Reply #20: NY: It’s paper ballots vs. touch screen voting at the City Council

[rumpel]

Courier Life Publication

By Helen Klein
12/29/2006

The City Council is poised to make its voice heard on the controversial issue of which voting machines the Board of Elections should choose for New York City.

A resolution recommending that the Board of Elections select paper ballot optical scanners, was introduced earlier this year by City Councilmember Charles Barron and has 44 additional sponsors. The council will be holding a hearing on the matter in January, with the city’s election commissioners supposed to be making a decision in February.

In general terms, the choice the Board of Elections faces is between optical scanners and touch screen voting machines, also known as DREs (Direct Recording Electronic).

As the last state in the union not to have complied yet with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was passed in 2002 in the wake of the controversial 2000 presidential election, New York is under orders from the federal Department of Justice to replace its old lever machines with machines that comply with HAVA’s requirements.

http://www.carrollgardenscourier.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17650577&BRD=2384&PAG=461&dept_id=560113&rfi=6