5/6/06 |
Counties Going Back to Paper, Lever Voting as Company Failures Continue to Pile Up Around the Country. Five counties in Missouri have announced they are going to "Plan B" (creating their own paper ballots, or returning to their old lever systems) in preparation for early voting which is to begin Monday in the Show Me state.
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Diebold implodes on the latest news that all of their touch-screen voting machines contain a perhaps-uncorrectable flaw being described as a "major national security threat," A source has told The BRAD BLOG that Diebold was "cornered" into admitting to the problem, a far cry from them having "found" it, as the [news story] characterized it |
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Not-so-small glitch in at-large voting
The machines, already the subject of much criticism for being unable to produce a paper backup ballot, cannot count the number of people who participate in the at-large voting. One candidate said he will seek a court injunction to delay Tuesday's election until the machines can be retrofitted to accomplish the seemingly simple task. Counting voters who participate in particular elections is something that even the hulking, old, mechanical Shoup machines could do with their antiquated design that was largely unchanged from the 1880s. "This opens a can of worms," City Clerk Anthony Conti said. |
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Listen to Voting Hero Bruce Funk from Utah
We recently interviewed Funk on the radio concerning that evaluation, and his subsequent removal from office in its wake. |
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5/4/06 |
 Printer problem delays voting results
Election watchers at the Hamilton County Government and Judicial Center have been waiting patiently for more than two hours since the polls closed for vote tallies to come in. A printer problem in the Voter Registration Office has delayed the release of voting reports. The printer problem was fixed, Richardson said shortly after 8 p.m., but she decided to run a complete series of voting results from the county's cartridge machines before releasing any numbers.
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ES&S Mess in Arkansas
“I made the decision today to limit the use of electronic voting for the early voting period because it became clear that our voting system vendor, Election Systems and Software, could not complete programming and testing of the electronic ballots in sufficient time for use next Monday to ensure accurate elections,” Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels said. ... White County is one of those eight that will receive electronic ballots in time. In each of the eight counties there is a contested federal election. ... “The remaining counties have been instructed to plan for the use of paper ballots during early voting, and we will support them in that process,” Daniels said. ... Daniels said the resources of Election Systems and Software were insufficient to fully meet those deadlines in time for early voting and that he was disappointed.
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5/3/06 |
State Report: Election Commisioners Annual Convention
One of the most important observations of the meetings were how tension between the state and county boards came out. On a Monday's afternoon session when Tom Wilkey spoke,
Finally, In NY, our election officials are starting to get it - the process of selecting new machines must be transparent and inclusive to the public. Our first victory was the recently passed NY regulations that gave the public more access to the process of machine certification. The second victory is that Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (www.nyvv.org), was appointed on May 2, 2006, as one of 12 members of New York States Citizen's Election Modernization Advisory Committee. Committee members will advise the NYS Board of Elections on voting systems and observe and participate in voting machine certification as it proceeds throughout the summer.
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 DIEBOLD DISASTER: Card tricks? Cuyahoga County Still Counting as 70 Memory Cards Missing from 200 Precincts; County election workers continued to count votes Wednesday, with about 85 percent of the votes cast on the touch-screen machines counted by 11:15 a.m. But 70 memory cards - with results from 200 precincts - were missing.
WKYC covers with a video report here
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 E-Vote Meltdown: Jefferson County, Arkansas Goes Back To Lever Machines
Jefferson County's new touch-screen voting machines won’t be making their debut until after the May 23 primary and June 13 runoff elections. The Jefferson County Election Commission voted unanimously Monday afternoon to instead use the county’s old lever machines. The panel had previously voted to use the new Electrical Systems and Software (ES&S) iVotronic Touch Screen Voting System, but Commission Chairman Trey Ashcraft said several ES&S "failures" forced a change in plans. "With early voting beginning (Monday) May 8, ES&S hasn’t provided us with many essential and critical tools necessary for us to conduct the election to the standards set by law and to our own high standards," Ashcraft said.
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 Indiana: problems caused by voter I.D.
It took one of the most-recognized faces in Indiana politics to create the first glitch for Indiana's new voter ID law. U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, a Democrat seeking her sixth term in Washington after 18 years in the General Assembly, was delayed at her Indianapolis polling site Tuesday when the congressional ID card she presented to confirm her identity didn't have the expiration date required under the new law. "It says for the 109th Congress, so that takes care of that," Carson joked later, referring to the term that expires at the end of this year. ...
In South Bend, Notre Dame sophomore Steve Przywara from Cincinnati wasn't allowed to vote because the only photo identification he had was his Ohio driver license and his university ID. He was aware of the new voter ID law, but thought his student identification would be acceptable. ...He was offered a provisional ballot, but turned it down because he didn't think he'd be able to get his birth certificate from home soon enough.
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5/2/06 |
 New York Fights the Feds: Case Closed!
With "great reluctance, ” the U.S. Department of Justice told a judge it does not oppose New York’s HAVA compliance plan filed earlier this month, given the potential for "electoral disarray" in the state's primary this fall. DOJ also asked the judge to require the state to file more information about accessible voting system deployment by June 15, 2006 and both long-term voting system and statewide registration database planning by July 15, 2006. Details here
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Ark. drafts contingency plan for voting machine problems (Daniels blames ES&S and makes excuses for them at the same time)
ES&S has missed another deadline, this time in Arkansas, which means that absentee ballots will not be sent out to qualified Arkansans on time and as per the state law.
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Wisconsin voters to use paper ballots instead of touch screens"Our council feels more comfortable with paper ballots to verify voter intent," City Clerk Cindi Hesse said.
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Mini-Rebellion Averted As Town Transfers Voting Keys
In an act of defiance that approached the tea dumping party in the Boston Harbor in 1773, when asked by the county in January, Pound Ridge refused to give the county its keys to its lever voting machines. “It was the consensus that the machines were ours,” Gary Warshauer, town supervisor said. “We wanted to know what they were going to do with them and we wanted to know how our residents were going to vote.”
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 4-Year-old Voting Machine Ain't no Thoroughbred
Georgia's $54 million purchase of electronic voting machines in 2002 was hailed as a pioneering move that put the state on the cutting edge of elections technology. But just four years later, the machines could be headed for the same fate as their outmoded predecessors. |
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5/1/06 |
 West Virginia SOS Makes Excuses for ES&S
West Virgina's Secretary of State Betty Ireland recently issued a press release: "Voting machine vendors across the nation are faced with the daunting task of servicing all 50 states at one time," the release said. "Sometimes this can happen when sweeping federal legislation affects all 50 states." Why is the Secretary of State making excuses for Elections Systems and Software (ES&S), the state's voting machine vendor? Yes, ES&S has failed to meet their contract in West Virginia and, yes, ES&S has a daunting task. However, any failures in meeting their contract with the state are of ES&S's own making. They have certainly been paid well enough by tax-payer money to do the job they agreed to do. Would any non-government contractor be given such latitude in meeting obligations of a signed, well-funded contract?
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 What is your biggest fear for Tuesday's election?
When asked by a reporter, "Which is harder to manage, your two children or ES&S?" Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler responded, "Oh, ES&S, definitely. My children are really very easy. In fact, at times I think my children would have done a better job with the voting machines. And they're (ages) 7 and 4."
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Bo Lipari answers question on WAMC
New Yorkers for verified Voting Executive Director, Bo Lipari discussed the implications of the new regulations on voting machines on The Roundtable hosted by with Susan Arbetter and Joe Donahue. Answering one caller, Bo said, "The new regs disallow any [internet] connection with any machines and that is an important concern that are directly addressed in the regulations."
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 Great song - "They Lost My Vote"
I lost my faith in the government
When they changed the rules without my consent
Don’t wanna be nobody’s experiment
I just want to know where my ballot went
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4/30/06 |
VIDEO: Fixing Elections: Who Will Your Voting Machine Vote For?
