Bipartisan Support for Bill to Improve Voting Machine Security and Reliability; New York Keeps HAVA Money

Twenty-one out of New York’s 29 Representatives are cosponsoring Congressman Rush Holt’s bill that would establish minimum security requirements for voting systems and minimum procedural requirements for the administration of elections. Most significantly, the bill would mandatevoter-verifiable paper ballots and spells out detailed guidelines for conducting post-election audits. More details in this Press & Sun-Bulletin editorial.

Here’s the list of New York cosponsors:

Gary Ackerman (NY-5)	Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Timothy Bishop (NY-1)	Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4)
Joseph Crowley (NY-7)	Michael McNulty (NY-21)
Eliot Engel (NY-17)	Jerrold Nadler (NY-8)
Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20)	Charles Rangel (NY-15)
John Hall (NY-19)	Jose Serrano (NY-16)
Brian Higgins (NY-27)	Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)	Edolphus Towns (NY-10)
Steve Israel (NY-2)	Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
Randy Kuhl (NY-29)	Anthony Weiner (NY-9)
Nita Lowey (NY-18)

If you happen to live in the district of Peter King (NY-3), Gregory Meeks (NY-6), Yvette Clark (NY-11), Vito Fossella (NY-13), John McHugh (NY-23), James Walsh (NY-25), Michael Arcuri (NY-24), or Thomas Reynolds (NY-26), let them know you expect them to support this important piece of legislation!

In other voting news, the Democrat and Chronicle reported yesterday that New York will keep the almost $50 million that was slated to be put toward replacing lever machines with an electronic voting system. The deadline for spending the money was supposed to be last year’s September primary, but a provision inserted in last week’s Iraq supplemental pushed back this date to September 2008.