Election Information Gathering Task Force: public input session Wednesday, July 8 7 p.m.

Election Information Gathering Task Force: public input session Wednesday, July 8 7 p.m.

From Westchester County Legislators.

Let them know what your experience was with the recent primary.

In Georgia, primary election chaos highlights a voting system deeply flawed

Watch this show!

Remember when we were watching the coronoavirus way over there in China, wondering if we should be concerned? PBS Newshour covered what just happened in Georgia. If you are wondering if that could happen here, the answer is yes. Unless NYC and NYS ban these voting machines, we’ll be standing on line to vote on them as soon as this November, The Westchester Board of Elections is pressuring Westchester to buy these Dominion machines used in Georgia, and the NYS Board of Elections is moving towards certifying an even more troubleprone and hackable ESS BMD (Ballot Marking Device).that the NYC Board of Electios is eager to buy.

New York Primary Plagued By Voting Issues, Including Long Lines, Broken Machines And Absentee Ballot Mix-Ups

Many New Yorkers say voting in the primary Tuesday was a nightmare.

Some people never got their absentee ballots, and others were waiting in line for hours.
The line to vote at Bronx Regional High School snaked around the block for most of the day Tuesday.

Georgia Mail-In Ballot Issues May Have Left Thousands of Votes Uncounted: Election Officials

“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?"

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?

Information about voting for the June 23 primaries

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.