The first meeting of the Select Committee on Technology in Government, entitled "Using Technology to Make Government Smart, Cost-Effective, and Open" and headed by Councilmember Gale Brewer, offered testimony by some 15 experts on a range of issues connected to "e-government."
Efficiency
The goal of city government should be to eliminate all paperwork and put everything on-line, David Birdsell of Baruch College. testified. This will take some doing. Currently only 50 percent of New Yorkers have access to the Internet from their homes.
A good start would be to use the Internet for the process by which private firms get city contracts, said Marcia Van Wagner, deputy research director of the Citizens Budget Commission, which, she said, could save the city about $135 million a year. The recommendations are outlined in the commission's report "No Small Change" (available online in PDF format). The current procurement system wastes 12 million sheets of paper according to one estimate.
Openness
While the government stores public documents electronically, neither the public nor the press can get to them easily, as David McCraw, deputy general counsel for the Daily News, testified. Indeed, the city is delinquent in meeting federal requirements of the 1974 Freedom of Information Act and its state equivalent, the Freedom of Information Law. Better access to public information would result in more innovative uses of the information to educate the public on issues.
Community Access
Non-profit organizations and small-businesses suffer from poor access to information technology. Many of them are still using dial-up connections to the Internet (if they are lucky enough to have access) and 85 percent of computers are not state-of-the-art. According to Barbara Chang, executive director of NpowerNY, a non-profit technology assistance provider, 83 percent of non-profits want greater access to cutting-edge technology.
Tech Czar
Several experts who testified recommended the creation of a top administration official to advocate for technology issues and chart a visionary technology policy for the city. Without clear support, planning and training at the highest levels, Birdsell testified, technology strategies are likely to fail.
There is currently no city official to plan a strategy that covers the social issues (openness, access) involved in technology policy. The Tech Czar would work closely with the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (which has the cute acronym DoITT, or Do It), which manages the technical side. A czar could also revive the Commission on Public Information and Communication (whose acronym, CoPIC, isn't particularly cute), which was created by the 1989 charter in order to increase citizen access to public information. Despite the huge potential for improving citizen access to government documents via the Internet, the commission has rarely met since it lost its funding in 1991, four years before the invention of the web browser. As a result, the city is often accused of having abysmal standards for public information.
The next public hearing of the Select Committee on Technology in Government will be held at 10AM on May 6 at Councilmember Brewer's City Hall Office at 250 Broadway, 16th Floor.
The first meeting of the Select Committee on Technology in Government, entitled "Using Technology to Make Government Smart, Cost-Effective, and Open" and headed by Councilmember Gale Brewer, offered testimony by some 15 experts on a range of issues connected to "e-government."
Efficiency
The goal of city government should be to eliminate all paperwork and put everything on-line, David Birdsell of Baruch College. testified. This will take some doing. Currently only 50 percent of New Yorkers have access to the Internet from their homes.
A good start would be to use the Internet for the process by which private firms get city contracts, said Marcia Van Wagner, deputy research director of the Citizens Budget Commission, which, she said, could save the city about $135 million a year. The recommendations are outlined in the commission's report "No Small Change" (available online in PDF format). The current procurement system wastes 12 million sheets of paper according to one estimate.
Openness
While the government stores public documents electronically, neither the public nor the press can get to them easily, as David McCraw, deputy general counsel for the Daily News, testified. Indeed, the city is delinquent in meeting federal requirements of the 1974 Freedom of Information Act and its state equivalent, the Freedom of Information Law. Better access to public information would result in more innovative uses of the information to educate the public on issues.
Community Access
Non-profit organizations and small-businesses suffer from poor access to information technology. Many of them are still using dial-up connections to the Internet (if they are lucky enough to have access) and 85 percent of computers are not state-of-the-art. According to Barbara Chang, executive director of NpowerNY, a non-profit technology assistance provider, 83 percent of non-profits want greater access to cutting-edge technology.
Tech Czar
Several experts who testified recommended the creation of a top administration official to advocate for technology issues and chart a visionary technology policy for the city. Without clear support, planning and training at the highest levels, Birdsell testified, technology strategies are likely to fail.
There is currently no city official to plan a strategy that covers the social issues (openness, access) involved in technology policy. The Tech Czar would work closely with the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (which has the cute acronym DoITT, or Do It), which manages the technical side. A czar could also revive the Commission on Public Information and Communication (whose acronym, CoPIC, isn't particularly cute), which was created by the 1989 charter in order to increase citizen access to public information. Despite the huge potential for improving citizen access to government documents via the Internet, the commission has rarely met since it lost its funding in 1991, four years before the invention of the web browser. As a result, the city is often accused of having abysmal standards for public information.
