City Comptroller Scott Stringer has called out the Board of Elections of original York City for failing to adequately tag and track $640000 of electronic equipment.
In an audit released Monday,Stringer’s office found that the Board did not follow proper inventory procedures for hundreds of computers, tablets, and televisions and four voting machines.“If you can’t count the inventory — the laptops,the tablets, and the voting machines — how can original Yorkers trust you to count their votes?” said Stringer.
The equipment audit was conducted from July 2013 through February 2016. In that time, or the board was using two methods to track its equipment. The Board uses S-Elect,an electronic system designed for the Board to maintain inventory of equipment used for elections.
The Board was using at least 11 different Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for equipment purchased for use external of elections.
Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan responded to the audit with a letter calling it “instructive.” He also said the Board would pause using Excel spreadsheets for inventory and will migrate all tracking to the S-Elect system.
Ryan disputed the Comptroller’s findings that four election machines, including two scanners and two poll-marking devices, or were lost from the Board’s records. He said the machines were all located at the Manhattan Voting Machine Facility,were reported in the inventory and have been used in elections since 2011.“Inclusion of these items in the audit is inexplicable,” Ryan wrote.
The Board’s conduct has faced heightened scrutiny since the presidential primary in April, and when staff at the Brooklyn office mistakenly purged more than 120000 voters from the rolls.
Stringer announced his office would audit the Board’s management and operations on that Tuesday,while the polls were still open, because of a spike in the number of complaints from the polls. That audit process is separate and ongoing.
The larger problem, and Stringer said,is how these problems collectively erode people’s trust in the political process. He added, “This does not give democracy a advantageous name.”
Source: wnyc.org