Filmed panel discussion includes Paul Lehto, 4/25/2006
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4/29/06 |
 NYVV BOOTH AT PEACE MARCH
NYC, April 29, 2006.
Almost a dozen volunteers manned the NYVV booth. Vicky Perry greetted Jessee Jackson as he hurried past the booth with Al Sharpton to raise his awareness of the paper ballot issue. Vicky was later interviewed by independent filmakers.
Three-hundred thousand concerned citizens enjoyed a day of active democrcy. Many stopped at the NYVV booth, drawn by a large banner reading "The Computer Ate My Vote". Bo Liapri fielded questions and Teresa Hommel assiduously got signatures for a NYC-specific effort to get PBOS.
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4/28/06 |
 TV Report: How Voter-Friendly Are Electronic Voting Machines?
Every state which uses [ES&S] voting machines has reported some kind of computer glitch during voting. Problems have been reported in Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. But because of their user-friendly system, the iVotronic system was still chosen locally.
However, many are concerned about the validity of the machines in the long run. ... a spokesman for the company which sells the machines said, in many cases, it's human error - not the machines - that's the problem.
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Vendor Credentials include ...
In 1998, North Carolina MicroVote salesman Ed O’Day was convicted of bribing an election administrator in Mecklenburg County with $134,000 in kickbacks over a seven-year period as reward for purchasing MicroVote equipment. MicroVote officials have claimed that O’Day was not a direct employee of the company and that they had no knowledge of the criminal activity, according to the Charlotte Observer.
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County backs away from touchscreen voting
Vote-PAD, a non-electronic, booklet-style voter-assist device, which helps people with visual or dexterity impairments to vote, can be customized for different elections’ hand-counted or optically-scanned paper ballots. “We just decided that it would be the most secure way at this point,” Crnich said Thursday. |
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4/27/06 |
 Pa. lawmakers want voting-device break
Pennsylvania Republicans met Tuesday with the top civil rights official in the U.S. Justice Department to review the state's struggles to comply with a law that forces states to purchase new voting devices. State Rep. Charlie Dent, U.S. Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter met on Tuesday with Wan J. Kim -- head of the Civil Rights Division, which enforces the new voting law. They fear that several Pennsylvania counties may be forced to pay back some or all of the federal funding they have received if they fail to eliminate their pull-lever or punch-card voting machines by the May 16 primary.
Officials in both parties are worried about the new voting devices.
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 Little Rock Ark: Where's the Software??
Primary election day is just a month away, but the state's biggest county may not be ready.The Pulaski County Election Commission is holding emergency meetings to figure out what will happen if voting machines aren't ready in time for early voting in the May 23 primary.Tuesday, the commission received more than a hundred touch screen voting machines, but those won't work unless the county also gets the needed software. And so far, no word on when that will be available.
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 West Virginia TV Report of No Software on which to Vote:
Dozens of West Virginia counties are still without the federally mandated electronic voting machines for early elections - and Marshall County is planning for the worst. Marshall County elections officials are still waiting for the programmed cartridges that were promised last week.
Now, with each passing day, elections officials may have to forego the machines and order paper ballots instead. "If we don't hear something by the end of the week, it looks like we might have to abandon the electronic system," said Jake Padlow, Marshall County Commission president.
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4/26/06 |
 Ohio: is the IRS dragging its feet on investigation of churches supporting Blackwell?
The Washington Post reports: In a challenge to the ethics of conservative Ohio religious leaders and the fairness of the Internal Revenue Service, a group of 56 clergy members contends that two churches have gone too far. |
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ALERT to impending Database implementation in New York
Brennan Center report finds implementation of new state voter registration databases—required under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA)—could bar millions from the polls. Note: Californian League of Women Voters Sends Letter of Objection over the dis-enfranchisment inherent in their new database....
