October 26, 2007

New York State Board of Elections

40 Steuben Street

Albany, New York 12207

RE: Please adopt a policy allowing waiver of the fee for certification testing when our State is offered free, open-source software for voting systems!

Dear Co-Executive Directors, Co-Chairs, and Commissioners:

I urge you to adopt a policy that allows waiver of the fee for certification testing for voting systems in those cases in which our state is offered free, open-source software that runs on Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) hardware.

Such a policy would benefit our state, and set a model of fiscal responsibility and common sense for our whole country.

Such a policy would enable you to give our counties an important choice -- to select less-expensive voting systems which are 100% open-source, so that any citizen can examine the software, and competitive bidding can be done for maintenance and service of such systems.

Systems with 100% publicly-available open-source software often have higher quality than systems with secret software. But, citizen groups are currently unable to offer their work to our state due to the high cost of certification testing. This policy would enable you to level the playing field and let these citizens participate in our efforts to find new voting systems that meet federal requirements.

Sincerely yours,

Sign Name:

Print Name:

Print Street Address, City State Zip: