Voting rights advocates identify additional problems with the

New York State Board of Elections plan to implement the Help America Vote Act

The New York State Board of Elections (NYS BOE) has once again come under fire by advocates as the process continues for implementing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).  “The New York State Board of Elections clearly underestimated the importance of this issue in our community,” said Bruce Darling, Executive Director of the Center for Disability Rights which hosted the day of testing.  “Even though they were warned that 1,000 people could walk through our doors today, they only planned for 100.”  Mr. Darling represents the New York State Independent Living Council on the State Board of Elections Citizens Advisory Committee on HAVA.

The NYS BOE indicated that they expected far fewer people based on their previous experience with testing sites, citing low turnout at a testing event in Albany.  Christine Zachmeyer, Chair of the Election Reform Committee of the New York Association on Independent Living, explained that turnout was lower at that event because it was not held in an easily reachable location. 

“When you plan events that encourage participation, people actually do participate,” said Ms. Zachmeyer.  “The location they selected was perfect.  The Center for Disability Rights is located in an urban neighborhood, is on several major bus routes, is known to the disability community, and is extremely accessible for people with disabilities.  Of course people came out in droves!”

Disability rights advocates across the state have argued that the potential for participation of people with disabilities and people with lower incomes has been consistently underestimated by the NYS BOE and local Boards of Elections.  When asked to estimate the number of voters with disabilities in their counties, many local boards estimated extremely low numbers.  “Frankly it was obscene,” said Zachmeyer.  “As I recall 17 counties estimated less than 10 voters with disabilities and some estimated that there would be none!”

Even though access to voting and the selection of new voting machines is a definitely a public issue, the New York State Board of Elections also refused to allow the media to film the testing, citing confidentiality of the participants.  “That’s ridiculous,” said Darling, “this should be a public process open to scrutiny.”  Although Darling represents the New York State Independent Living Council on the NYS BOE HAVA Citizens Advisory Committee, the State Council needed to sue the Board of Elections to secure an appointment of its representative as required by law.  Darling added, “This is just another example of how those who are most effected by the process of selecting new voting machines have been excluded from the process.  Perhaps the Board will learn from this experience how they can truly involve local voters as partners in implementing HAVA.”