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New voting machines criticized in court hearing
Noel Runyan, an electrical engineer who is blind, testified as an expert witness on voting access for disabled people. He tested the iVotronics machine in Baltimore on Monday. After he spent 45 minutes trying to vote through its audio feature, it locked up and kicked him off. Mr. Runyan was not able to successfully vote. If given a choice, he said, he'd prefer voting on a levered machine with a sighted person helping him, rather than on the iVotronic machine.
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Blues breakthrough at BradBlog
Music By Shannon Williford
With bad news comes the blues. Like how the State is excluding citizens' groups from its convention, so the commissioners can listen to vendors and insiders. Or how about when Elliot Spitzer can turn around and say "Paper trails are what we want - not paper ballots" (paraphrased)? And even, today's Poughkepepsie Journal editorial is a letdown, with mistaken focus on "the State is slow" mantra. And note the "glitch" catchword. I believe this sentence tells the story that these editors don't see the light about PBOS vs DREs:
"There will be glitches in the systems; people fear change and will be wary of any new voting method ..."
So take a minute to listen to some "Election Reform"blues, becuase you never know when your vote won't count.
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4/25/06 |
TO whom the NY Election Commissioners listen
While NYVV is excluded from the annual convention of County & State ECs, the State Board has - for a second time - tapped R. Doug Lewis to speak. Want to know more about Mr. Lewis?
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No Verifiable Elections For Florida This Year
Does this sound familair: "The chair of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee ... defeat[ed] the paper trail legislation by simply refusing to place it on the committee’s agenda"?
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HR550 on a Roll
Matsui and Green Bring HR 550 Co-Sponsorship to 180
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4/24/06 |
New York's new Voting Machine Regualtions (finally) Posted for the Public
Passed on June 20th, these regulate certification. A second task for the Board will be the finish the job by passing regulations on acceptance testing and County operation. Security clause here.
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4/23/06 |
Emerging from temporary homes scattered around the country, Louisiana voters tried to choose a mayor they hope can restore this half-abandoned city. Some drove in from Baton Rouge, Houston and as far away as Wisconsin. Scores of others boarded buses from Atlanta. They sat through long drives that took them in the final stretch through the empty, forlorn neighborhoods they once occupied, and said they felt compelled to make themselves heard in an election many consider a turning point in the city's history.
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 Howard Dean on Electronic Voting Machines
"These machines are a problem. This is not some Internet conspiracy; this is a serious problem that faces American democracy. These machines are not reliable and they shouldn't be used. We should not be using machines in this country where the results of the vote can't be verified after the fact. Period. Any machines."-- 4/19/06
Are the Democrats getting serious about the voting machine issue?
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Disabilities and Ballot Markers: On April 17, 2006 the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems [now NDRN, the National Disability Rights Network] permitted this clarification of their position with respect to dexterity accessibility and voting machines to be reposted.
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4/22/06 |
New York: State struggles to meet election overhaul deadlines. In Rensselaer County: Nassau board still unclear after revote
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Voting Machines Not Certified
Indiana: Allen County – Train Wreck - County to use voting machines with non-certified software (MicroVote)
Editorial - Voters annoyed, but who's to blame? Editorial - Voting Machines: The Issue: State is looking hard at two big vendors. Our View: The heat is justified.
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 ES&S Mess
Indiana: Vote count may be delayed. Harrison machines returned for repair.
Oregon: State sues over voting machines for the disabled
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NYVV Statement on Accessibility and Paper Ballots
One of the most important aims of election reform under the Help America Vote Act is to correct injustices perpetuated by inaccessible polling places and voting equipment. New Yorkers for Verified Voting fully supports providing the highest level of accessibility to voters with disabilities.