The next public hearing of the Select Committee on Technology in Government will be held at 10AM on May 6 at Councilmember Brewer's City Hall Office at 250 Broadway, 16th Floor.
Laura Forlano is a doctoral student studying communication technology policy at Columbia University.
The first meeting of the Select Committee on Technology in Government, entitled "Using Technology to Make Government Smart, Cost-Effective, and Open" and headed by Councilmember Gale Brewer, offered testimony by some 15 experts on a range of issues connected to "e-government."
Efficiency
The goal of city government should be to eliminate all paperwork and put everything on-line, David Birdsell of Baruch College. testified. This will take some doing. Currently only 50 percent of New Yorkers have access to the Internet from their homes.
A good start would be to use the Internet for the process by which private firms get city contracts, said Marcia Van Wagner, deputy research director of the Citizens Budget Commission, which, she said, could save the city about $135 million a year. The recommendations are outlined in the commission's report "No Small Change" (available online in PDF format). The current procurement system wastes 12 million sheets of paper according to one estimate.
Openness
While the government stores public documents electronically, neither the public nor the press can get to them easily, as David McCraw, deputy general counsel for the Daily News, testified. Indeed, the city is delinquent in meeting federal requirements of the 1974 Freedom of Information Act and its state equivalent, the Freedom of Information Law. Better access to public information would result in more innovative uses of the information to educate the public on issues.
Community Access
Non-profit organizations and small-businesses suffer from poor access to information technology. Many of them are still using dial-up connections to the Internet (if they are lucky enough to have access) and 85 percent of computers are not state-of-the-art. According to Barbara Chang, executive director of NpowerNY, a non-profit technology assistance provider, 83 percent of non-profits want greater access to cutting-edge technology.
Tech Czar
Several experts who testified recommended the creation of a top administration official to advocate for technology issues and chart a visionary technology policy for the city. Without clear support, planning and training at the highest levels, Birdsell testified, technology strategies are likely to fail.
There is currently no city official to plan a strategy that covers the social issues (openness, access) involved in technology policy. The Tech Czar would work closely with the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (which has the cute acronym DoITT, or Do It), which manages the technical side. A czar could also revive the Commission on Public Information and Communication (whose acronym, CoPIC, isn't particularly cute), which was created by the 1989 charter in order to increase citizen access to public information. Despite the huge potential for improving citizen access to government documents via the Internet, the commission has rarely met since it lost its funding in 1991, four years before the invention of the web browser. As a result, the city is often accused of having abysmal standards for public information.
The next public hearing of the Select Committee on Technology in Government will be held at 10AM on May 6 at Councilmember Brewer's City Hall Office at 250 Broadway, 16th Floor.
The first meeting of the Select Committee on Technology in Government, entitled "Using Technology to Make Government Smart, Cost-Effective, and Open" and headed by Councilmember Gale Brewer, offered testimony by some 15 experts on a range of issues connected to "e-government."
Efficiency
The goal of city government should be to eliminate all paperwork and put everything on-line, David Birdsell of Baruch College. testified. This will take some doing. Currently only 50 percent of New Yorkers have access to the Internet from their homes.
A good start would be to use the Internet for the process by which private firms get city contracts, said Marcia Van Wagner, deputy research director of the Citizens Budget Commission, which, she said, could save the city about $135 million a year. The recommendations are outlined in the commission's report "No Small Change" (available online in PDF format). The current procurement system wastes 12 million sheets of paper according to one estimate.
Openness
While the government stores public documents electronically, neither the public nor the press can get to them easily, as David McCraw, deputy general counsel for the Daily News, testified. Indeed, the city is delinquent in meeting federal requirements of the 1974 Freedom of Information Act and its state equivalent, the Freedom of Information Law. Better access to public information would result in more innovative uses of the information to educate the public on issues.
Community Access
Non-profit organizations and small-businesses suffer from poor access to information technology. Many of them are still using dial-up connections to the Internet (if they are lucky enough to have access) and 85 percent of computers are not state-of-the-art. According to Barbara Chang, executive director of NpowerNY, a non-profit technology assistance provider, 83 percent of non-profits want greater access to cutting-edge technology.
Tech Czar
Several experts who testified recommended the creation of a top administration official to advocate for technology issues and chart a visionary technology policy for the city. Without clear support, planning and training at the highest levels, Birdsell testified, technology strategies are likely to fail.
