Voters’ rights groups said the Senate’s bill on implementing the Help America Vote Act contains provisions on voter identification that would violate Constitutional protections of the right to vote.
Good government groups from across the state have joined together to form the New York State Citizens’ Coalition on HAVA Implementation. The diverse coalition includes good government groups advocating for voting rights, racial justice, disability rights, and language rights organizations and academics.
“The Senate would have us disregard the voting rights act mandate that no one ‘deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting,’” said Christian Smith-Socaris of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Smith-Socaris also said, “Their [the Senate’s] interpretation would deny the right to vote based on the outcome of administrative procedures that we know is fraught with errors.”
The bill proposed by the New York State Senate includes provisions that would reject voter registration applications that do not provide driver’s license numbers or partial social security numbers. The provisions also prevent eligible voters from registering to vote if their identification numbers do not match the records in the state’s databases.
“Unfortunately the New York State Senate is attempting to legislate disenfranchisement. Their HAVA proposal creates barriers to voters fulfilling their right to vote and they are legislating that human error, that clerical error, can be a reason for disenfranchisement. We cannot allow this to happen,” said Doug Israel, advocacy director of Citizens Union.
New York Public Interest Research Group Higher Education Coordinator Miriam Kramer said, “We urge the Senate to agree with the Assembly language that eligible voters shouldn’t be disenfranchised due to screw-ups that happen elsewhere.”
Another important decision is the type of machine that will be used to comply with HAVA regulations. Earlier last week, Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D,I,WF-Ossining, introduced bill A.6503 into the Assembly. Galef, who started a “scan and be sure” campaign earlier this year, is pushing for the implementation of paper ballot only technology, which includes optical scanners and accessible ballot marking devices.
Lever machines are not an option according to the HAVA requirements and the Assemblywoman contends that Direct Recording Electronic machines have been plagued with problems. She also cites the savings in cost involved with the purchase of optical scanners over DREs. The cost savings are estimated at $3 million for Westchester County and for Putnam County there would be a saving of $1 million if New York purchased optical scanners.
“The paper ballot, precinct-based optical scanner and ballot-making device system is the optimum voting system for all New Yorkers, including those with special needs,” Galef said.
“Touch screen voting machines [DREs] are an unproven and extremely expensive technology, and many questions have been raised about their accuracy and reliability. Paper ballots and optical scanners are reliable, recountable, cost effective and have been used successfully in elections for 20 years. ... They will save New York State over $50 million in purchase costs, will be much less expensive to maintain, and will last three times as long as any DRE,” said Bo Lipari, director for New Yorkers for Verified Voting.