THE ASSEMBLY STATE OF NEW YORK ALBANY

JEFFREY DINOWITZ Assemblyman 81st District Bronx County

CHAIRMAN Committee on Consumer Affairs & Protection COMMITTEES Election Law Health Judiciary MEMBER Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force

November 13, 2012 Maria R. Guastella, President Board of Elections in the City of New York 32 Broadway New York, New York 10004 Dear Ms. Guastella: If it wasnt obvious before November 6th, it should be clear now that New York Citys voting machines are an unmitigated disaster. I write not to attack the Board of Elections, but rather to express my outrage and urge you to take action. I have always believed that we should have continued using the old lever machines. The Federal Governments ridiculous overreaction to the debacle of the 2000 Presidential election led to us being told that our only two choices for voting machines were optical-scanner voting machines and the even less desirable atm-like DRG machines. The problems with our current machines and ballots were obvious from the beginning. Lets review just a few of them. The voting process itself necessitated by these optical scanner machines is absurd. Previously, a voter would go to their voting table, state their name, sign the book, receive a card, go to their nearby voting booth, give the poll worker their card, go into the voting booth, pull the curtains closed and pull the levers for each of their candidates. Now voters go to their table, state their name, sign the book, receive a card, receive a ballot, (after the inspector tears the ballot off of a pad and puts it into a file folder), go to the so- called privacy booths (usually not near their table), fill in each of the bubbles (if there is still a pen in the booth) for their candidates (which takes longer than pulling a lever), go to a scanner which also may not be nearby, hand the card to a poll worker and finally place the ballot into the scanner- which may or may not jam. Based upon the experience of the last three years it is clear that the scanners are much, much more likely to break down and require a technician to be brought in than the old voting machines. I visited a number of my polls on November 6th and there was not one polling place that did not experience scanner breakdowns. In one poll, PS 81, there were long periods where four of the five scanners plus the bmd machine were not working.

You are already aware of the problems with the ballots themselves. The names of the candidates are too small and are not bold. The scanners are not capable of accepting wider paper ballots. The paper ballots, a throwback to the 19th century, are confusing and difficult to read. What were you thinking? In addition, I assume that you are aware of what occurred in the June congressional primary when the results for my congressman and his opponent were reversed in many cases because of a mistake in some ballots, a mistake which the scanners were not capable of picking up on since the scanners read bubbles not names. There were many reasons why we had major problems at so many of our polling places on November 6th, including the impact of the hurricane. While the numbers arent in yet, because under this new high-tech, ultra-modern system it takes weeks as opposed to hours to get results, I am guessing that the turnout this year was less than 2008 and therefore was not the main cause for chaos at the polls. Most of our polls were severely understaffed. That combined with broken down scanners and the longer voting process for voters to vote, led to huge traffic jams. I dont think its necessary to again discuss the process of getting the results and closing the poll, sufficed to say that poll workers have to stay very late at most polls. In fact, the workers at one of my polls finished at 2:45 in the morning. I dont believe that ever happened with the old machines. These machines are a disaster. I suggest that you ask for a full refund. Clearly you bought a lemon. You need to fix this problem. I know these machines are expensive, but as we have seen in the past several years, this city is used to boondoggles costing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. This is another such boondoggle, perhaps even a scandal. Our voters should be able to go to the polls and not spend hours waiting to vote. The greatest city in the greatest country should be able to conduct a fair and smooth election in the 21st century. Scrap these machines! Sincerely,

Jeffrey Dinowitz Member of Assembly

ALBANY OFFICE: Room 941, Legislative Office Building, Albany, New York 12248 518-455-5965, FAX 518-455-4437 DISTRICT OFFICE: 3107 Kingsbridge Avenue, Bronx, New York 10463 718-796-5345, FAX 718-796-0694 dinowitzj@assembly.state.ny.us