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| 4/20/06 |
New Voting Machine Regulations Passed
Sequoia gets the last word on the new voting regulations: Report from the State Commissioner's Meeting Thursday, April 20, 2006 - Voting took place on improved Voting machine regulations. The Commissioners passed a partial set of Regs. on 4/20/06, up to and through Section 6209.09. The next section , Sec. 6209.10, Acceptance Testing, etc. will be revised. Apparently they wanted to get the certification provisions passed so they could proceed with the next stages of certification. PDF of REGS Here is the Security clause
Partisan Debate over Hiring Gartner to Write the New State Database Regs: There was a really contested exchange between Commissioner Kellner (D) and both Republican Commissioners touching on the approval of Gardner for drafting the database reulations. Commissioners were throwing around the "partisan" accusations.
State Board is Missing Deadlines with DOJ: On another note, New York is missing its deadline as negotiated with the Justice Department; Commissioner Kellner went, if not ballastic, at least explosive over the incompetence this portrays. Kellner said the BOE is by nature "a deadline conscoius agency". Detailed report & audio
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PA Lawsuit
The Allegheny County Pennsylvania suit brought by voters and PFAW against the county, state and federal government will be heard beginning next Tuesday in Pittsburgh. The lawsuit, which also names the state of Pennsylvania and the U.S. government, was filed last week. It claims the county's proposed $11.9 million purchase of 4,700 electronic voting machines from Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software was rushed and could pose problems during the May 16 primary.
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Ohio memory card problems
Summit County, Ohio's election director has predicted failure of the voting machines in their primary on May 2. ``There's still some disturbing news on the cards,'' said Allan Benek, vice president for client services for Election Systems & Software, the Omaha, Neb., maker of the new optical scan system.
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COOK COUNTY: Problems trigger uncertainty about vote tallies
A recount of ballots in Kane and DuPage County Illinois has been asked for partially because some voting machines were shut-down early due to the polls running out of paper for the DRE vvpat printers. |
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Passaic, New Jersey
Sequoia is over two months behind in delivering Advantage machines to New Jersey counties.
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In Indiana, MicroVote has been given until May 2 to make their uncertified equipment meet all state requirements or counties will not be able to use it in the primary.
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Indiana: Hand counts needed in 2 school board races
The problem stems from the complexity of the voting rules in those two townships. Voters must choose a certain number of candidates within each district and a total number within the township. e computer program can't handle the complexity of several variations within one list in case a voter fills in too many candidates. "The software wasn't written to cover this situation," said Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler. "It's pretty unusual."
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4/19/06 |
 Alaska Dems File Lawsuit to get at 2004 Election Data!
Privatization leads to loss of ownership of our own votes.
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Indianapolis-Based Voting Machine Maker Faces Tough Questions
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita swore in witnesses at a hearing he ordered to look into voting machine problems. The state argued that Broad Ripple-based Microvote broke several Indiana election laws. The state's lawyer claimed that Microvote sold uncertified voting equipment in at least two counties, that it supplied and permitted the use of unreliable voting equipment and that it marketed software that may not be approved for use during the May primary.
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 Audio of Voting (in)Security
Excerpt from the BArd College panel discussion with Miller and Bo Lipari.
This panel discussion featured Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too and Bo Lipari, executive director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting.
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 PA County Commissioner Force-Feeds TouchScreens
If you're nervous about using the [Diebold] voting machines Carbon County has bought for the May 16 primary, don't even think about using an absentee ballot instead. County Commissioners on Thursday warned voters that using absentee ballots to avoid using the new machines could invalidate their votes. Asked why he broached the subject, O'Gurek said after the commissioners Thursday meeting, ''There have been some comments made about it. Before that concept gets out there, we thought it would be prudent to alert people.'' The county has 35,400 registered voters.
And it seeme these voters want to avoid touchscreens also ...
The elections officials also have some concerns that they might not have enough paper ballots available to accommodate an onslaught of voters who might wish to use the opportunity to avoid voting on touchscreen machines.
