Good News: A Break in the Fight for Voting Reform

(8) Good News! Voting Machine Vendor offers PB/OS system to New York State

Good news on the verified voting issue! Last week, Bo Lipari of New Yorkers for Verified Voting sent out this email:
An important milestone has been achieved by New York advocates of paper
ballot based voting systems. On January 5, ES&S and Automark introduced an
optical scanner and ballot marker compatible with New York and Connecticut's
full face ballot requirement.

Up until now, no precinct based scanner or ballot marker supported NY's full
face ballot, which displays all races and candidates on a single page in a
grid format.

The growing calls for adoption of paper ballot/optical scanner from citizens
all over NY has convinced at least one vendor that Scanners and Ballot
Markers compatible with New York's ballot requirements must be made
available.

We've achieved a crucial goal. Now there is a HAVA compliant paper ballot
based system available to NY. Certification and adoption still lie ahead.

We still have a hell of a lot of work to do, but look how far we've come!

-Bo Lipari
For more info, visit http://www.nyvv.org/presentation.shtml. To receive Bo's updates, directly, send him an email: contact@nyvv.org)

DOJ to sue NY for HAVA non-compliance

On January 10, 2006, the Department of Justice sent a letter stating that it intends to sue the state of New York for non-compliance with the Help America Vote Act of 2002 ("HAVA"). The letter states that Section 401 of HAVA authorizes the U.S. Attorney General to bring an action in federal district court to carry out the requirements of HAVA.

Bo Lipari summarized the letter in an email: "Basically, we are considered non-compliant with the voting machine provisions of HAVA (section 301), and the voter registration database requirements (Section 303)."

NY Councilman Bill Perkins urges PB/OS over DRE voting machines!

Just click on the above title, and I recommend pages 13-16 for the issue on the need for a paper-trail.
The pages leading up to page 13 are about New York State's terrible record of compliance with HAVA in
the last few years, Pataki being named as one of the culprits in the slow-down of acquiring a standard state-wide
voting system.