To: The New York State House, The New York State Senate, and Governor Andrew Cuomo
Protect our ballots from rigging and hacking
Ban hybrid and touchscreen voting machines except as necessary for equitable voting by people with disabilities preventing them from hand marking their ballots. Require NYS Board of Elections and Comptroller to establish a Request for Proposals (RFP) process for the acquisition/ certification of new voting machines. Pass Right to a Recount requiring automatic 100% hand count in close elections or upon the request of candidates (or in the case of propositions or referenda, voter petition) who are willing to pay recount costs - rights already established in 43 other states. Require all audit recanvasses of ballots to be by hand count, not by computer scan. Allow a single election commissioner (not “a board of elections” to escalate our automatic post-election audit recount above 3%. Establish right to FOIL ballot images immediately after elections.
Why is this important?
In light of current news of nation-state interference in US elections, every state has the responsibility to safeguard its entire election process against rigging, hacking and computer errors. According to election security experts, only hand marked paper ballots, robustly audited by publicly witnessed hand counts, can protect our elections by catching tallying errors - whether due to rigging, hacking or computer error - after the fact. New York currently has no reliable path to 100% hand count, which courts have prevented even in very close elections (e.g. Johnson v. Martin, Nassau County, 2010). Currently, NYS law allows vendors to choose which voting machines to submit for certification. We need to establish an RFP process and outlaw voting machines that can print over voter-marked or voter-approved ballots - the only ones vendors are currently submitting for certification! And we need to establish a right to recount like 43 other states have in close elections or upon candidate- and voter-petition initiative. Otherwise, our elections are invitations to riggers and hackers. And now the courts have ruled that voters and reporters can’t ever see the ballot images - the photos taken by our scanners - because they must be preserved and therefore can’t be FOILed for two years - after which they can be destroyed! That must be reversed by legislation. Public display of ballot images would be a way for voters to verify for ourselves the accuracy of the computer count.