And Then There Was One (Voting Machine), For Now Anyway
January 31st, 2008
After years of indecision, the New York State Board of Elections certified three voting machines for counties to choose amongst, and disabled voters would finally find one machine accessible to them at every polling place. A tempered sigh of relief amongst voting machine advocates ensued: The much maligned touch-screen machines had been avoided, and the disabled had finally found a modicum of support for their voting needs by elections officials, albeit court facilitated.
But it was only a fleeting moment of ease. It took less than a day for that decision amongst election officials - years in the making - to be thrown into question.
Immediately after their vote, makers of the electronic machines filed suit. One suit, filed by machine vendor Liberty Election Systems in State Supreme Court, asked that the Board of Elections be compelled to include their product on the list of certified machines. Bo Lipari of New Yorker’s for Verified Voting could “only gape in awe at Liberty’s unmitigated gall.” While the vendor’s request for a temporary restraining order was denied on Monday, the court will decide whether to force the board to include the machine today.
Then, as the lawsuits went on, the board basically decertified two of the three paper based machines they had approved only days earlier, leaving the only machine certified one that had never been tested in an actual election. The Brennan Center opined that they had “a hard time believing the decision had anything to do with which system was best for disabled voters, or New Yorkers in general.”
And all of this is only for 2008. The state still needs to decide which machines to approve for the replacement of all machines by 2009.
By Mike Muller on January 31, 2008, 2:14 pmIn category: Albany, Civil Rights, Tech, Voting
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