LWVUS Voting System Standards never were intended to apply to lever voting machines

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At Kingston AAUW we've been concerned about being at odds with the League of Women Voters over their position in favor of optical scanners over lever machines. These are people we usually collaborate with. It's like a family feud.

This morning I came across this statement posted on the Internet by Teresa Alice Hommel on February 12th, 2009. She is commenting on the paper published by New Yorkers for Verified Voting and the League of Women Voters of New York State in opposition to lever machines.

Teresa worked to write and pass the LWV national position in 2004 and 2006. She states the following:

LWVUS Voting System Standards never were intended to apply to lever voting machines: "

However, the League’s standards that the paper quotes are an out-of-context portion of the League’s position--which I worked to write and get adopted--that was never intended to be applied to non-computerized voting technology.

MY [Teresa's] STATEMENT

As a member of the group that worked to wean the League of Women Voters of the United States away from paperless DREs, I attest that no one foresaw or intended that the 2006 position would be applied to non-electronic voting systems such as mechanical lever machines."

Her statement tracks the history of the LWV efforts to unify against DRE's by developing standards for "electronic" voting systems. Unfortunately, they left out the word "electronic."

I encourage you to read her statement directly.