Assemblyman Dinowitz Calls On Board of Elections to Rethink Voting Process in Light of Election Day Poll Site Chaos

  

    Assemblyman Dinowitz called on the NYC Board of Elections to reconsider the voting process in light of the chaos that took place at hundreds of poll sites throughout the five boroughs on Election Day last Tuesday.  In a letter to the ten commissioners he outlined his frustrations with the long lines of voters and constant breaking down of the ballot scanners. While some difficulty existed due to the region still recovering in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Mr. Dinowitz pointed most of the blame towards the optical scanning machines.  The Assemblyman explained that the current process is too disorderly and confusing and that he is an advocate of the old lever machines that were replaced back in 2010.

“I have always believed that we should have continued using the old lever machines. The Federal Government’s 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,” Assemblyman Dinowitz stated in his letter.

Mr. Dinowitz continued by declaring his frustrations with the ballots themselves specifically mentioning that the names of the candidates are not large enough and need to be bold.

Because of the constant breakdown of the machines which requires voters to wait in lines for hours to cast their ballot, and for the fact that it takes hours and in some cases even weeks to certify the results of an election, Assemblyman Dinowitz has called for the Board of Elections to do whatever it can to resolve this problem. 

“If it wasn’t obvious before November 6^th, it should be clear now that New York City’s voting machines are unmitigated disaster.  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 21^st century. Scrap these machines!,” remarked Assemblyman. Dinowitz.

EDITOR COMMENT

The number of ballot scanning machines per poll site also needs to be looked into. More scanners are needed at many sites compared to the number of election districts at said poll sites that each had a voting machine in the past.