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4/18/06 |
Rockland election clerk says she was fired
A previous story was: Rockland elections board hire criticized
Some background on the Rockland Couty Election Commissioners and their understanding of verified voting technology. |
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4/15/06 |
Most ridiculous quote for the day
 "The optical scan machine does not have a voter-verifiable paper trail.", said Kevin Evanto, spokesman for Allegheny County Pennsylvania Chief Executive Al Onorato. These officials chose ES&S's iVotronic Touch Screen Voting System (4,700 machines in place for the November 2006).
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Indiana Subpoenas Voting-System Company Ahead Of Primary. ES&S continues to get a lot of deserved heat in Indiana where they seem to have failed to uphold contractual agreements.
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 Election called a mess.
Losing candidates and the Republican party in Cook County, Illinois have joined together in a request for re-vote or re-counts of all races due to the poor performance of the voting system and elections officials in last month's primary.
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More on the HR 550 Lobby days
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4/14/06 |
VerifiedVoting Recommendations for EAC
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4/12/06 |
 New York files voting plan with court
State officials filed a plan Monday with a federal judge outlining how New York would comply with requirements that disabled voters can independently participate in this fall's elections. State submission to the Court describes the anticipated "Plan B" solution. NYVV analysis of the court filing...
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 Martinez Resigns from EAC
U.S. Election Assistance Commission Vice Chairman Ray Martinez III announced yesterday that he is resigning, effective June 30, 2006.
"One of the most alarming trends in our country is the continual erosion of voter confidence in the accuracy of our tabulated results," Martinez said. "The 2000 presidential election has adversely affected the opinion of the average American on our electoral process. "Since then, voter confidence has continued to trend in the wrong direction," Martinez added, "and it's unlikely to fade any time soon." At the top of his list was the idea that every state perform a regular election audit to determine that the administration of elections is fair, impartial and consistent with voter intent. The results of these audits should be widely dispersed.
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4/11/06 |
 Ion Sancho Profile
"What the companies have done is use (HAVA), which was designed to help correct the problems that were made manifest by the 2000 Florida election, and they've perverted that to essentially allow them to make millions selling equipment, which when we now look at the actual use in elections, is flawed," he said.
Interview with Ion Sancho (Part 2)
Interview with Ion Sancho (Part 1)
Ion Sancho's statement in support of HR550 bill: "The independent authority of election officials to provide honest and impartial elections conducted in a fair and efficient manner is under attack today. Partisan politicians in conjunction with some voting machine vendors are taking away the right of American citizens to cast their votes and have them verified as accurate. Congressman Holt's bill is how we must begin to protect our votes and end the erosion of public trust in our elections."
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 Minnesota officials check out AutoMarks in South Dakota
The machine offers assistance for voters with disabilities who may have trouble with the normal voting procedure. It doesn't count votes, it only marks the ballot for a disabled voter who needs help.
Until now, voters who had vision, hearing or physical problems had to have an election judge mark their ballots for them. The new machine gives those voters the same privacy that others have. Sue Roust, Minnehaha County auditor, says it's not clear how necessary the machines are.
"We have some precinct judges who say, 'I never have someone come in a wheelchair.' But this machine is much more than that," says Roust. "It's to help people with visual impairments. People who may not be able to read real well. And so we still aren't going to know because anyone can use it."
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Survey: Disabled prefer absentee ballots
"We heard from about 90 percent, and they said they’d much rather continue voting by absentee ballot," Jarvis said. "Some said, ’Please, don’t take our absentee ballots away.’ Others said, ’You can install new equipment, but I’m not going to use it. I want to vote by absentee ballot."’ |
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Early Voting Roadblock
New machine testing was scheduled to begin Monday morning, but was [dis]continued because certain voting software has not arrived.
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New York files voting plan with court
State officials filed a plan Monday with a federal judge outlining how New York would comply with requirements that disabled voters can independently participate in this fall's elections.
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4/10/06 |
 Emery County clerk still fighting to keep job
Deposed Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk, who was elected to the office, is fighting on. Funk outraged Emery County commissioners and the Lieutenant Governor's office last month when he allowed voting rights activists to test new touch-screen voting machines, potentially voiding their warranties. The manufacturer, Diebold Elections Systems, said restoring their integrity could cost $40,000. Funk maintains his county's 40 machines were defective and had suspicious vote tallies saved in their memories.
