine in the district. Even the blind can vote on lever machines, by feel, finding the right columns and rows by counting the number of levers.

Read the whole article here

Certified voting mess - an editorial on NY's voting issues

The decertification of SysTest is getting a lot of press these days. This excerpt from an editorial in The Daily News -- the one serving Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans Counties -- has some interesting budget numbers.

The Daily News Online > Archives > Opinion > Editorials > Editorial: Certified voting mess: "The county has been told it should be prepared to use both its old equipment (and hope none of it breaks down) and new machines (and hope SysTest regains its accreditation in time to certify them). The county must pay Sequoia more than $80,000 for computer software, licenses, fees and training of election workers. Add to that the $3,500 the company charged for having a technician on hand for 2008's elections, and the dedicated phone line required to troubleshoot any problems that came up on election days. Mr. Siebert says all the technician did was have a cup of coffee with staff, didn't show up for November's election and the hot line was never used."

Isn't this a budget cut we can all get behind?

Madison County voters to use lever machines 1 more time (or maybe2)

Here's a bit more information on the impact of Systest's decertification. Although the article from the Oneida Daily Dispatch quotes the election officials as saying they'll move forward with their purchasing. If I lived in Madison County I'd get busy organizing to get county officials to back off. It's just not the time to spend taxpayor money on technology that doesn't meet our needs.

Madison County voters to use lever machines 1 more time (or maybe2) - The Oneida Daily Dispatch News: Serving Oneida, NY and Madison County (OneidaDispatch.com: "Systest, the Denver-based company responsible for testing, quality assurance and compliance lost the required certification last fall, prior to the November elections and has yet to pass muster by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

After losing the required certification, the election commission suspended Systests accreditation.

Until the company gets the requirement back, the 40 new $5,000 machines will be kept, technician at the ready, in a secure climate controlled storage room, tested monthly and plugged in intermittently to keep it activated.

And the old reliable lever machines will be taken back out of closets all over the county. Dusted off and set-up at polling sites for most of this year. Definitely in March for village elections and maybe in November for the towns and city."

Do you live in Madison County? What are you doing to stop this? Isn't this a budget cut we could all get behind?

The Last Transparent Democratic Electoral System in the United States of America Cannot Be Allowed to Perish

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Andi Novick has written an interesting article about what contributes to making an election system transparent and theft-deterring. If you don't know Andi, she's the attorney behind the pending suit arguing that NY's Election Reform law is unconstitutional. She needs our moral and financial support. All her work has been pro bono and the costs of litigation are mounting. You can donate on the Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition site.

OpEdNews � The Last Transparent Democratic Electoral System in the United States of America Cannot Be Allowed to Perish: "This article explains what New York currently has and will lose if we fail to stop the unconstitutional Election Reform and Modernization Act (ERMA) from replacing New York's transparent lever voting system with a secret vote counting system that permits the invisible processes of software to replace the role of the public and its election officials in protecting the integrity of election outcomes. New York's lever system, as well as its manual paper counting system, has protected the constitutional right of suffrage by enabling the potential for 100% knowledge through a transparent process that anticipates and actively prevents even the opportunity for fraud and error. Every protection, as described below, is eviscerated by ERMA."

So, things are heating up in the fight to keep our levers. Spread the word, won't you?

Columbia County to vote on retaining lever machines

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The Register Star Online: "COLUMBIA COUNTY - Archimedes asked only for a lever and a place to stand, and he would move the world.

The Columbia County Board of Elections last week seconded that motion, saying in effect, who needs touch screens, optical scanners or paper ballots, when good, old levered voting machines beat any other electoral technology known to the franchised world.

A resolution asking that levered voting machines continue to be used in New York state will be considered by the Board of Supervisors at its Feb. 11 meeting."

Read More...

Come on, Ulster County, save our lever machines

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It's time for us to let our Ulster County legislators know that we think that spending money to replace our lever machines is the wrong way to go. They can be heroes. They can take a position that will save the taxpayers millions and keep our system of voting reliable, tamper-proof, and transparent.

Dutchess County took a stand in December. Columbia County is about to vote on their resolution (early February). Let's get moving, Ulster County Legislators.

Send a message to Mr. Hein and Chairman Donaldson here. The email is all ready to go. Just add any personal comments. It will only take a minute.

Call or write to your local representative. Here's a link to the directory with their email addresses.

And, most important, talk to your friends.