Statement of Neal Rosenstein, Government Reform Coordinator of the New York Public Interest Research Group, on Conduct of the
2004 Presidential Elections in the City of New York.
November 3, 2004

The high turnout and intense interest in November's election has highlighted some of the ongoing problems faced by voters in New York City. While the eyes of the nation might be focused on Ohio today, we must not turn a blind eye to the recurring problems that occur here in our own back yard. Simply put, too many voters faced too many problems trying to vote yesterday. The City and Board of Elections must do better.

Our joint Election Day help line received 3,000 calls, including a steady stream of complaints about late poll site openings; broken voting machines; long lines; chaotic conditions at poll sites; voters being wrongly asked for ID's by clearly poorly trained poll workers; and bizarre poll worker improvisations, like voters being divided into lines of Republicans and Democrats. These problems must be addressed, New Yorkers deserve no less. Here' some of our suggestions:

We need new voting machines. The current machines have served NY well, but are old, unreliable and break down far too often. The decision on how to modernize the Board of Elections and what types of voting machines New York will buy should not be left solely in the hands of the Board. The city should reinstate the Elections Project, a non-partisan body of technical experts to oversee the contracting process and to ensure public participation;

Better oversight of the Board of Elections. The city should immediately include the Board of Elections in the Mayor's Management Report and require meaningful statistical evaluations of the Board. The Board also needs adequate and increased funding to do its work, but the city must also make sure that money is spent wisely;

The Board must modernize. It's an embarrassment the Board of Elections phone system and web site crashed the day before the election. And isn't it time that if a voter can make it on to the Board's web site that it should be able to tell them if they're registered, where their poll site is located and give them a look at a sample ballot for their district. The City and Board should make sure this gets done by next year.

We need better poll workers. The vast majority of poll workers are hard working and dedicated, but it's clear that too many don't know the rules or should be replaced. The city should grant non-essential employees comp time for both primary and general election day to expand the pool of eligible poll workers. The State should eliminate the right of party organizations to have first crack at assigning poll workers. SUNY and CUNY should make primary and general election day a day off to allow college students the opportunity to work the polls.