Updated: April 27, 2013 10:20 PM
By MACKENZIE ISSLER AND JOIE TYRRELL  mackenzie.issler@newsday.com,joie.tyrrell@newsday.com

Photo credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams, Jr. | Bellport residents vote during the school board elections at Bellport Middle School in Bellport. (May 15, 2012)

Two BOCES districts said they will seek new bids for election-management services for public schools after revelations that software used by scores of Long Island districts had voter-tracking technology that could be used in violation of state election law.

Nassau BOCES and Eastern Suffolk BOCES, in a joint statement, said the decision followed its review of Bold Systems LLC and “is being done to open the service to new vendors with election management software.”

New bid specifications will require that “no election management service vendor will offer any feature that allows anyone to influence the school-budget voting process,” the statement said.

Twenty-three districts in Nassau County and 35 in Suffolk have the software sold by the Bellport data-systems company, according to lists provided last week by Nassau BOCES.

Of those, 19 districts in Nassau and 13 in Suffolk use the software’s 2.0 version, which Bold advertises for its ability to provide “real-time” lists of parents and district employees who have not voted on school budgets and to generate call lists on election day. Another 14 districts have the software’s 1.05 version with the added option — called “PSK” — that heightens detailed election reporting, according to documents.

Attempts by public bodies to selectively influence voter turnout is illegal. BOCES officials and district officials have repeatedly said there is no proof any districts used the technology in a potentially illegal way.

“Every school district knows how to conduct school budget elections within the spirit and the letter of the law, and there is no evidence to the contrary,” a Board of Cooperative Educational Services spokesman said Saturday.

The software was purchased by districts through BOCES. Under law, local districts are encouraged to combine in purchasing services on the assumption that it saves money.

Critics have said the software could be used to influence election outcomes, with boosters calling residents they believe will vote in the district’s favor.

Under the rebid, the BOCES districts “will contractually require vendors to give assurances that they understand the laws and procedures of the state Department of Education and will explicitly follow those laws and procedures,” said the BOCES statement, released Friday.

The Education Department was notified before the statement was issued, the BOCES spokesman said.

Brian Jusas, a Bold managing member, said Saturday he had not heard about the rebid. When he was read the BOCES statement, he said it was a “fair statement on their part.” He would not comment further.

Education Department officials said Monday they were investigating reports that Island districts could use Bold software to help maximize their “yes” vote during budget elections.

Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of Eastern Suffolk BOCES, said last week that he had ordered Bold Systems to disable the computerized system in question the week before, as soon as theBayport–Blue Point district alerted him to the problem. He said he also told Bold to stop marketing its ability to give districts an electoral advantage.

Noel Feustel of Bayport, who brought the issue to light after getting information on Suffolk districts’ use of Bold through a Freedom of Information Law request, said Saturday he wasn’t satisfied with the decision to rebid the services.

“They are throwing it on the vendor,” Feustel said. “People with badges and subpoenas should be looking into this . . . a lot of people would be satisfied if it was investigated in an appropriate manner.”

Several Long Island school officials, in interviews last week, said the system has not been used in any potentially illegal way.

“I think the system is operating perfectly well,” North Shore Superintendent Ed Melnick said. The district has used Bold Systems since the 2008-09 school year. “To my knowledge, the system has never been used in this district to sway an election. We have a long history of budgets passing here,” he said.

Melnick said the program simplified the voting process and saved money by allowing the district to halve the number of poll workers it hires each year. Under the old system, the district hired 30 to 40 people.

Feel like your paying too much town & school tax? April 30 is the deadline for filing your Nassau County Assessment Review. The Assessment Review Commission – ARC – acts on appeals of county property assessments. ARC’s services for homeowners are available online. You are not required to have a lawyer represent you. You may file your own appeal.

Public information, registration, appeal tracking and the residential sale locator are all available on the Nassau county website. Use it to find other similar properties to yours. If they are assessed at a lower value, you can use that information as the basis of your appeal.

You can file online. It’s free, and it’s easy to do.

Use this link and follow the “AROW”

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If you requested a review of your Sea Cliff Village taxes (February 18 was the deadline) and were denied, you still have another opportunity. You must file a Small Claims Assessment Review RPTL – 730, available online here.

Instructions for Small Claims Assessment Review.

The  form must be taken in person (with one extra copy) to the Nassau County Clerks Office (240 Old Country Road) along with a check, cash, or credit card payment for $30.00.  April 30 is the deadline. The clerk will file your claim and give you an index number. You will get a hearing date in the mail.

