NEW YORK—New York City started Tuesday with a complicated and outdated “cut and add” vote tallying system. By the close of the business day, the New York City Board of Elections unanimously voted in favor of using portable memory device (PMD) sticks to tabulate votes, which will take effect in time for the September primary.
The old tallying system was slammed by voter reform advocates in an open letter to the Board of Elections. The advocates asked for 21st century technology in tabulating their votes.
“We are relieved to see the New York City Board of Elections finally begin to take advantage of 21st century technology to ensure fair and accurate elections. There’s no reason our election process should resemble a third grade arts and crafts project,” Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.
New York was one of the last states to upgrade its system to electronic scanners, as required by a federal mandate following the “hanging chad” incident in the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush. New York City uses the electronic machines, however, instead of collecting the data in PMD like everywhere else in the state; poll workers would print and cut electronic tape and manually add the votes.
According to Valerie Vazquez, director of communications at the Board of Elections, poll workers will now hand over the bags with PMDs to NYPD officers who will take them back to their precincts. Once at the precinct, a bipartisan reporting team will load the data from the PMD onto a laptop and share it with officials. That information will then be shared with The Associated Press to distribute to the masses.
“It’s an important first step toward bringing New York City elections into the 21st century and restoring voters’ trust in the system,” Art Chang, chair of the Voter Assistance Advisory Committee said by email Tuesday.
Alex Camarda of Citizens Union echoed the sentiment: “What the resolution today addressed was just the reporting of the results to the press. That is different than the tallying of the results. The tallying of the results will still be done in a very arcane, labor intensive manner that basically involves scissors and pens rather than uploading computerized data.”
Camarda hopes to see further reform before the next election.
The inaccuracy of the current system was evident recently during the June 26 primary in the 13th Congressional District, when unofficial results were misreported on election night. Rep. Charles Rangel was reported to have defeated his opponent, State Sen. Adriano Espaillat by 20 percent, leading Espaillat to concede.
During the days that followed, the margin of victory narrowed by around half. Espaillat demanded a recount, eventually taking his battle to court. Rangel was declared the official winner last week, weeks after his election night victory speech.
“The new method approved today via resolution of the board should put the board in a position to more quickly, [and] more accurately report the results, if they implement the policy well,” Camarda said. “The success still depends on the effectiveness of the implementation.”
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