The city's electoral commission believes that it may need some new voting machines due to early voting, but the board leader is pushing the machines made by a company he benefits from to raise the issue of conflict of interest.
New York City has been using the same type of voting machine for nearly 10 years: an optical scanner.
But now the city election commission may want to try other ways.
This is a new machine called express vote XL, manufactured by major voting machine manufacturers, Election Systems and software (ES&S).
In a letter exclusively obtained by NY1, the city asked this week's state election commission to vote early this year with a new machine.
It says it is almost impossible to use paper votes.
This is because, compared to the traditional Election Day, there will be much less polling stations open for early voting.
Officials questioned whether each site was able to retain all the different voting configurations for each constituency, and the express vote XL machine used a touch screen to vote.
But there is a problem: the state election commission has not certified or fully tested the machine for use in New York.
The municipal election commission essentially requires state officials to bypass the approval process, specifically requiring the state Election Commission to allow the use of the machine in the general election this fall.
The letter says "time is the most important thing.
"It was signed by two people.
One is Michael Ryan, executive director of the board.
A leader of the state election commission immediately dismissed the requirements of the municipal election commission: "The most irritating thing about this letter is that it does not seem to understand the reasons for the certification of voting equipment in New York, joint State Election Commission
Chairman Douglas ner said.
"We must recognize the security risks.
"Only one small village in Westchester has been approved by the judge to use these machines.
The city cannot bypass the national process, says Kellner.
"If there is a lot of pressure on the City Council, there is a plan to implement early voting," says Kellner . ".
"It's clear that vendors are interested in selling as much equipment and services as possible, because they can make cities pay for it, so that's the driving force that vendors are driving this kind of thing.
Ryan's request came after NY1 discovered last year that he had served as a member of the secret Advisory Committee for the same voting machine company.
The company paid him to travel all over the country to attend so-
Call the meeting
The decision to use this machine may not be made at any public meeting of the municipal election commission.
None of their agendas mentioned this month.
After NY1 started asking questions, the board added a demo to its meeting on Tuesday.
All of this has raised serious concerns among voters.
"The arguments in this letter are very close to many of the arguments we have heard directly from the vendor's sales staff," said Susan greenhag of the national electoral Defense Coalition.
"They are picking out a voting technique that has been severely criticized across the country, which is not safe," said Susan Lerner of the common cause . ".
No one in the city election commission will discuss the story in front of the camera.
In a statement, the board claimed that, despite the very specific request made in the letter, it simply requested permission to consider the use of this new voting machine. ------------