Tuesday April 25, 2006

Calendar of Events

Last Week, 4/18: Bo Lipari New Yorkers for Verified Voting

This Week, 4/25: No BOD Meeting David Stills - Star Fire Systems – Ceramic Components

Next Week, 5/2: TBD at this time

Coming Up:

4/29: Charlton Cleanup Meet at 8:30 Charlton General Store

5/2: BOD Meeting at 5:00

5/5: Chili Supper at the High School for TIB

Invocation: Garry Morrow, Dan Stec or Bob Youmans

Suggestions for future programs may be given to Linda LeTendre

Nominations needed for Rotarian and Citizen of the Year

Please pass on the names of someone you would nominate to any BOD member.

All that is needed are a few brief statements for the BOD to review. A final nomination package is not needed until the BOD makes its selections.

Announcements

Unfortunately, the club, as a whole, cannot in time help Earl Whelshhans build a ramp for Mike at his new apartment. The project must be completed by May 1. However, we are looking for individuals who can help Earl. If you think you can help Earl with some of the labor, please call him in the evening after 9:00 at 399-1423.

Please help with the Charlton Road Cleanup on the 29th.

We started work today at Cloverpatch. Those that can help during the day should contact Ken Crotty.

Mary Anderson announced that she and Val will be passing out advance tickets for the May 5 Chili Super.

Steve announced that Hannaford sent us a letter notifying us that as well as providing food and beverages for the golf tournament they will also donate the $250 we requested.

Garry Morrow introduced to the club Anne Hobday, one of the team that will represent the district on the forthcoming GSE visit to Brazil. Anne is also representing our club. Anne is a graduate of the College of St. Rose and majored in Fine Arts. She is currently the Sr. Designer at Spiral Design in Albany. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards in her field. All those that attended the meeting quickly realized that Anne is going to be an outstanding representative for our club, and the district.

You can still order Vidalia Onions from Laura Linder. They are $10 for 10 lbs. of the sweet onions and $3.45 goes to our club.

New Yorkers for Verified Voting

We received an excellent presentation from Bo Lipari on his and his organization’s views on the disadvantages of non-verifiable Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines (DREs) and the advantages of Paper Ballot Scanners. Federal and state laws require New York and other states to transition to more updated voting systems. Many states have acquired DREs, and NY and some counties, including ours, are contemplating doing so as well. Bo and “New Yorkers for Verified Voting” are mounting a campaign to discourage DREs because of their concern about the reliability, accessibility and the expense of the system. They see Paper Ballot Scanners and paper ballots as a much safer, accurate and cost effective means for involving the voting public in this most democratic of all processes. Bo has been a software engineer for the past 20 years. He travel here from the Syracuse area to deliver his presentation

DREs are a touch screen/push button activated system in which the inputs, data recording, computations and communications are all done electronically. Windows operating system is a core element. Nothing in the processes involved are recorded and verifiable on paper. On the other hand, the first step in the Paper Ballot Scanner system is for the voter to fill out a paper ballot. He or she then runs it through the Paper Ballot Scanner which has two processes – 1) to count the entries on the ballot and 2) record the total votes on a strip of paper. The paper ballots are also saved within a secured section of the machines cabinet, so if hand counting is subsequently needed, they are available.

Most of Bo’s presentation was centered on explaining his group’s logic for why the DRE’s are a poor option and why a Paper Ballot Scanning system is preferred. He cited numerous examples of how the new DRE system is unreliable, very expensive, and possibly subject to fraud. The advantages cited for paper ballot scanners included: the voter uses a pen to mark a paper ballot, it provides a system for disabled to vote, it would cost NYS $100 million less to employ, it is a simple system that has been used for 20 years and it results are verifiable. If you are interesting in learning more about this critical topic and New Yorkers for Verified Voting, or want to get involved, go to www.nyvv.org. Great presentation on a critical topic.