“The detection of this major problem was only because of diligent citizen oversight. The officials charged with the duty to fully test the equipment recklessly failed to responsibly do so, or to audit it,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which is demanding in court that the state scrap the ballot-marking devices.”
Westchester Election 2020: We might not know who wins June 23 primaries for weeks
When are the primary elections?
Primary elections are June 23, but party members can vote early and, because of the coronavirus outbreak, may also vote by mail by requesting, then mailing in, an absentee ballot.
Early in-person voting will take place at designated locations from June 13 until 21.
Polls on June 23 will be open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m.
How do I vote by mail?
‘I Refuse Not to Be Heard’: Georgia in Uproar Over Voting Meltdown. Is Westchester next?
‘New York Times: I Refuse Not to Be Heard’: Georgia in Uproar Over Voting Meltdown
"ATLANTA — Georgia’s statewide primary elections on Tuesday were overwhelmed by a full-scale meltdown of new voting systems put in place after widespread claims of voter suppression during the state’s 2018 governor’s election.
Scores of new state-ordered voting machines were reported to be missing or malfunctioning, and hourslong lines materialized at polling places across Georgia.
...In Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward — the neighborhood where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. grew up — Marneia Mitchell arrived at her polling place five minutes before polls were to open at 7 a.m. She thought it was early enough to vote fast, avoid trouble and get on with her day…..Three hours later, she was still waiting in line, having moved about 60 feet from where she had started. At first voters were told that the machines were not functioning, and then that poll workers did not have the passwords necessary to operate them....Ms. Russell, who wore a mask, said that she had bronchitis and asthma, and that she rarely left the house even when there was no pandemic. She said she had requested an absentee ballot but never received one. “I refuse not to be heard and so I am standing in line,” she said.
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Westchester County closing pollsites
Westchester County Board of Elections will be heavily reducing the number of polling places available for early voting. In primaries in WI, MD, DC and now Georgia, huge failures were magnified as a result of closed pollsites. Westchester County Board of Elections is calling pollworkers who have already been trained and telling them they are no longer needed because there will be only a small fraction of the pollsites that were open in November. I am trying to get official confirmation of this information. I could not locate information about pollsites on the Westchester County Board of Elections webpage. I searched for addresses I know and got this result:
https://citizenparticipation.westchestergov.com/find-polling-place
Find a Polling Place
No records with that criteria found
Let your Westcheter County legislators and Board of Elections know that you want to be able to vote securely and safely, with no new hackable voting machines, and without long lines.
Election Day 2020 could yield a catastrophic mess
"A big problem in both places: Optimism about voting by mail encouraged election officials to slash the number of polling places and voting centers — in Washington from the normal 143 to a mere 20. In Baltimore, a city with 296 precincts, there were only six Election Day voting sites….One more thing: Mail voting means that ..it can take a long time to get to a final result. ..This means votes are still flowing in a week or more after the election. Americans need to be prepared for the possibility that because of mail voting, we may not know the winner until well after election night. Forewarning is the vaccine against the virus of Trump’s voter fraud claims….
"In Montgomery County, Md., where I live, our generally well-run government reported that less than a third of the vote had been counted three days after the election. If the presidential election is close, we could be waiting for days to know how, say, Arizona and Wisconsin voted — and thus to know the electoral college winner. What wild things might Trump say during that interlude?"
Senate Intelligence report triggers new calls for action on election security
20 Ways Vote by Mail Could Revolutionize Our Democracy & Save Our Nation - if Election Protection Activists Make It Happen
"Mundane stuff like warehousing, security, registration checking, tabling, ballot collection, counting, and other details could decide the fate of the Earth... Just weeks ago, few could see how thoroughly COVID-19 would demand the birth of a nationwide Vote by Mail system….But its effective implementation and protection — state by state, county by county — will depend on an unprecedented national grassroots movement dedicated to a fair outcome for the 2020 election. That movement has just five months to produce a system, mostly based on Vote by Mail, that will reasonably reflect the will of the People.”
Trump Sows Doubt on Voting. It Keeps Some People Up at Night.
What are the most likely threats in New York?
Trump privatizes the USPS, killing voting by mail?
Corruption of voter databases?
Machine breakdown or fraud leading to wrong winners, especially those locations using the Dominion ICE or (heaven save us!) the ESS Expressvote XL if the New York State Board of Elections goes ahead and certifies it?
Chaos from any number of things-lack of poll sites, lack of poll workers, selective hacking of other infrastructure (electric grid, eg)? Is New York prepared?
Russia is interfering in our elections again. And Trump supporters are emulating Russian tactics.
