1) The NY Times article cited above, City Resists State on Voting-Machine Program begins:
"A long-delayed effort by New York State to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act, enacted after the 2000 election debacle, is encountering resistance in New York City, where officials insist on keeping the mechanical-lever voting machines that have been a mainstay of local elections since 1962."
2) State voting machine mandate all the 'rage' , http://www.denpubs.com/Articles-c-2009-05-14-59185.113116-sub_State_voting_machine_mandate_all_the_rage.html:
"The impending New York State mandate that will require counties to replace lever voting machines with electronic ballot counters by 2010 has many counties rebelling.... " Warren County Board of Supervisors Chairman Fred Monroe said."We need to join with other counties and reject this mandate.""We need to join with other counties and reject this mandate."
3) Group Votes to Save the Lever Voting System http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/05/28/save_levers/
"The Election Transparency Coalition (ETC), which is encouraging counties, cities, towns, and community groups to join the fight to save lever voting machines, calls ERMA an "unfunded mandate" that counties cannot afford. "As I talk to county officials around the state, I find that many of them are angry," says ETC legal counsel Andrea Novick. "They say, 'We have a system that works. Why should we be forced to replace it with something more expensive, less dependable, and more vulnerable to creating a new Tammany Hall?' States all over the country that have moved to electronic systems are regretting it. NY is the only state that still has its dependable voting system. It would be totally irresponsible to abandon it."
4) More counties urge state to keep lever voting, http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20090527-4.html
"More and more counties are realizing that just because they've used federal funds to acquire computers which enable citizens with special needs to create ballots, doesn't mean it's too late to preserve the superior and reliable vote counting system afforded by our lever machines," said Andrea Novick, an attorney representing the Coalition. "Counties are looking at the excessive costs they will incur if optical scanners are employed to count votes and recognizing the unfunded mandate that ERMA truly is. Particularly at this time when budgets everywhere are tight, it's outrageous for the State to require counties to surrender their affordable lever voting system, which has protected our constitutional rights by enabling demonstrable control of the count, to an unaffordable computerized system that violates our constitutional rights by relying on secretly programmed software, proven vulnerable to undetectable manipulation. County governments object to being put in this position, as they should."
5) Older lever booths get a vote of confidence, http://www.poststar.com/articles/2009/05/10/news/local/14759943.txt:
"The concern primarily with electronic voting machines their lack of transparency and their lack of reliability," said Joanne Lukacher, the director of the Election Transparency Coalition, a nonpartisan advocacy group that backs lever voting machines. "There is no way to see or verify that your vote has counted or has been cast.... Throughout the country, these machines have been questioned," she said. "It's based on a constitutional issue of being able to see that your vote has full force and effect."
6) The Times Union published this Op Ed: Clear Evidence: Lever Voting Works (written by us!):
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=790729&category=COMMENTARY
THIS IS THE TIME TO VOLUNTEER TO HELP- YOU CAN REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE- WE'RE IN THE FINAL PUSH AND WE NEED EVERYONE --THANKS
More people have been elected between sundown and sunup than ever were elected between sunup and sundown. Will Rogers
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