The New York Times has a story this morning noting that New York City officials are concerned about the negotiations going on to settle the DOJ lawsuit against New York State’s failure to comply with HAVA deadlines may result in worse problems than might be solved. The main point of these concerns comes from a quote from a New York City official, who is quoted as saying in a letter: “that putting the stopgap plan in place by the September primary election `is completely infeasible and impractical, would provide false assurance to the voters that the problem has been solved, and would lead to chaos at the polls and possible disenfranchisement of the voters.’ “

Questions: what assurance to New York City voters now have, given that they are using outdated voter registration procedures and outdated voting technologies? Is there evidence that New York voters have confidence in their existing electoral process? And where was this concern in the four years since HAVA was passed?