Keep hybrid voting machines out of New York. They can print on your ballot after you cast it, changing your vote.
The NYS Senate is taking immediate action on our two key voting rights bills. The Senate Elections Committee meets Monday, 4/25/22. (You can watch here at 1pm: https://www.nysenate.gov/calendar/meetings/elections/april-25-2022/elections-meeting.) On the agenda are our updated S309B, to ban hybrid voting machines, and S286A, to increase election transparency by making ballot images public documents.
S309B is going to be referred to the Finance Committee. The voting machine vendors have hired a top NYS lobbying firm to oppose it. Now more than ever, we need your help to ensure the bill passes.
PLEASE CALL Finance Committee Chair Liz Krueger's office today, (212) 490-9535 or (518) 455-2297. Let her know you support S309B, and that it will save counties a LOT of money. The hybrid machines that S309B will ban are more than twice as expensive as stand-alone voting machines (scanners or ballot-marking devices - BMDs). Additionally, counties will have to buy MORE of the hybrids, since everyone has to use the machines to mark their ballots. This will increase county costs exponentially. There are also many hidden costs. The University of Pittsburgh's "Pitt Cyber" Institute analysis showed that counties deploying universal-use ballot-marking devices paid $23.50 per voter for their elections, while those letting voters mark their ballots with pens (or stand-alone BMD's) paid only $11.01.
An OSET Institute study concluded that Georgia's ten-year cost for buying universal-use hybrid BMD's was nearly double what it would have been for hand-marked paper ballots with standalone scanners and BMDs - without considering storage, transportation and labor costs. https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/22jun21_perez_bmd-cost-estimates.pdf
They noted that BMD's are more complex and expensive to store, transport, manage and configure than HMPB solutions - not to mention the potential consequences of inadequate funds available for cybersecurity, and the social costs of loss of public confidence when things go awry or disinformation spreads due to lack of transparency. Election officials at a Free-Speech-for-People panel on BMDs underlined the need to obtain not only more machines, but larger rooms and electrical upgrades for polling places.
PLEASE TAKE TWO MINUTES to fill in your address and sign this letter to your Senator and Assembly Member prepared by our ally Common Cause. https://act.commoncause.org/letters/tell-your-assemblymember-prioritize-the-right-to-vote-government-ethics. Then please forward the link to friends, relatives and contacts in the Bronx, Queens, Long Island, and all NYS counties north of Westchester.
https://act.commoncause.org/letters/tell-your-assemblymember-prioritize-the-right-to-vote-government-ethics
ALL HANDS ON DECK! IT'S NOW OR NEVER TO KEEP NEW YORKERS' RIGHT TO VOTE ON HAND-MARKED PAPER BALLOTS!