‘Vet’ out the vote

Dozens of LI school districts use software to ‘rig’ elections

• By SUSAN EDELMAN
• Last Updated: 3:57 AM, April 21, 2013
• Posted: 12:18 AM, April 21, 2013

EXCLUSIVE

Taxpayers in dozens of Long Island school districts have been footing the bill for a computer system that can help rig elections to pass school budgets.

Bold Systems LLC, based in Bellport, LI, sells software that lets school districts track votes in real time on Election Day and identify which parents, district employees and 18-year-old students have not yet voted. The districts, it says, can then generate “call lists” to urge those voters — who are most likely to support a budget increase — to get to the polls.

But under state law, this is illegal “electioneering.”

‘FIXED’: Bold Systems LLC touts its software’s ability to swing an election, which dozens of Long Island school districts have bought into.

School districts can’t spend money to steer an election. They can urge citizens to vote, but are forbidden to call “a selective list” of cherry-picked voters.

School districts upstate and in Long Island hold yearly elections — the next set for May 21 — in which voters approve or reject proposed budgets.

Districts need more than 50 percent yes votes to pass a budget, or 60 percent if the budget exceeds a state tax-levy cap.

In most districts, elections can be close, with retirees on fixed incomes and homeowners without kids in school more likely to vote down big budget hikes.

Yet many of those budgets have passed in the past few years — including increases of about 7 percent in Sayville and West Islip.

“Nothing empowers you to get out the YES votes you need like the EMS Election Management System from Bold Systems,” the company claims on its Web site.

“If your budget votes are too close to call, EMS can provide the edge you need.”

The company says 110 New York school districts use its software.

The basic system simply computerizes the voter rolls. But the upgrades Bold has sold since 2006 “enable you to compile lists of parents, in-district staff and eligible students.”

Lists can even be segmented into key groups (such as PTA members, families with kids in athletics, or by school) to help get out the votes or conduct registration drives.

Robert Vomastek, Bold Systems’ inventor and former owner, explained: “As each voter signs in, their name is automatically removed from the call list. They can run the call list four or five times during an election.”

Asked why districts would target parents and staff, Vomastek said, “They want a higher turnout from that demographic, obviously.”

A parent who blew the whistle on the system is appalled.

“You don’t need a Ph.D. in political science to understand that this service is an unethical manipulation of the electoral process,” said Noel Feustel, a dad in the Bayport-Blue Point school district.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Feustel learned that 35 school districts in eastern Suffolk County have each paid up to $22,700 a year, depending on the number of registered voters, for Bold Systems — and 12 pay $2,600 extra for an upgraded version and add-on features that include categorizing voters.

The districts buy Bold at prices negotiated by Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). Goods and services bought through BOCES are partly reimbursed with state taxpayer funds.

A day after The Post called Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of Eastern Suffolk BOCES, he ordered Bold to yank its Web site.

Bixhorn also said he would “disable” Bold features that track selected voters because they can be used “in a manner that violates the spirit and letter of the law.”

Several Suffolk district superintendents said they never used the software for prohibited purposes, just to tally votes.

Yet Nassau BOCES, which covers 56 school districts, touts Bold on its Web site, saying “a variety of useful reports can be generated on Election Day, such as up-to-the-minute reporting of who has voted, call lists of parents and staff who have not yet turned out to vote . . . and poll lists on the spot for poll watchers.”

Thomas Rogers, district superintendent of Nassau BOCES, told The Post he will also disable such features.

“These actions are long overdue,” said Bill Milligan, a Bayport-Blue Point school-board trustee. “I was stunned by the vendor’s marketing tactics and by BOCES’ failure to fully vet the product.”

State probes school budget voting for illegalities

Published: April 22, 2013 10:31 PM
By JOHN HILDEBRAND  john.hildebrand@newsday.com

Photo credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara | Noel Feustel holds a printout of the website for Bold Systems LLC in front of his Bayport home. (April 21, 2013)

Ken Slentz, the state’s top official for elementary and secondary education, said his office was checking with two regional BOCES here, which helped districts establish “cooperative” contracts with the company, Bold Systems.

The purpose of the inquiry, Slentz said, is to determine if any BOCES contracts or other documents indicated that Bold Systems had detailed services that schools are not legally authorized to use.

BOCES executives declared, meanwhile, that they had ordered a halt to any such potentially illegal activity last week, as soon as they were alerted to the problem.

