State Litigation: The Only Hope for Preserving the Integrity of NY’s Elections — Your Help is Needed
New York State is the only state in the U.S. that conducts elections in a transparent and verifiable manner. All other states have moved to electronic vote-counting systems that make it impossible for election officials, official observers, candidates, or the public to determine whether the announced vote totals accurately represent the votes cast. These secret vote-counting systems violate the principles of a constitutional democracy as represented in two centuries of statutory law and judicial precedence interpreting New York’s Constitution.
Yet electronic voting systems are slated to be fully operational in New York by 2010.
The Election Transparency Coalition (ETC) hopes to obtain the first ruling from an American court declaring that a method of voting in which essential steps are not publicly observable is unconstitutional. ETC, a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and organizing New Yorkers to retain and where necessary restore public oversight and control over our elections, has prepared a lawsuit. We are prepared to file as soon as the necessary legal support is obtained. Pro-bono legal assistance is urgently needed. Financial assistance to help with court costs, and volunteers for media work and advocacy related to the court case are vital as well.
Attorneys: If you are a NY attorney whose firm takes on impact cases and are interested in playing an active role in protecting our democracy, please contact us.
Local government: If your county or town or county board of election is interested in participating in the litigation, please contact us.
Everyone: You can help us gather the resources to mount this crucial constitutional case: Click here to donate. (Use donation link in right sidebar.) To volunteer, contact us. Volunteers need not be in the state of NY.
For more information on the constitutional basis for this lawsuit, watch this short video featuring ETC co-founder counsel Andrea Novick, New York State Election Commissioner Douglas Kellner and author Mark Crispin Miller.
Andrea Novick’s extensive legal research has unearthed a wealth of Court of Appeals precedence for the essential principles of a democratic electoral system including:
- the need for public observability/transparency at all stages of the electoral process, while each step is being taken and not just after the fact;
- the responsibility of the legislature to protect the integrity of the elections by enacting rules designed to eliminate all known opportunities for fraud;
- the requirement that an accurate, verified, completed count be ascertained on election night, while the public surveillance provided at the poll site is continuous;
- the requirement that publicly observed physical evidence of the count be created and preserved, which evidence takes precedence over any evidence created outside of public view;
- forbidding the government from having exclusive control over any essential step of the electoral process;
- the requirement that the evidence of the count be preserved inviolate for judicial review and as still another safeguard against fraud.
Each and every one of these mandates, as well as other constitutional requirements, is violated by ERMA. ERMA is unconstitutional.
