Governor Cuomo recently signed a bill (http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/190875/cuomo-signs-bills-for-lever-voting-safe-act-exemption/) that will allow the New York City Board of Elections (NYC BOE) to resurrect ancient lever voting machines to use in the 2013 Democratic Mayoral Primary election.  The reason, according to the NYC BOE, is that the optical scanners that New York currently uses can not be ready in time to hold a runoff election two weeks after the primary election, which is mandated by city law if no candidate wins with at least 40% of the vote.  The NYC BOE says that this scenario seems likely.

When disability advocates around the state heard about this, we were surprised and outraged.  Why are we expected to tolerate yet another step backwards in the constant battle for accessibility?  The NYC BOE has had years to prepare for this election and has not done so.  Once again, the solution to incompetence (http://gothamist.com/2012/11/07/nyc_board_of_elections_2012_effort.php) is to punish people with disabilities.

Some have said that this bill was not that big of a deal as it was a one-time only solution and that it mandated that a ballot marking device (BMD) has to be at every polling place.  However, the reason this is a big deal is that going back to outdated, inaccessible machines – even if there is another option available, is a “slippery slope” that we do not want to start down.  Don’t believe me?  While watching the proceedings on the floor of the New York State Assembly, I witnessed one legislator from a downstate suburban district say that while he didn’t like the bill, he was going to vote for it and if it passes, he and his fellow suburban legislators were going to submit their own bills for exceptions to bring the machines back.  There’s your slippery slope.

Disability advocates work tirelessly to free people trapped in institutions against their will.  When they have to spend time and energy to go back and re-fight battles already won (http://www.elections.ny.gov/HAVA.html), people with disabilities are stuck without their civil and human rights that much longer.

Even though the Governor admitted that the NYC BOE’s concerns had better ways of being resolved rather than bringing these voting victrolas back, he signed this bill anyway.  At least he didn’t use an exclamation point. (http://www.buzzfeed.com/jacobfischler/andrew-cuomo-channels-his-inner-john-hancock)