Some key points:
"Thank you for hosting this important Joint Meeting to discuss election administration in Westchester and for organizing the Election Information Gathering Task Force to receive feedback from the community about their voting experience in recent elections. I want to recognize your leadership in that regard. The voter access policies, siting, and resourcing decisions that impact our fundamental civil rights are too often shrouded in secrecy and generally lack accountability under New York’s still-antiquated Election Law.
...the countywide access and timely public designation and publicity of the plan, WBOE was drastically out of compliance in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020.8 Because WBOE has not yet indicated it will change course, we must lay out and defend these laws here.
… it would be disingenuous in the extreme and irresponsible for us to collectively shrug at these circumstances and attribute the vast and pervasive array of administrative irregularities,lack of transparency, statutory non-compliance, training issues, and questionable resourcing that have plagued Westchester elections for as long as we can remember, and particularly those issues that preexisted the Pandemic.
...at each turn it appears some counties have no inclination or ability to abide by New York State Board of Elections reporting deadlines and that when local boards miss filing deadlines little investigatory,enforcement, or corrective action is taken, including with respect to chronic patterns of noncompliance,nor is action taken to assure the public that these violations won’t be repeated. For this reason alone, state and local lawmakers and the Attorney General should take an active role.”
Testimony of VoteEarlyNY
presented to the
Westchester Board of Legislators Joint Meeting of the
Committees on Budget & Appropriations, Law & Major Contracts and Public Works
July 13, 2020
Contact:Jarret Berg, Esq., Co-Founder, VoteEarlyNY
Jarret.berg@VoteEarlyNY.org