For Immediate Release

Citizens Group Provides Alternative Voice
at NYS Board of Elections Annual Meeting

NYVV to hold Press Conference

Tuesday, May 3,11:00 AM at the Wyndham Hotel in Syracuse, NY.

New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), a grassroots citizens group advocating for a commonsense solution to replace New York’s lever voting machines, is holding a press conference at the New York State Board of Elections annual meeting in the Wyndham Hotel in East Syracuse, NY.

The group will be releasing preliminary results from a survey conducted of states currently using optical scan systems. In April, NYVV released an analysis showing that purchasing optical scanners could save New York over 116 million dollars compared to the purchase cost of touchscreen/pushbutton style voting machines.

The group is also questioning the decision to have Doug Lewis of the Election Center, a known advocate of touch screen voting, as an invited speaker without allowing an alternative viewpoint to be presented.

Touch screen/pushbutton style voting machines have been found to be error prone, impossible to recount, and extraordinarily expensive.  Optical scan systems have been used successfully in elections around the United States for over 20 years.  Currently used in nearly 30% of all the precincts in the US, the states of Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Rhode Island and West Virginia have decided to use optical scanners to comply with the Help America Vote Act which mandates new voting machines for New York. 

· “A new era of computerized voting presents many dangers and challenges to citizens in a democracy” said Bo Lipari, Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting.  “Vendors are pushing flawed touch-screen voting equipment on New York. But a reliable, auditiable, accessible and cost effective system based on hand marked paper ballots and precinct-based optical scanners would be the far better choice for our state.” said Lipari.

·  “Doug Lewis, featured speaker at the New York State Board of Elections annual conference, 
in his speeches and writings encourages blind trust in the voting machine industry, and defends costly touch screen voting systems.” said William Sell, of Alliance for Democracy. “His Election Center organization has taken large donations from manufacturers of electronic voting machines. Why is someone who sees no conflict of interest in accepting donations from manufacturers a featured speaker at this event?”

· The New York Times in an editorial said, “Albany should ignore lobbyists for high-priced voting machines and come out strongly for optical-scan machines”. 

For detailed information on Paper Ballot/Optical Scan voting systems please visit: www.nyvv.org

Date and Location:
Tuesday, 5/3/05, 11:00 AM
Wyndham Hotel, 6301 Rt 298 East, East Syracuse, New York

Contact:
Bo Lipari : bolipari@nyvv.org