On September 29th Senator Joseph Addabbo, chair of the Senate Elections Committee held a hearing on the recent New York State primary when new paper ballot and optical scan systems were used statewide for the first time. The hearing focused on reported problems that occurred in New York City, the largest election jurisdiction in the country with…
Author: Bo Lipari Despite the impressions received from media reports, the September 14th primary was not the first time that New Yorkers voted on paper ballots and scanners. In the 2009 off-year election, 47 counties in upstate New York used the new systems as part of a pilot program. This trial run taught participants valuable…
If you’ve wondered why voting machine problems seem to occur again and again around the country and what can be done about it, the Brennan Center at New York University School of Law has an answer. A report released last week by the non-partisan organization, Voting System Failures: A Database Solution, found that in the absence…
If we can use the Internet to deliver blank ballots, then why not use it to return voted ballots? Part of the answer lies with the nature of the Internet itself. If we are to be sure that the vote cast is the same as the vote counted, we need a way to guarantee that 1)…
