State Senator Joseph Addabbo, Chair of the Senate Elections Committee, is sponsoring a series of free town hall meetings for voting machine demonstrations around his district to help familiarize Queens voters with the introduction of the new optical scan voting machines in the primary elections next month. When voters show up at their polling place on September 14 Primary Day and the November 2 General Election, instead of the old mechanical lever machines, they’ll now mark their votes on a paper ballot that is run through a scanner to be recorded. Senator Addabbo arranged for the NYC Board of Elections to conduct open public demonstrations of the new system, using the scanner and ballot marking device, with the first in his series on Tuesday, August 31 at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps headquarters, 78-15 Jamaica Avenue, from 7 to 9 p.m.
Senator Addabbo and his Elections Committee have worked through many public hearings on the testing and performance of the new machines in a pilot program throughout the state. The change is a result of the federal Help America Vote Act, which mandated that voters in New York State must have new voting machines this year. The new system electronically records a vote from a paper ballot that a voter marks.
“As we prepare for this change, I want to assure all voters that their votes will be counted accurately and will work toward ensuring the reliability of the new voting machines,” said Addabbo.
For more information, please call Senator Addabbo’s Howard Beach district office, 718-738-1111 or his Middle Village satellite district office, 718-497-1630.
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