On Feb. 6, State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Nolan ruled against Gordon Boyd in his request for access to ballot records from the Nov. 7, 2017 city charter referendum. The margin between "no" and "yes" is 10 votes. A recount of the charter referendum would have allowed the voters and citizens of Saratoga Springs to validate the results. I believe the judge erred in important ways that raise larger questions about the integrity of our elections.
In many states, there are automatic recount provisions when there is a close election, usually 0.5 percent of all ballots cast (the charter proposition lost by less than 0.1 percent). To get a recount (technically called a recanvassing in New York), voters must ask a judge to order the Board of Elections to do a recount based on evidence of voting machine malfunction or irregularity. However, in order to show a malfunction or irregularity, you need copies of the ballots, which can only be provided by the Board of Elections.
It’s a Catch-22. In order to get a recount, we need to show the Board of Elections has made a mistake, and the only way to do that is to have the Board of Elections provide the TIF files of those ballots, which they have declined to do. When Judge Nolan’s decision stated that the “petitioner presents no facts to support or justify his request,” it is because the Board of Elections commissioners would not show us copies of the ballots.
New York uses the Dominion Voting Systems ImageCast Precinct voting machines. In their marketing materials, Dominion says their machines provide a “fully auditable single cast vote record for every ballot cast” in order to “increase the transparency of the voting process and augment stakeholder confidence.” In other words, our machines take a picture of every vote and the Board of Elections can easily provide a photo (technically known as a TIF file) of every paper ballot. In the New York counties comprising a majority of the state's voters, TIF files are public property and are available to the public. This allows voters to easily see whether the ballots match the vote totals and ensure voter confidence in the process. However, the Saratoga County Board of Elections has decided not to provide these to the public, nor have they provided any explanation as to why.
The county Board of Elections says that they conducted their traditional post election audit of six election districts in Saratoga County and “found no discrepancies between the totals reported on the machines and the paper ballots cast in those districts.” However, Judge Nolan notes, in footnote #3, that “None of the six was in the City of Saratoga Springs.” We have a 10-vote margin and the county Board of Elections did not recheck the vote totals for a single machine in Saratoga Springs.
In 2010, New York State made the wise decision to keep their paper ballots instead of going to electronic voting. It ensures public confidence in election outcomes by allowing us to count the ballots. To quote Ronald Reagan, trust but verify. This is why I have filed a FOIL request with Therese Connolly, Deputy Clerk of the Board of Supervisors for copies of the TIF files. The TIF files of our ballots are public property. They should be a matter of public record. The charter referendum may win or lose, but transparency should always win.
Bob Turner
Associate Professor of Political Science at Skidmore College and former chair of the Saratoga Springs Charter Review Commission