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E-VOTING 2006: The Approaching Train Wreck!
John Gideon writes: [This is] about contractors who are out to grab every dollar they can get and they don't seem to care that our elections are going to suffer
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Meanwhile...Utah Lt. Governor's office admits: some Diebold serial numbers changed
Utah elections division statements: "Yes, the acceptance testing process identified some units on which the serial number recorded in the memory was incorrectly entered and thus did not match the serial number affixed to the unit housing. In those cases technicians adjusted the number recorded in the memory to match the number affixed to the unit."
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 Why is this man smiling?
Congressman Rush Holt is gratified that hundreds of citizens from across the country came to Washington DC on "their own dime" to push for the bill Holt crafted, HR 550. Citizens visited 117 Congressional offices. Thanks to citizens' lobbying, ten new co-sponsors were found bringing to new total of co-sponsors to 177.
Pelosi Co-Sponsorship Caps Successful E-voting Lobby Days • • • • • • • • • • • AUDIO:Holt says the mechanism of democracy needs tending. AUDIO: Holt says that cynicism about our democracy is almost at the level of a crisis
By the time Rep. Holt (D-NJ), and HR 550 co-sponsors Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), and Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) spoke at a press conference on Friday morning, the number of new co-sponsors had risen to eight. New endorsements came from Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA), Rep. Steven Lynch (D-MA), and Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY). As the final meeting was concluding at the end of Friday afternoon, the call came from Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had brought the total co-sponsorship of HR 550 to 177. On Monday, Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) signed on as a co-sponsor.
Note: The HOLT bill is not supported by all election reformers - read why.
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4/9/06 |
 Exclusive Video:
Lee Massachusetts town clerk successfully oversees optical scan for a year and a half. Accuvote scanners for 3800 voters. Replaced eight levers machines with one scanner. 3200 voters, 35 marking booths and never had a line.
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With voting machine company now bankrupt, CEO speaks out: No vendor "has a system that voters can trust"!
“I have no idea what happened in Pennsylvania or Chicago. I don’t read about any of that.” Essex Co., New Jersey Superintendent of Elections Carmen Casciano when asked about recent problems with Sequoia machines. "I am not happy about the outcome, or the state of the industry. I think that something needs to be done. I'm not sure what it is, it probably doesn't include AccuPoll at this point, but I do not feel that any of the vendors has a system that voters can trust. I think that vendors outright misrepresent the robustness, stability, and security of their systems. You just have to look at the litany of problems and it points at one thing, bad fundamental design, and not enough checks and balances. I also wonder why the other vendors were so adamant in fighting a VVPAT system requirement. They spent much more in fighting it than in implementing it." Ex-AccuPoll CEO Dennis Vadura. Eleven Indiana counties were forced to suspend absentee voting when they found out that the ballots they were provided could not be read by their Diebold optical-scan machines.
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4/6-7/06 |
 HR 550 Lobby Days
Congressman Rush Holt is gratified that hundreds of citizens from across the country came to Washington DC on "their own dime" to push for the bill Holt crafted, HR 550. Citizens visited 117 Congressional offices.
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4/5/06 |
 I-Team 8 Finds More Problems with ES&S Voting Equipment
Once again, a voting machine company is breaking Indiana law and violating county contracts.Electronic voting machines were supposed to be working for early voting in the Johnson County courthouse. "This machine won't do anything," said Jill Jackson, Johnson County clerk.Jackson blames the vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S)."This is not fair to the voters of Johnson County, the taxpayers. They've paid for this equipment. They've paid for this service, and this is not acceptable," Jackson said.What's missing is a "smart card" that allows you to vote. For now, copied paper ballots will have to do for absentee voting.
