FEBRUARY 23, 2006

Whereas, the issues that concern the American people are addressed by the officials whom we vote into office, and we rely on these officials to work for the common good and the welfare of the people. Public confidence in our elections and our government requires open, observed, and easily-verified elections. For these reasons it is essential that our voting system be honest and not appear to be corrupt and not conceal vote handling by conducting it within a computer.

New York City must soon comply with our state law by replacing our lever voting machines with either precinct-based optical scan voting systems or Direct Recording Electronic touchscreen or pushbutton voting systems.

Throughout the United States electronic voting systems have caused election irregularities, especially those where votes have been lost altogether or switched on the electronic screen, but optical scan voting systems have been successfully used in elections nationwide for over 20 years.

Optical scanners have been successfully programmed, operated and maintained by public employees in agencies such as our county Boards of Elections, the New York State Division of the Lottery, New York State Education Department, and New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Optical scanners can be handled by our Boards of Elections and would not require us to use outside computer technicians.

Paper ballots provide a permanent record of each voter's intent, and these ballots can be easily secured, maintained and recounted, both by hand and by optical scanners.

Optical scan voting systems are widely recognized as the most reliable, user-friendly, cost-effective and easily verifiable of our two choices of voting technology, and they offer the greatest accessibility to voters with disabilities, and to our voters with the many different minority languages spoken in our city and state.

Therefore, the Warbasse Social Action Group (A JPAC Unit) resolves to inform the Board of Elections in the City of New York of our support for voting systems that consist of paper ballots, precinct-based optical scanners, and accessible ballot-marking devices, to be programmed and maintained only by bipartisan public employees.