MALL SECURITY
Apparently Krestia DeGeorge is forgetting that “soft
targets” like places of worship, office buildings, or anywhere that people assemble
have historically been where terrorists strike (“Safety First at the Mall,”
January 4). Carla Palumbo, new leader of the County Legislature’s Democratic
caucus, also seems to have forgotten this. She views the Rochester Water
Authority as a “high-level area,” but Marketplace Mall doesn’t strike her as a
location to be concerned about.
In reviewing the State Department’s Patterns of Terrorism
Report, I did not find that water supplies have been targeted, nor have poisons
or biological weapons been employed. Public areas and buildings and the people
within them have been targeted worldwide, with bombs and guns being the weapons
of choice.
Terrorism’s purpose thus far has been the immediate
destruction of people. With that in mind, it is reasonable for the Department
of Homeland Security to perceive shopping malls as vulnerable targets worthy of
funding.
BL Hawk, Coachman
Drive, Penfield
NEW VOTING MACHINES AREN’T ACCESSIBLE
By the end of this month, the New York Board of Elections
will be making decisions about what kind of voting machines we will be using.
The incredible reports from area residents of voting-machine irregularities in
Florida and Ohio are fresh in our minds. Can we trust these new computer
machines?
The Board of Elections isn’t inspiring our confidence. In
fact the federal Justice Department announced recently that it is suing New
York State for being a total slacker about complying with the Help America Vote
Act.
The new federal regulation means that we won’t be able to
use the lever machines that we have grown used to. HAVA requires all states to
upgrade their voting machines so that they are accessible to people with
disabilities and provide voter verification. In other words, there needs to be
a way for the voter to see their vote on a printed ballot.
But the voting machines on display this month at the Dome
Arena just weren’t acceptable. Disability rights advocates pointed out that the
machines weren’t accessible. That’s a deal breaker right there.
Moreover, voting machine corporations are arguing that their
computer voting-machine software code is a trade secret. And so far, the Board
of Elections, in its draft of the standards, has allowed the voting machine
companies to get away with putting their “proprietary code” in escrow.
This is a major security problem, especially considering that at least one of
the CEO’s of these voting machine corporations has made partisan electoral
contributions and statements.
What could happen? The computerized voting machines could be
programmed to “verify” a voter’s choice but actually tabulate the
vote differently. In other words, voters could think they have voted for
candidate “Washington” but the vote would actually be tabulated for
candidate “Jefferson.” And the computerized voting machines could be
programmed to randomly do this only a few times on each machine so that in a
close race the results could be reversed and the problem might not be noticed.
If a recount is required, the voting machine’s computer
tabulation could be compared to the verified paper ballots, but by that time it
would be too late. If the election was invalidated, there would have to be
another vote, and the-get-out-the-vote circumstances would have changed, which
might favor one candidate over another.
The bottom line is that the computer corporations shouldn’t
be allowed to get away with holding their computer code as a proprietary
secret. Board of Election officials have to be able to look at the code before
the election and compare it to the code that is actually in machines.
Recently the Connecticut attorney general decided that
Connecticut will not be moving forward in 2006 with new voting machines because
none of the machines were acceptable. Unless the New York Board of Elections
requires that the voting-machine corporations hand over their code and make
their machines accessible to people with disabilities, New York State should
follow Connecticut’s example.
The integrity of our vote is too important.
Jon Greenbaum,
Arlington Street, Rochester (Greenbaum is a Metro Justice organizer)
SHUTTING OUT VOTERS
I was dismayed to read remarks made by County Legislature
Majority Leader Bill Smith (Urban Journal, January 4). He told the Democrat and Chronicle that “the way a minority
gets its views heard is to put its own ideas out and get elected to the
majority based on those ideas.” When I ran for County Legislature in November,
more than 45 percent of the voters in District 10 supported me.
The idea that only the majority can come up with good
solutions kills initiative on both sides of the aisle, creates an unnecessarily
partisan atmosphere, and erects a barrier to real problem solving.
City Newspaper’s columnist comments: “I know that Smith didn’t mean it this way, but facts are
facts: in shutting out Democratic legislators, the Republicans are shutting out
most of the county’s African-American and Latino residents.” His remarks also
mean that he is shutting out the large minority of voters in Pittsford and East
Rochester who voted for me in the last election.
It is vital to our future that everyone’s ideas be heard.
There is real value to a second opinion. As Anna Quindlen writes in the October
24 Newsweek, “Insiders come with
deeply ingrained assumptions and the inevitable sense of business as usual.
Outsiders often bring clarity of vision, as well as a sense of discovery and
innovation.” To exclude diversity of opinion is a mistake. As voters, we must
insist that our representatives use the talents that are available, wherever
they may be.
Ted Nixon, Sunset
Boulevard, Pittsford
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester 14607.
Our guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and
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publish letters that have been sent to other media — and we don’t publish form letters generated by activist groups. While
we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words have a greater chance of
being published. We do edit letters for clarity and brevity. And in general we
don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the same writer more
often than about once every two months.
This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2006.