Information about voting for the June 23 primaries
PRESIDENTIAL, CONGRESSIONAL, STATE & LOCAL PRIMARIES - JUNE 23
Voting in Person
Early voting for the June 23 primary elections will take place from Saturday, June 13 through Sunday, June 21, throughout the county. (Polling sites to be determined.)
Primary Election Day - June 23, 2020, polling sites will be open throughout the county for in-person voting from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Polling sites to be determined.)
If you wish to vote by absentee ballot here is what you need to know:
Our Challenge; Our Answer: Election 2020
Connecticut’s Deputy Secretary of the State writes in an Op Ed. "This year, there are forces both foreign and domestic that are placing unprecedented stress and strain on our system of elections….The forces arrayed against us are formidable. The challenge to our democracy is real.….The Connecticut National Guard, at the direction of the Secretary of the State, will perform a high-level assessment of the cybersecurity posture of each town as it relates to their election infrastructure. ….Our office has already identified approximately 20 municipalities that have chronic issues with their connections to networks necessary for the election process. ..Secretary Merrill’s plan also puts recently approved CARES Act funding to work in each of our communities by providing the support necessary to have safe polling places in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic health crisis. "
It’’s not clear what New York is doing to protect New York elections from cyber attack.. If you have any information or press releases from the NYS Board of Elections about New York’s cybersecurity preparedness or distribution of CARES funds, please share and I will send it around.
Texas mother Crystal Mason appeals five-year sentence for illegal voting
A Texas mother sentenced to five years in prison for voting illegally in the 2016 election appealed her conviction Tuesday, saying she did not know her status as a felon on release made her ineligible to cast a ballot.
Crystal Mason, an African-American mother of three, was on supervised release after serving time for tax fraud when she filled out a provisional ballot. She has said she did not know that as a convicted felon in Texas, she could not vote until the supervised release was complete.
Trump voted illegally in Florida
Washington Post recently documented, thanks to some digging by attorneys, historians and neighbors of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club, Trump signed an agreement in 1993 that turned Mar-a-Lago from a single family residence into a commercial club. It cannot be both at the same time under state law, despite Trump's recent assertion on a Palm Beach application for approval of a boat dock at his seaside club that the club was his "personal residence”.
Agencies Warn States That Internet Voting Poses Widespread Security Risks
Several U.S. government agencies told states on Friday that casting ballots over the internet poses high levels of cybersecurity risk and is vulnerable to disruption, a warning that came as some states consider expanding online voting options to cope with challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic. The unusually stark, eight-page federal risk assessment, sent to states privately, said that electronic delivery and return of ballots could be manipulated at a scale that allows for the wholesale compromise of elections, unlike the tampering of physical mail ballots, which is difficult to achieve and limited in its potential size or impact.
House Democrats include $3.6 billion for mail-in voting in new stimulus bill
House Democrats have included $3.6 billion in election funding as part of the $3 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill they rolled out on Tuesday. The funding is meant to assist states in addressing new challenges posed by holding elections during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as expanding mail-in and early in-person voting. At least 50 percent of the funds would be required to go to local governments to help administer elections, and states would have until late next year to access the funds. The House is expected to vote on the stimulus package on Friday, but the outlook for the election funds passing in the GOP-led Senate remains unclear.
Federal leaders must get behind absentee voting — or explain why they’d prefer chaos
A MONMOUTH University poll released Wednesday found that only 16 percent of voters cast ballots by mail in recent elections, yet 51 percent say it is at least somewhat likely that they will do so in November. As the covid-19 pandemic continues, more people will conclude absentee voting is the safest option. And they will be right.
But much of the country is not ready for a surge of absentee voters. Federal leaders must help immediately — or explain why they instead prefer an unsafe and chaotic November election.
States are taking precautions to keep coronavirus from disrupting fall elections
Don’t Let COVID-19 Eclipse Election Security Concerns
Lawfare: “...election officials across the country are already scrambling to ensure the presidential election in November can be held as planned. But the new difficulties of a pandemic haven’t displaced the problems that faced election officials before the coronavirus arrived. The threat posed by foreign interference in U.S. elections and the vulnerability of elections to cyberattack have not gone away. And election officials’ responses to the coronavirus may create new vulnerabilities in the digital infrastructure that underpins elections. State and local officials must ensure that even amid the ongoing pandemic, election security remains a top priority.”
BERNIE SANDERS MOVES TO ENSURE HE'S ON NEW YORK'S PRIMARY BALLOT
"‘We are very disappointed that in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, the State of New York is spending taxpayer dollars undermining voting rights," Sanders' campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a Monday statement. "At a time when Republicans are trying to make it more difficult for people to vote, Democrats should be making it easier-- not denying people the right to participate in the political process.’”
