B-BP District Election Software Use Remains a Hot Topic

The fact that an investigation by Bayport-Blue Point school district officials reveals no illegal use of election engineering software isn’t mollifying two Bayport residents who believe a more intensive review needs to be conducted.  

According to B-BP school chief Dr. Vincent Butera, who issued a formal statement Tuesday night about the district’s use of the Bold Systems’ election management service, an internal several-day investigation revealed the district had not used the program for anything beyond streamlining voting registration and sign-in processes.  

The district is one of over 60 New York districts that contracted the Bold Systems service, a computer-based election and voting software called Election Management System (EMS), through Eastern Suffolk BOCES.

An add-on feature to EMS is the “Parent, Staff & Student” Project (called PSK) that allows districts to identify vote data points, such as who is not registered yet to vote, to generating call lists to boost voter turnout on the election day. The voting data can even separated into call lists of key community interest group lists, such as those who publicly support sports.
 
The state educational department has launched its own investigation regarding the technology and districts' usage.    

Despite Butera’s statement, Bayport residents Rita Palma and Noel Feustel remain unconvinced there has been no illegal voting activity citing close budget and board election votes in the past few years.  

“You said you did a two-day investigation, how can it be so thorough? Did you call former administrators and staff to find out what this was used for?” asked Palma. She also noted the very low turnout number of the 2009-2010 budget vote.  

In response Butera stated he had Bold review all call logs and district activity regarding the system.

“The product was never used and there is no evidence it used [for illegal voting engineering purposes],” he said in response.

Feustel said the revelations about the Bold technology and the fact the district had paid for the additional PSK feature for the past several years “undercuts the integrity of the voting process.”  

“The vote is the most sacred thing in a democracy,” he said. Spending money on the PSK module, which cost about $750 a year, represents “malfeasance” by the district, he said. He noted that the last election of BOE President James March was won by 24 votes.  

Comparing the district’s use of the Bold technology to the Watergate scandal, Feustel stated, “it’s not the burglary, it’s the cover up.”  

Butera countered by reiterating  the district has received a credit from BOCES for the current year on the PSK module cost and that he is pressing for refunds for the prior years' use as well.