Areas of interest: Voting Rights, Election Security, Communities of Color
New York City – June 30, 2022 — New York’s governor Kathy Hochul is convening the New York Senate and Assembly in an Extraordinary Session to address necessary changes to gun safety laws. There is another extremely urgent issue that the governor and legislature must also address at this time.
The New York State Board of Elections is in the process of approving voting machines that experts say “will deteriorate our security and our ability to have confidence in our elections.” These systems have a variety of designs, but they can be implemented without using any hand-marked paper ballots. Because of this, there is concern that elections held on these voting machines cannot be confirmed by audits. One system reviewed by CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) was found to have multiple serious security flaws.
The issue has been covered in City and State NY, NY Focus, Black Westchester Magazine, featured in an op-ed in the Albany Times Union, and on the cover of the Albany Times Union as well. Many details are available in an earlier press release.
GOOD GOVERNMENT GROUPS IDENTIFY AN URGENT ISSUE
Over twenty good government groups, including those fighting for civil and disability rights, have written memos of support asking the legislature to take immediate action to protect New York voters from the imminent danger that experts warn these voting systems represent.
Markers for Democracy says of the voting machines, “Once approved they will be almost impossible to eliminate,” noting that, “These systems are tangled in litigation and controversy.” In states where these voting machines are in use, litigation is moving forward, lines have been as long as 10 hours to vote, and one county recorded a 100% vote of no confidence.
In their memo, the Black Institute focuses on how these voting machines, if approved, will affect communities of color saying, “And who will get the worst of these systems, if they are approved? History tells us it will be communities of color that will be most impacted by this poorly conceived and badly executed technology.”
Reinvent Albany says in their memo that if these voting machines are put into use across the state, “… entire elections could be thrown into turmoil.”
LEGISLATIVE SOLUTION
Two bills that have already passed the New York Senate and are pending in the Assembly, could solve the problem. A1115C/S309B, known as the Protect Our Ballots Act, will establish some of the best election security protections in the country and ensure that any voting machines that are approved, will be used in a way that follows best security practices.
The other recommended bill is A829A/S6211 to give the State Board of Elections more discretion in rejecting voting machines that are not proper, safe, and secure.
Previous support for the bills came in a series of letters signed by over two dozen elections and election security experts along with forty-five good government and civil rights groups.
ADDRESSING OPPOSITION
The only group on record opposing A1115C/S309B is the New York State Conference of the NAACP, who filed a last-minute letter on the day before the end of the legislative session. The letter mirrored the points made by a lobbyist for one of the voting machine vendors: ES&S.
In a memo supporting A1115C/S309B, the Reverend Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, former president of the North Carolina NAACP says, “In North Carolina, the NAACP, fought and even went to court so that voters would have the option of hand-marked paper ballots, along with ballot-markers … Unlike in North Carolina, the [NY] State Conference of the NAACP has sadly allied itself with the voting machine vendors, and not the voters it is pledged to protect.”
Dr. Spearman added that, “Getting hand-marked paper ballots in Guilford County was not easy. As in New York, vendors leaned heavily on the state to purchase expensive ballot-markers for all voters. I was against this because the machine in question, the ExpressVote (produced by ES&S), counts votes with barcodes, which I cannot read.”
ES&S is trying to get a similar voting machine called the ExpressVote XL approved in New York. It is a voting machine that counts votes with barcodes. A1115C would prohibit votes from being counted with barcodes, because security experts say they add unnecessary risk to elections. CISA identified barcodes as an attack vector that could change the results of elections. So ES&S would have to change that part of the machine, along with other problematic features, or it could not be approved for use in New York. Dr. Spearman said that his county saved six million dollars by choosing the hand-marked paper ballot option, which allowed them to fund other priorities.
Bertha Lewis, Founder and President of the Black Institute said, “Voters deserve a choice in how they vote. These machines don’t give them a choice. The legislature must come back in session to protect citizens from guns and voters from voting machines that they pay for but give them no choice.”
The Black Institute – Since 2010, we have shaped intellectual discourse and impacted public policy from the perspective of Black people in America and people of color throughout the diaspora by using forward-thinking strategies to achieve racial equity.
Center for Common Ground was founded to educate and empower under-represented voters in voter suppression states to engage in elections and advocate for their right to vote.
SMART Legislation is the Legislative Partner Project for SMART Elections. We author and advocate legislation to protect elections. We want elections to be secure, fair, accessible, well-administered & publicly verifiable. Our goal is to increase public confidence.
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