BERNIE SANDERS MOVES TO ENSURE HE'S ON NEW YORK'S PRIMARY BALLOT AFTER SHOOTING DOWN PROSPECT OF ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL BID
BY JEFFERY MARTIN ON 5/12/20 AT 12:39 AM EDT
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign filed an amicus brief with the Second Circuit Court of New York Monday seeking affirmation of the district court's decision to allowed the New York Presidential Primary to be held with all Democratic nominees on the ballot.
In April, the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBE) cancelled the primary, saying that in-person voting was a potential health threat during the coronavirus pandemic. Another factor in the NYSBE decision was that all Democratic candidates, except former Vice President Joe Biden, had exited the race.
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang challenged the decision, later filing a lawsuit against the NYSBE on the grounds that his campaign was suspended, but not fully terminated.
In his lawsuit, Yang said the "unprecedented and unwarranted" decision by the NYSBE to cancel the primary "infringes the rights of Plaintiffs and all New York State Democratic Party voters, of which there are estimated to be more than six million, as it fundamentally denies them the right to choose our next candidate for the office of President of the United States."
Sanders also declared his intention to remain on the ballots. "We would like to get as many delegates as we can," Sanders told PBS in April, "so that we can have a stronger position at the Democratic Convention to help us shape the new platform of the Democratic Party and the other issues that the DNC [Democratic National Convention] deals with."
Judge Analisa Torres ruled in Yang's favor, saying that the removal of candidates' names from the ballot violated their rights.
"The removal of presidential contenders from the primary ballot not only deprived those candidates of the chance to garner votes for the Democratic Party's nomination," Judge Torres wrote in her May ruling, "but also deprived their pledged delegates of the opportunity to run for a position where they could influence the party platform, vote on party governance issues, pressure the eventual nominee on matters of personnel or policy, and react to unexpected developments at the Convention."
Bernie Sanders' campaign filed an amicus brief with a New York Court of Appeals Monday to affirm a lower court's ruling that Sanders' name could remain on the New York Democratic Primary ballot.
The Sanders campaign filed the amicus brief on Thursday in a bid to ensure the district court's decision is upheld.
"We are very disappointed that in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, the State of New York is spending taxpayer dollars undermining voting rights," Sanders' campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a Monday statement. "At a time when Republicans are trying to make it more difficult for people to vote, Democrats should be making it easier-- not denying people the right to participate in the political process."
"The district court got it right," Shakir continued. "The State of New York acted unconstitutionally and the district court's decision should be upheld. The people of New York deserve to have their voices heard and their votes counted."
According to the Sanders campaign, even delegates who are allocated to candidates that do not win the nomination play a "central role" in the Democratic party's platform. Having Sanders delegates at the convention could lead to some more progressive policies being instituted by the party at the Democratic National Convention. This could be particularly important to Sanders, since he has indicated he will not be running for president again.
"I think the likelihood is very very slim at that," Sanders told C-SPAN Monday. "I think next time around you're going to see another candidate carrying the progressive banner. I think it's very very unlikely that I will be running for president ever again and I think right now the focus, I would say not only for progressives, not only of Democrats but Independents, moderate Republicans, has got to be how we come together to defeat this very dangerous president who is in office right now."
Newsweek reached out to the Sanders campaign for further comment. This story will be updated with any response.
New York is currently expected to hold its Democratic presidential primary on June 23. Mail-in ballots can be used by residents to avoid potentially crowded voting places.
Dems On NY Board Of Elections Appeal Decision Reinstating Presidential Primary
This is indefensible. The Board of Elections should be focussing all its attention, money and energy on getting the elections right, instead of suppressing votes. Our elections were severely threatened this year even before Covid19. (Remember the Mueller report “They (the Russians) are doing it as we sit here”?) Now the new procedures required by the pandemic, including expanded absentee voting, should command the complete attention of the NYS Board of Elections. How are we going to have safe and reliable elections this year given inadequate funding? What if Trump shuts down the USPS? How are people going to have confidence that an election was free and fair? How is democracy itself going to survive this crisis? Seeking to cancel a primary and deny voters any chance to vote is a devastating signal from the NYS Board of Elections that they don’t take the sacred right to vote seriously.
Washington Post- Federal judge orders officials to restore New York primary, drawing cheers from Sanders camp
"Removing all but one candidate from the ballot and calling off the primary means Yang and others “will be deprived of the opportunity to compete for delegate slots and shape the course of events at the convention and voters will lose the chance to express their support for delegates who share their views,” Torres said. “The loss of these First Amendment rights is a heavy hardship.”