Urgent Protect NY Voters
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SMART Elections & our partner organization SMART Legislation support fair, secure, accurate, accessible, inclusive & publicly verifiable elections.
- SMART Legislation is working hard to pass critically important legislation to protect New York elections
Our top priority is a bill called VIVA NY: The Voting Integrity and Verification Act of New York.
A5934B(Cunningham) /S6169A(Cleare)
- It passed the NY Senate last session. We are hoping to pass the NY Assembly this session.
- The bill is supported by good government groups across the political spectrum from Let NY Vote to the NY Citizens Audit. It is supported by civil rights groups. It is supported by election and security experts and the former NY State election commissioner.
We want to make sure voters have the option to vote with both a hand-marked paper ballot and a ballot marking device in all NY polling places. That’s how we've been voting and it works great.
New all-touchscreen voting machines have been approved for use in New York state that will eliminate hand-marked paper ballots wherever those machines are used.
If these new touchscreen voting machines are used, we are likely to have longer lines, and higher costs. These voting machines enocde the vote in a barcode and there is no way for voters to verify who they voted for. To make matters worse, experts say that elections held on these voting machines cannot be confirmed by audits.
These systems have also been documented to make mistakes in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where they are used. They have miscounted votes and declared the wrong candidate the winner in more than one election.
Touchscreen voting machines in Texas and Georgia have contributed to wait times to vote as long as 7-10 hours.
There is no reason for us to pay more as taxpayers and wait longer as voters. We have a good system of voting now and there is no reason to change it, except for voting machine vendors to make more profits. This is not the time to have more doubts cast on election results, when there is already so much controversy on that subject.
Five New York counties have now purchased, or indicated they will purchase all-touchscreen voting machines.
The legislation we support would ensure that those voting machines cannot be used to replace hand-marked paper ballots.
Help us pass this urgently needed legislation in this session.
The funds will go to help us
- contact legislators
- create flyers
- inform the public through forums and social media
- organize lobby days
- bring in other groups to collaborate with us
Please help us with a donation today.
You can learn more about us at SMART Legislation
And thanks for all you do.
Organizer
Lulu Friesdat
Organizer
Brooklyn, NY