Voting Systems Approval Process

At this year's LWVNYS convention, the majority of delegates representing 39 local leagues voted to adopt the following new position statement:

The League of Women Voters of New York State believes that a more transparent and open voting systems approval process would improve voter understanding of, and confidence in, our elections. 

We support greater transparency, and public input in the approval process, including increased demonstrations open to the public, followed by a comment period.

Public demonstrations should be scheduled to provide public input earlier in the certification process. 

What is the Voting Systems Approval Process?

The League believes that our voting systems (i.e., “voting machines”) should be secure, accurate, recountable, accessible, and transparent. We also believe that our current voting systems can be improved to be more effective in these areas.

From its research, the League determined there is a need for greater and more timely public input before voting systems were certified; that the NYS Board of Elections’ testing reports available to the public on its website were not that easy to understand; and that the reports on other state websites were better organized and more transparent than New York’s. And while public testing of voting systems is already required under current state law, and the BOE tries to perform testing in multiple public demonstrations in different places to get feedback, only one public demonstration is currently mandated.  

Why Does LWVNYS Support Nonpartisan PrimariesVoting Systems Approval Process?

We believe that increasing the number of demonstrations that are open to the public, including comment periods, and scheduling the public demonstrations earlier in the certification process would make New York’s voting system more transparent and increase voters’ understanding and confidence in our elections.