"Indeed, the change in the state's voting procedures wasn't made by choice but by the force of the federal government, through the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The law was the federal government's knee-jerk reaction to the contested Bush-Gore presidential election of 2000 - ultimately decided by the Supreme Court 10 years ago this week - and the problems in the Florida voting system.
Of course, New York never used the punch-card 'hanging chad' system Florida did, and there were no charges of voter fraud here in 2000. In fact, in eight decades of lever voting in New York, there were remarkably few allegations of widespread fraud, and electoral problems have generally centered on voter intimidation or nonlegal or impostor registrants, rarely on the machines.
An additional rationale for the change was that there needed to be a record for manual recounts and audits. But in an age when we all confidently move our money around through touch-screen electronic machines, are we to seriously to believe we cannot vote electronically with the same level of confidence?"
Where was the 'help' in Help America Vote?
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