text: "Computerized touch screen voting machines have been nothing but trouble," said Neal Rosenstein, an Election Specialist with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), who organized the letter. "New Yorkers deserve the best voting system available, not the one with the best lobbyist. It's a no-brainer, optical scan systems are the way to go," he added.
  The list includes professors from more than 20 universities across the state including Columbia, Cornell & Syracuse and a number of State University and City University of New York campuses. (See the letter and endorsers.)
  "We welcome the fact that New York's leading academics have urged New York to learn from the mistakes other jurisdictions have made in purchasing new voting machines in the last several years." said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. "As the Brennan Center's research has shown, New York cannot ensure that voter's choices will be accurately recorded if counties purchase the touch-screen machines the state is considering. We therefore join the state's leading University faculty in endorsing optical scan machines and ballot marking devices for all New Yorkers," he added.