JUDGE THOMAS NOLAN
JUDGE NOLAN'S CHARTER RULING WILL BE APPEALED!!
Taken from Bob Turners Readers View:
On Feb. 6, State
Supreme Court Justice Thomas Nolan ruled against Gordon Boyd in his request for
access to ballot records from the Nov. 7, 2017 city charter referendum. The
margin between no and yes was 10 votes.
A recount of the charter referendum would have allowed
the voters and citizens of Saratoga Springs to validate the results. I believed
the judge erred in important ways that raise larger questions about the
integrity of our elections.
In many states, there are automatic recount provisions
when there is a close election, usually .5 percent of all ballots cast (the
charter proposition lost by less than .1 percent). To get a recount,
technically called a recanvassing in New York, voters must ask a judge to order
the Board of Elections to do a recount based on evidence of voting machine
malfunction or irregularity. However, in order to show a malfunction or
irregularity, you need copies of the ballots, which can only be provided by the
Board of Elections.
It’s a Catch-22. In order to get a recount, we need to
show the Board of Elections has made a mistake, and the only way to do that is
to have the Board of Elections provide the TIF files of those ballots, which
they have declined to do. When Judge Nolan’s decision stated that the
“petitioner presents no facts to support or justify his request,” it is because
the Board of Elections Commissioners would not show us copies of the ballots.
New York uses the
Dominion Voting Systems ImageCast Precinct voting machines. In their marketing
materials, Dominion says their machines provide a “fully auditable single cast
vote record for every ballot cast” in order to “increase the transparency of
the voting process and augment stakeholder confidence.” In other words, our
machines take a picture of very vote and the Board of Elections can easily
provide a photo, technically known as a TIF file, of every paper ballot. In the
New York counties comprising a majority of the state’s voters, TIF files are
public property and are available to the public. This allows voters to easily
see whether the ballots match the vote totals and ensure voter confidence in the process. However, the
Saratoga County Board of Elections has decided not to provide these to the
public, nor have they provided any explanation as to why.
The County Board of Elections says that they conducted
their traditional post election audit of 6 election districts in Saratoga
County and “found no discrepancies between the totals reported on the machines
and the paper ballots cast in those districts.” However, Judge Nolan notes in
footnote #3, that “None of the six was in the City of Saratoga Springs.” We
have a 10 vote margin and the County Board of Elections did not recheck the
vote totals for a single machine in Saratoga Springs.
New York State made the wise decision in 2010 to keep
their paper ballots instead of going to electronic voting. It ensures public
confidence in election outcomes by allowing us to count the ballots. To quote
Ronald Reagan, trust but verify. This is why I have filed a FOIL request with
Therese Connolly, Deputy Clerk of the Board for copies of the TIF files. The
TIF files of our ballots are public property. They should be a matter of public
record. The charter referendum may win or lose, but transparency should always
win.
LOOK FOR MORE TO COME