Secretary of State Todd Rokita: Not my problem |
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Voting machines were not functioning
the malfunctioning machines were the result of an incorrect opening procedure, but he did not yet have specific details. Some paper ballots were cast, [Cinnamon] said. |
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Voting machine quandary persists
While many towns and school districts throughout Texas are wondering where they're going to find the money to buy new voting machines ... |
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Editorial: Don't punish counties |
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4/4/06 |
 ES&S Failures of Scanners and Touchscreens in Ohio:
In testing throughout March, the computer memory cards inside the scanners experienced high failure rates. Meanwhile, ES&S has discovered a problem with the firmware in its touch-screen electronic voting machines and is planning an upgrade for the 10 Ohio counties that use the equipment before the May 2 primary. (Firmware is software embedded in a hardware device.) |
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OH Sec. of State Blackwell Bought Shares of Diebold Last Year!
Ohio's Sec. of State (and Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney '04 Re-Election Committee) J. Kenneth Blackwell, "accidentally invested" in Diebold last year... Democrats weren't buying Blackwell's explanation."If he can't manage to know what's in his checkbook, why would the people of Ohio want to trust this man with the state's checkbook?"
Diebold making 'visits' to your equipment? Black Box Voting has received credible first-hand reports from multiple states that Diebold is making unannounced visits to counties, sometimes when the elections supervisor is out of town. Diebold
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Voting machine errors disturbing for league
"The testing and standards are designed by voting machine companies who have put a lot of money into marketing their products. Until we have technical standards designed by people not associated with the companies, we risk the possibility of all sorts of errors." said Eugene Spafford, professor of computer science at Purdue University |
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More Outrage ...
from the Right About a Voting Machine Company Tied to Hugo Chavez. But No Such Outrage About the Ownership of the RIGHTWING Voting Machine Companies... |
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4/3/06 |
Fishkill Forum: Residents wary of new voting styles in Dutchess County
Originally the forum at Fishkill town hall was to give the public a peek at voting machines being considered by the state. That changed when the machines didn't show up.
New elections machines debated in Fishkill
Close to 100 people packed the Fishkill Town Hall meeting room Thursday night to hear about the new types of voting machines being proposed for use in New York State under the federal Help America Vote Act. They weren’t able to see first hand what the machines look like as the sample units were elsewhere in the state.
 Sequoia NOT Certified in Pennsylvania
reported by Brad Freidman on the BradBlog on 3/30/2006
Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'
Send this news to every Election Commissioner in New York ...
Fishkill public hearing held by Assemblyman Joel Miller a smashing success.
Numerous comments stretching into three hours of testimony and exchange. Impassioned citizens' defense of their votes. Bo Lipari comments on citizen's advocacy and involvement in the election process ... News story incorrectly quotes Bob BRehm as saying "both types of machines" are equally reliable
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4/1/06 |
Calif. Senate Elections Committee grills two ITAs
The independent testing authorities (ITAs) should be preventing insecure voting from being certified. The testimony of these voting machine Independent Testing Authorities unravels rather badly.  Ciber, who will be doing the testing for New York State, did not show up, as senator Bowen states: "Ciber, has once again declined to appear. I received a letter yesterday from Ciber's CEO noting that although the company has 8,000 employees in 17 countries, there are only a handful of employees that work on voting systems and the company isn't in a position to go from state to state on hearings.So as with voting machine vendors, the Committee will be looking at ways to compel Ciber's appearance before the Committee since attempting to find a date that works has not been successful."
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4/1/06 |
 Progress since 2000 voting debacles questioned
"The states are acting in a hundred different directions and the result may be, in 2006 and 2008, a compounding of [a] meltdown," said Robert Pastor ... Asked to predict the future of election reform, [Norman] Ornstein said in jest, "We've looked at the future and it sucks."
Touch-Screen Voting Isn't The Right Answer
The problem is this: When discussing the integrity of any data storage, processing and retrieval system, the term "secure" is a misnomer. In the realm of computer science, there is no such standard ...
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a regional chapter of New Yorkers for Verified Voting 
