AMY PAULIN IN THE NEWS
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Poll Workers Must Now Help Lost Voters
Legislative Gazette
By Elyse Mickalonis
A week before Election Day, Gov. David A. Paterson signed into
law legislation aimed at helping voters find their way to the correct location if they mistakenly go to the wrong polling site.
On Oct. 28, Paterson signed bill S.2443-b/A.1002-c into law, requiring poll workers to help voters find their proper voting sites.
"The essence is, you want to enable people to vote and this is a bill that will help accomplish that," said Assembly sponsor Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, in an interview with The Legislative Gazette last month when she expected the governor's signature was imminent.
The new law will ensure workers at polling sites supply voters with the information they need about their correct polling sites, "including countywide maps that delineate voting districts," according to the governor's office.
"It's to make sure that when voters come into their polling site and their names aren't found, the poll workers can check their address and send them to the right place or let them vote in the place they're at if they're truly in the district," Paulin said. "We're enfranchising people instead of disenfranchising people."
The assemblywoman said "There is now a stronger obligation on the part of individuals who work at the polling sites to make sure that voters are in the right place."
She noted that in tight races, which she said are common in her county, voters' inability to find the right place to cast their ballot could mean the difference between winning and losing for a candidate.
"It is fairly common for voters to end up at the wrong polling place. Now, election workers will have the proper tools to assist these individuals and ensure their votes are counted," Paterson said. "I am proud to be working with the Legislature on passing laws that increase access and ease for New Yorkers to vote; just last month, I signed a bill requiring New York City to translate all voting materials into Russian."
In the wake of the 2004 election for the 35th Senate District between former Sen. Nick Spano, a Yonkers Republican, and then-Westchester County Legislator Andrea Stewart-Cousins — a tightly contested race ultimately decided by 18 votes — the state Court of Appeals was asked to make a ruling regarding affidavit ballots.
"There were 457 affidavit ballots cast by voters that had gone to the wrong voting site in the election," Paulin said. "Those individual votes did not count; they were rejected."
The idea for Paulin's bill came from lawyer Deborah Porder, a Scarsdale resident. The bill was sponsored in the Senate by Stewart-Cousins.
In 2004, while volunteering for election protection work for the Westchester branch of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, Porder discovered people working at several polling sites were not helping lost voters find correct locations. She then asked Paulin to draft legislation that would fix the problem across New York.
From that point, Paulin's legislation, nicknamed the "Street Finders" bill worked its way through the Legislature.
"People have been deprived of their right to vote because the poll workers were unable to direct them," said Porder. "I'm so happy this has been signed by the governor. It's basic fairness to voters to be able to vote in the place where their vote can be counted."
"Mistakes can be made, which can't be helped unless we dramatically change the system," Paulin said. "This is a bill that will help people who have moved and who have not voted in a while." She added, "This will enable them to get the correct information so that they can exercise their right to vote."
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