Friends and neighbors in Bethlehem, New York, working for progressive causes.
VOTING AND ELECTION REFORM
The Huddle works to improve New York and federal election laws to enfranchise voters and make voting easier and more secure.
To choose what legislation and actions to take, the Huddle follows the lead of several voting rights and election reform organizations. As part of the Let NY Vote coalition we work on its legislative priorities.
For detailed information about specific bills, go to the Huddle's 2025 Legislation Tracker.
Let NY Vote 2025 Priority Legislation
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Voter Challenge Protection, which requires persons that challenge the validity of voter applicants to provide their identification information and written documentation on the challenge (no Senate bill/A4095).
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Require better notice to voters who are purged or put on inactive status (S4364/A6764)
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Have NY join the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an interstate data sharing organization to help keep voter rolls clean (S1356/A3649)
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Student Voter Empowerment Act that expands civic engagement practices for students (S2056/A3954)
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Democracy During Detention Act, which establishes the election infrastructure that makes voting accessible for all those eligible to vote who are detained in jails (S6875/A9612)
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Ensuring the use of paper ballots, including VIVA (S6169A/A5934A) and Protect Our Ballots Act (no Senate bill/A2606)
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Board of Elections reform (10 bills)
Voting Machines
There are good voting systems and bad ones.
The ES&S ExpressVote XL is a bad one.
Please read our position paper: Opposing the ES&S ExpressVote XL: Let’s protect our right to use hand-written paper ballots (PDF).
Summary: The Huddle seeks to influence the choice of the next generation of voting machines that Albany County will use.
Currently, Albany County uses an aging voting system from ES&S. This has served voters well, but it is time to replace this voting system.
If Albany County upgrades to a current version of ES&S's voting system, they will have a strong incentive to upgrade to the ES&S ExpressVote XL, the only ballot marking device (aka BMD) allowed with the new system. The Huddle strongly objects to the ExpressVote XL, primarily because it prints voter selections as bar codes, which no voter can verify independently.