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New York Election Security

A video by Perette Barella.

Synopsis

New York Election Security promotional image
Worried about election fraud? Not sure if it's real or not? This video goes over some of the key procedures mandated by New York State Election Law to prevent election tampering: paper ballots, bipartisan teams, ballot reconciliation, voter validation and more. It turns out, it's not as easy as the conspiracy theorists make it sound.

This video is based on New York Election Law and procedures, but if you live in a place with scanned paper ballots there is likely a lot of similarity. Even if you don't, there are likely some aspects of anti-tampering that overlap; and if not, perhaps you'll find insight for improvements your jurisdiction can make, so you can have constructive advice instead of the uninformed and unproductive ranting that is so plentiful these days.

Update

In 2026, New York replaced the fill-in-the-bubble type cards and ballot scanners with touchscreen ballot marking devices. After choosing candidates, the voter's choices are printed on a ballot and it appears in a window for review. The voter can cast or cancel the ballot. Upon casting, the votes are counted and the printed ballot is stored in a collection box as an auditing mechanism.

Although the machine does the ballot marking, the rest of the safeguards— bipartisan teams, ballot reconciliation, paper ballots as a double-check on the machine and in case of machine failures— are still present. There are also other states still using the preprinted ballots and machine scanners. So, while some minutae have change, the substantive portion of the video remains accurate.

Choose how to watch

Details

This video is Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial. For licensing in a paid venue, please email perette@barella.org (perette@deviousfish.com) so I can check if there's any license issue with any of the stock footage.

Related

If you're curious what happens before election day, that's covered in the related video. If you're watching ad-free here, just scroll down below the main video; or, view Voting Machine Preparation on YouTube.

60 Minutes also did a piece on Election Security.