Dear Reader:
As you may know, New York's old mechanical lever voting machines -- the kind that hardly changed over 80 years of use -- are being replaced, beginning with the primary elections this September, by optical-scan machines. Your vote will be cast on a "bubble sheet" similar to the ones students use on standardized tests and fed into a machine.
It's a pretty significant change -- but unless the Board of Elections (BOE) makes one more minor change to the system, an estimated 18,000 New Yorkers could have their votes tossed out.
That's because of how the machines handle "overvoted" ballots -- those where the voter has selected too many candidates. In most jurisdictions across the country where the same machines are used, overvoted ballots are automatically rejected and returned to the voter, often with instructions on how to correct the ballot so the vote will not be voided. We could do this in New York, too, if the BOE would make a simple correction to the machines' settings, one that could be done in a day for no expense.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University has already filed a lawsuit on the matter, but we can also help by urging the BOE to protect New Yorkers' votes and to immediately change the machines' current settings. I hope you will join me in writing to the BOE. Below, I have included a sample letter you can use.
Let's make sure that all New Yorkers' votes will count.
Sincerely,
Daniel R. Garodnick
211 East 43rd Street, Suite 1205
New York, NY 10017
