In the spirit of
Rippe's diary, I would like to share with everyone here at the DailyKos a victory for those opposed to DRE (direct recording electronic voting machines) in Upstate New York.
As you all know,
HAVA (Help America Vote Act of 2002) has forced states to update their voting machines and procedures for the handicapped. In New York State, the state legislature has left the decision to the county boards of election, who then were lobbied by the larger manufacturers. As reported by the Daily Star on
June 8, 2005, the Chairman of the
Otsego County Democratic Committee and the Democratic Election Commissioner expressed interest in the DREs, and he walked away from the machines with a favorable attitude towards them. Later, on
September 29, 2005 a manager of Sequoia made mention to the fact that New York "has seen far more interest in its DRE." In that same story , the Otsego County Republican elections commissioner expressed her support of the DREs. Even as late as
October 6, 2005, the Otsego County Democratic Deputy Election Commissioner said that "she thinks DREs are likely to be selected."
You would think that with these ringing endorsements, that the choice was already a done deal. But with the work of members of the Coalition for Democracy of New York State, New York League of Women Voters and others, it seems that the Otsego County Democratic Committee is now putting pressure on the Democratic commissioner to re-evaluate this decision. In this story in the Daily Star from November 26, 2005, Nicols said that "he wrote to the state BOE on Monday at the urging of the county's Democratic Committee, which worries that counties may have no choice but to buy the computerized voting machines that some think are unreliable." In addition to asking the state legislature to ensure that "counties have the ability to buy optical scanners next year", Hank Nicols also said that "the committee also wants to ensure that decisions about voting equipment are arrived at in public forums and that private corporations do not take over functions that are now public."
This is a stunning reversal from earlier this year, when the DREs seemed to be a slam dunk at the county level. The county Democratic Committees must successfully block these attempts to implement unstable, insecure and unreliable voting machines when at all possible. I am hoping that this will expand to the Delaware County Democratic Committee, and I am interested in any other success stories with regards to voting machines.