I just returned from DFA Link-up where the first speaker of the night was Bo Lipari from New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV). Stlo7 has done several stories on the new voting machines that New York had been looking at. I added a story, or two, about the direction New York State was headed, in regards to type of machine. (Note-for the sake of brevity, the Board of Elections will be referred to in this article as the BOE)

Really, is there anything more important, in a Democracy, than the integrity of our voting system?

Here is Bo’s Story:

The NYVV has been fighting for 5 years to have the Counties in the State of New York adopt hand marked paper ballots. Touch screen voting machines are being eliminated, after trying, and failing in Colorado, Ohio, California and Florida. The writing is on the wall- they are not reliable, they do not preserve election integrity. (from the NYT-my add)

The earliest critiques of digital voting booths came from the fringe — disgruntled citizens and scared-senseless computer geeks — but the fears have now risen to the highest levels of government. One by one, states are renouncing the use of touch-screen voting machines. California and Florida decided to get rid of their electronic voting machines last spring, and last month, Colorado decertified about half of its touch-screen devices. Also last month, Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state, released a report in the wake of the Cuyahoga crashes arguing that touch-screens “may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process.” She was so worried she is now forcing Cuyahoga to scrap its touch-screen machines and go back to paper-based voting — before the Ohio primary, scheduled for March 4. Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat of Florida, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, have even sponsored a bill that would ban the use of touch-screen machines across the country by 2012.

Fortunately, for us, here in NY State, our dysfunctional state government works very slowly which kept NY from moving forward to approve the faulty touch screen machines. This gave NYVV the opportunity to dominate the media message and in educating the media, the media picked up their talking points

Six months ago the Department of Justice said, “New York BOE-you haven’t gotten it done yet. We’re taking it to a judge.”

The Federal Judge read them the riot act. The New York BOE requested not to have to vote on a new system for 2008. As a pivotal election with high voter turnout, it was not deemed a good year to change machines, but HAVA requires handicap accessible by 2008. Entirely new voting machines by 2009.

Judge said, “Ok, but I want a written report every Friday to know that you’re on schedule. The moment that you know that you’re off schedule, you are required to call me or the entire BOE goes to jail.”

The schedule was to come to completion in February:

Feb 8th- Counties tell State BOE what they want.

Feb 28th- County to place final order for 2008 Handicapped accessible machines.

Now, to make this clear-if ballot marking devices (BMDs) are chosen to accommodate this, than optical scan/paper ballot machines will be the 2009 choice. If DREs are chosen to accommodate, then they will be the 2009 choice.

As the schedule came to completion, the Touch Screen Vendors went to State Supreme court and challenged BOE’s right to choose which machines were acceptable because their machines were not on the list to choose from. Judge Kimberly O’Connor rules in favor of the vendors. (Judge O’Connor from Rensselaer County-can you say cozied up to Joe Bruno?)

So, touch screens are back on the list. Feb 8th-all counties in NYS, except for one small county in the ADKs-Hamilton(I’m so embarrassed), choose BMDs for 2008. The counties had been well educated by NYVV and other activist organizations.

Next day-DRE Vendors go back to the Supreme Court saying, “We weren’t on the list long enough.” Same judge says, “You’ve spent millions of dollars, you should get a better return on your investment”?!!??

Even with this type of unethical behavior, the BOEs did not change their minds and things are looking up for maintaining our “Election Integrity” in New York State.

One last aside: Go to the New York State BOE website. The Voter Registration Data Base has been revamped and we all need to check out our registrations. And when you step into the lever booth this Fall, make a mental note, they are part of our history, and we won’t see them again.