Our Westchester Commissioners,like the other Election Commissioners all over the state, have been heavily lobbied by the vendors of electronic machines. They will choose the electronic voting machines unless they hear from us. This demonstration has not been widely publicized, so it is up to you to pass the word and get to the demo if you possibly can.

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This is your chance to let our Westchester Commissioners know what you think.

Please forward this notice to others.

Our Westchester Commissioners,like the other Election Commissioners all over the state, have been heavily lobbied by the vendors of electronic machines. They will choose the electronic voting machines unless they hear from us. This demonstration has not been widely publicized, so it is up to you to pass the word and get to the demo if you possibly can.

Be sure to fill out on the survey card that you want to vote on paper ballots.

Beware: if this demonstration is like the others around the state, it will be a big sales pitch for touchscreens, put on by vendors who want to sell their touchscreens voting machines. Expect to be surrounded by vendors enthusiastically demonstrating the huge touchscreen machines with all their bells and whistles, and having to look to find the modest scanners.

Questions to ask the vendors about electronic voting machines:

Where is the voter verified paper audit trail that is required by law?

Where does the paper go after I push the button to cast my vote?

What happens if the printer runs out of ink or breaks down?

Who is going to count the paper audit trail slips of paper?

What happens if the computer registers a different candidate than I voted for?

What happens if the computer loses votes, adds votes or crashes during an election? (If they say that never happens, ask for proof. We have thousands of examples of malfunctions during elections.)

Voting Machine Demonstration

Thursday Mar 30 1-7 PM

Westchester County Center Room B

10-12 AM Private viewing for officials

1-7 PM` Public forum

This is your chance to give our Board of Elections your input into the selection of voting machines. Four vendors that will be applying for state certification will demonstrate their new voting systems in an effort to gain feedback from the Westchester community. They will show the optical scanners used to count paper ballots as well as the touchscreen voting machines that they are heavily promoting.

For more information, contact Deputy-Commissioner Jeannie L. Palazola 995-2384

Allegra Dengler

Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522

http://citizensforvotingintegrity.org/

http://www.nyvv.org/

"... touch-screen machines are highly vulnerable to being hacked or maliciously programmed to change votes. And they cost far more than voting machines should." New York Times editorial, March 9, 2005

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.