There is currently no city official to plan a strategy that covers the social issues (openness, access) involved in technology policy. The Tech Czar would work closely with the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (which has the cute acronym DoITT, or Do It), which manages the technical side. A czar could also revive the Commission on Public Information and Communication (whose acronym, CoPIC, isn't particularly cute), which was created by the 1989 charter in order to increase citizen access to public information. Despite the huge potential for improving citizen access to government documents via the Internet, the commission has rarely met since it lost its funding in 1991, four years before the invention of the web browser. As a result, the city is often accused of having abysmal standards for public information.
The next public hearing of the Select Committee on Technology in Government will be held at 10AM on May 6 at Councilmember Brewer's City Hall Office at 250 Broadway, 16th Floor.
Laura Forlano is a doctoral student studying communication technology policy at Columbia University.
The U.S. Senate passed, by a vote of 99-1, a landmark $3.5 billion election reform package on April 11th that requires states to upgrade their election systems. In many ways it is a remarkable bill that could lead the way to serious reform of the voting processes in the nation by providing federal funds for states to upgrade their election systems and by requiring improved procedures for counting disputed ballots. But the bill includes a critical flaw that has civil rights leaders across the country - and New Yorkers in particular - up in arms.
The step backward within the bill's great leap forward is its requirement that first-time voters who did not register in person use a driver's license or other proof of identity, such as a utility bill, to verify their identity. The requirement was pushed by Republican senators as an anti-fraud measure, and it seems simple enough - don't most of us have a driver's license or, at least, a utility bill? And, the law provides what looks like a safety net for voters who show up at the polls without proper identification. The voter is supposed to be allowed to vote by affidavit ballot. But many advocates, including folks with years of experience working in the electoral process, contend that this requirement will impose a serious burden on voters who are members of minority groups, immigrants and new citizens, and those who live in urban areas, particularly New York.
First, there is the straightforward practical concern. As many as 3 million New York City voters do not have a driver's license. Indeed, 1990 census data showed that less than 50 percent of New York City's voting age residents had a driver's license compared with 91 percent of the state's residents overall. Also, members of minority groups are far less likely to have a driver's license than whites; recently naturalized citizens (and new immigrants from Puerto Rico) are also less likely to have a driver's license. For many of those potential voters, it may also prove onerous for them to have another valid form of identification handy when they go to the polls. This requirement, then, could depress the voting power of New York City and members of minority groups.
Second, application of the identification requirement is likely to create a host of problems. An identification requirement will require poll workers to use their discretion and judgment. More discretion and judgment will be required when the voters use a form of identification other than a driver's license. Unfortunately, poll workers often get the rules wrong. The more complicated the rules, the more likely they will not be applied properly - and this set of rules could seem complicated. A study of New York City's 2001 general election by the New York Public Interest Research Group demonstrated that most poll workers did not know basic rules about where someone should vote if they moved or who could help a disabled person vote. This suggests that poll workers will not be able to apply an identification requirement properly. Under the bill, the first-time voters who fail to provide proper identification should be permitted to vote with an affidavit or paper ballot, with which they sign an affidavit promising that they are who they say they are. But, again, given the reliability of the poll workers, it is quite likely that significant numbers of voters could be wrongly turned away. In fact, New York election lore is full of stories about poll workers who do not know when someone should use such a ballot and denying voters access to such ballots.
The i.d. requirement also creates opportunities for discriminatory treatment. African-Americans have a history of being subjected to special scrutiny at the polling place - as have members of other minority groups and recently naturalized citizens. Stories abounded in Duval County, Florida of African-American voters being asked to show a form of identification - sometimes two - while white voters were allowed to sign in without presenting any i.d. Similarly, a survey conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense Fund found that in the 2001 New York City general election one in six Asian voters was improperly asked to show identification before voting.
Finally, there is no evidence that such a rule is needed. In even the closest elections, there is rarely any evidence of voter fraud at the polls. And, the experience of states with same-day voter registration suggests that identification is not needed to protect against fraud.
Any close election will seriously test how these rules are applied. The improper application will leave a cloud over the legitimacy of the election results, but it will also disenfranchise valid voters and dissuade citizens from participating in the political process. That is not the intention of this law, and it should not be. This Senate bill must now be reconciled with a House bill that was passed in December and does not include an identification requirement. It is not clear what will happen to the i.d. provision when the two bills go to conference committee, but advocates will be keeping a close watch to ensure that the law does not include this step backward.
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.