“Had I known about it earlier, I would have stopped it immediately,” said Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of the Eastern SuffolkBoard of Cooperative Educational Services, headquartered inPatchogue.

Bixhorn said he ordered Bold Systems to stop marketing its ability to give districts an electoral “edge” and to disable a computerized system with the potential to provide real-time lists of parents and district employees who had not voted on school budgets during May elections. The BOCES executive added that he was alerted to the issue Wednesday, in a call from the Bayport–Blue Point district.

Eastern Suffolk BOCES records show that 35 districts in that county paid a total of more than $400,000 to the Bellport firm last year. Agency staffers added that Bold Systems had provided cooperating districts with voter data for more than five years.

Under law, districts are encouraged to combine in purchasing services through BOCES on the assumption that this saves money.

Nassau BOCES chief Thomas Rogers said he also had taken “aggressive” steps to halt any potential impropriety.

The Education Department surveyed all BOCES districts about the Bold Systems product, spokesman Tom Dunn said. “It is our understanding that it has not been used outside of Long Island,” he said, adding the department is examining the extent to which any districts used the voter-targeted component.

Brian Jusas, owner of Bold Systems, said Monday that, in response to the BOCES actions, he deleted website advertising of the company’s ability to provide districts with specific “call lists” of voters considered apt to support budgets. Jusas said his company provides many useful services to school districts, including computerized lists of registered voters and their addresses, mailing labels andabsentee voter reports.

“There are a lot of positive things in the system that people don’t talk about,” he said.

Pressures to pass spending plans have increased since Albany last year first imposed caps on tax increases.In addition, districts face a challenging administrative task in keeping accurate track of registered voters, a job that Bold Systems assumes for many.

Noel Feustel of Bayport, a real estate broker and civic activist, helped touch off the investigation when he got BOCES records through the state’s Freedom of Information law.

Vincent Butera, superintendent of Bayport-Blue Point schools, said Monday that his district used Bold Systems data for analytical purposes, not for electioneering.

LI school districts bought software that could impact budget voter turnout

Originally published: April 21, 2013 9:36 PM
Updated: April 21, 2013 10:21 PM
By LAURA FIGUEROA  laura.figueroa@newsday.com

Photo credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara | Noel Feustel holds a printout of the website for Bold Systems LLC in front of his Bayport home. (April 21, 2013)

Attempts by public bodies to selectively influence voter turnout is illegal under state election laws.

On May 21, Long Island voters will vote on the annual operating budgets for their local school districts, which require 50 percent approval to pass and 60 percent if the proposed budget exceeds the state’s 2 percent tax cap.

Software sold by Bold Systems LLC of Bellport allows districts to track voter turnout in real time, and gives districts the ability to generate call lists of key voting blocs, such as “PTA members, families with kids in athletics . . . to help get out the votes,” according to a description of the software on the company’s website, which has been deactivated.

“If your budget votes are too close to call, EMS can provide the edge you need,” reads the description, still accessible via archive website services. But spending public money to target particular voting groups before an election is against state law.

Bay Shore, Bellport–Blue Point, Connetquot, Harborfields,Hauppauge, Huntington, Mount Sinai, Riverhead, Rocky Point,Sayville, Shelter Island, South Country and West Islip all paid for the software last year, according to documents obtained by a Bayportparent activist through a Freedom of Information Law request.

“My concern is that they are manipulating the electoral process,” said Noel Feustel of Bayport, who brought the issue to light with his records request.

The software was purchased by each district through the Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which negotiates prices for goods and services for the state’s hundreds of school districts.

In a joint statement issued Sunday, Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of Eastern Suffolk BOCES and Thomas Rogers, district superintendent of Nassau BOCES, who is also serving as interim superintendent of Western Suffolk BOCES, said they asked Bold Systems to deactivate any component of the program that potentially violates state law.

Both said that to their knowledge, all the districts that purchased the software “have conducted their budget elections in complete compliance with the procedures and policies of New York State.”

“When it was brought to our attention that Bold Systems LLC was marketing its services in such a way as to encourage school districts to target specific categories of voters and encourage a ‘yes’ vote on school budgets, [we] immediately terminated any aspect of the Bold Systems LLC that can be utilized in a manner that violates the spirit and letter of the law,” they wrote. The license to use the tracking software cost each district $6,300 a year, according to budget documents.

Robert Vomastek, who developed the software, declined to comment when reached by phone Sunday.Bold Systems’ website says 110 New York school districts use its software, which includes a simplified version that functions without the tracking capability.

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