OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Victory in NY City Council

Whereas, ERMA requires that New York be fully HAVA compliant by 2007; and

Whereas, To date, the New York State Board of Elections has not
certified that any of the voting systems under consideration is
compliant with the State Board of Elections' voting system standards,
and therefore can be procured for use by county boards of election; and

Whereas, Given the approaching deadline for full HAVA compliance, the
Board of Elections in the City of New York must continue to work
diligently to be prepared to select and procure a permanent voting
system as soon as a voting system(s) is certified by the State Board of
Elections, and begin planning immediately to make a transition to the
use of a such system; and

Whereas, Voter and public confidence would be strengthened by the use of
a PBOS system, which is easier to use because the ballot is marked
directly by the voter, whether manually by pencil or pen, or by the use
of an accessible ballot marking device; and

Whereas, The additional advantages to a PBOS system are that when it is
used in conjunction with an accessible ballot-marking device it can be
used by voters with disabilities, voters for whom English is not their
primary language, and any other voters who prefer the technology; and

Whereas, A PBOS system would enable the Board of Elections in the City
of New York to avoid many issues related to the prevention, detection
and correction of errors and tampering because the paper ballots can be
securely stored and handled and would enable election observers and the
public to meaningfully witness election procedures and vote-counting; and

Whereas, A PBOS system would also facilitate easy and observable
recounts; and

Whereas, Optical scanners and ballot markers in the polling site would
make it easier to detect errors in ballot-marking such as overvotes and
undervotes, and enable voters to correct such errors before their ballot
is cast; and

Whereas, Optical scanner systems have proven their reliability by being
successfully used in elections nationwide for over thirty years, and are
currently used by approximately forty-nine percent of American voters in
fifty-six percent of counties nationwide; and

Whereas, Optical scanner systems have been successfully programmed,
operated, and maintained by public employees in New York State in
agencies such as the Division of the Lottery, the New York State
Education Department and the Department of Motor Vehicles, as well as by
our county boards of election in all boroughs of the City of New York
for use in counting absentee ballots; and

Whereas, To the highest extent possible, public employees should perform
all work related to the conduct of elections; and

Whereas, PBOS systems can easily be programmed by bipartisan, technical
staff at the Board of Elections in the City of New York without the need for ongoing involvement of vendors; and

Whereas, The alternative type of voting system, the DRE, does not lend
itself to complete public control as vendors typically retain an interest in the hardware, software, or source-code of such technologies and are largely responsible for the maintenance of and training with respect to their systems; and

Whereas, PBOS systems will be significantly less expensive than DRE
systems; and

Whereas, The difference in cost between the PBOS and DRE systems relates
to: (1) how many units would be required and initial purchase costs; (2)
the transition costs of altering storage facilities to accommodate the
system; (3) revision of training materials and procedures for training
of voters and poll-workers; (4) continuing costs of storage, transportation, and logic and accuracy testing; (5) dealing with the types of lawsuits that electronic voting has engendered in other jurisdictions; and (6) costs associated with replacing parts of the system ; and

Whereas, PBOS systems are less delicate than electronic voting equipment
and therefore have a longer lifespan; and

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