Originally Published: June 21, 2013
New Election Night Closing Procedures Will Mean Faster and More Transparent Vote Counting
Return of Lever Machines Disappointing in Spite of This Progress
Though veiled by the defeat of comprehensive campaign finance reform, there was small positive movement for election reform this session.
The legislature yesterday passed unanimously in both houses A.109-C (Kavanagh)/ S.3536-C (Golden) that will enable the City Board of Elections and other boards of elections throughout the state to streamline their canvassing procedures so that unofficial election results can be tallied more quickly and accurately. The bill also requires that county boards of election post on their website unofficial results on election night as results are tallied. Citizens Union has long supported reforming closing procedures at the Board, and did extensive lobbying to ensure the bill’s passage. We commend and congratulate Assemblymember Kavanagh and Senator Golden for their tireless work in developing and championing this legislation, and the State and City Boards of Election who provided technical assistance on the bill language.
Citizens Union’s work on this proposal began in 2012 after the Daily News in a series of editorials highlighted the inefficient and unnecessary “cut and add” process that has been utilized to count unofficial results after the close of the polls. We urged the City Board to administratively change the manner in which it reported election results. Our position was bolstered when the State Board indicated that the City Board could simply extract election results from a portable memory device in the optical scanner machines that record votes rather than utilizing the manual canvass procedures that rely on poll workers cutting and sorting the results tape from the scanners, adding the results by race and recording the outcomes on return of canvass paper forms. Citizens Union also provided its own legal analysis to the City Board that along with other legal opinions paved the way for this change. The bill passing the legislature will codify this change while making additional reforms that enable the City Board to streamline the process further.
While pleased with the legislature’s action to modernize the closing procedures of county boards of election, Citizens Union believes our election process has simultaneously taken a step backward by passing legislation to bring back the lever machines for the primary and runoff elections in New York City. Citizens Union believes it is incumbent on the City Board and the legislature to make the necessary adjustments so that these elections can be conducted with the new optical scan machines rather than resort to outdated technology that brings its own challenges to election administration. We urge the Governor to veto this bill so the City Board can instead follow procedures provided by the State Board that will expedite ballot testing and ease burdens associated with using the optical scan machines. While the lever machines are a flawed solution to the time constraints created by the runoff election, we appreciate the legislature narrowing the scope of the bill in response to our recommended amendments. Because of changes to the bill, lever machines will only be used this year for two elections but not the general election. The City Board will also be required to largely follow the procedures when the optical scanners were last used.