This past March, a Butler Co Ohio election official was examining the database from the just held primary. The official found a problem he was not looking for. It seems that two memory cards had not been downloaded even though the system had reported that it was. 150 votes were affected. That revelation led to an inspection of the system and a pronouncement by Premier/Diebold that there was a problem with the interactivity between the GEMS software and anti-virus software. This problem has led to a lawsuit and counter-suit. Recently SoS staff and Premier/Diebold staff went to Butler Co to look closer at the software in question. Today it was announced that Premier has admitted that their GEMS software has a programming error and that this error goes back over ten years worth of software. Of course, they make the highly implausible claim that no votes were lost during all that time. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner also has said that no votes were lost in Ohio. However, Brunner ignores the fact that the problem has been on the machines for years and just because they found the problem in March does not mean the problem did not affect elections in previous years....

Tonight’s Featured article discusses the report from VotersUnite.Org that we discussed in this space on Monday. The report does not just tell what is wrong; it also tells about what states and local jurisdictions can do that is right. “Researchers then offer solutions by highlighting the story in Luzerne County, Pa., where election director Leonard Piazza in 2006 refused to allow ES&S to service its voting machines. Instead, Piazza and his staff perform most maintenance functions and ballot design programming without letting vendor representatives upgrade the machines or come near county precincts during an election. It's not too late, Theisen said, for more public officials to take election administration into their own hands come November.”...

Today’s general news has articles about an expanded post-election audit in Connecticut. SOS Bysiewicz has ordered an audit of the results of the August 12 primary. This audit will be of 33% of the precincts. This audit plan had input from UConn. We congratulate the state for taking this step.

Meanwhile in Ohio Secretary of State Brunner has taken a huge step toward securing the voting machines in her state. She has outlawed all "sleepovers" of voting systems at poll workers homes prior to election day. We congratulate the Secretary for taking this step....

The Executive Summary of a new report from VotersUnite.Org, and our Featured article, begins: “As we approach the 2008 general election, the structure of elections in the United States — once reliant on local representatives accountable to the public — has become almost wholly dependent on large corporations, which are not accountable to the public. Most local officials charged with running elections are now unable to administer elections without the equipment, services, and trade-secret software of a small number of corporations.

If the vendors withdrew their support for elections now, our election structure would collapse.

However, some states and localities are recognizing the threat that vendor-dependency poses to elections. They are using ingenuity and determination to begin reversing the direction.”...

There were two interesting admissions in yesterday’s New York Times article and today’s “Featured” article. Chris Nelson, Secretary of State of South Dakota, admitted that the voting machines used in his state for voters with disabilities do not always mark ballots accurately. Also election officials in Chicago admit their voting machines do not always accurately count the vote. Both jurisdictions admit inaccurate vote counting by their voting machines yet neither of them has done anything about it. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 mandates that accurate voting systems be used in our elections. These, and other comments about the NYTimes article, are discussed in the second “Featured” article....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

The New York Times has again given a platform to the voting machine vendors to voice their displeasure with a system that is forcing them to actually provide voting systems that are fully tested and certified. The vendors, and some election officials, seem to want to continue the old system of poorly tested and rubber-stamped voting systems counting our votes.

In his article, Ian Urbina, quotes Jennifer Brunner, who says:

If Brunner expects high quality and consistent standards, all she needs to do is look to the vendors and question them on why they put out a product that fails in testing. Her state's recent countersuit of Premier/Diebold was a start, but why did she wait until she was sued by the vendor before taking that step? As we asked recently, why did she ignore the pleadings of Election Integrity Attorneys and computer scientists who counseled her to file a suit against Premier/Diebold for breach of contract for so long?

Brunner also needs to question the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) qualification system (most often referred to as "federal certification" by most officials and vendors) and those involved in the process as to why they allowed non-compliant voting systems to be given their stamp of approval on behalf of the federal government in the first place. If the so-called federal Independent Test Authorities and NASED had done their jobs prior to 2007, the machines used in Ohio and the rest of the nation would not now be constantly failing, and the voters would have far more confidence in the electoral system.

Doug Chapin of the Pew Center project electionline.org must have just come from last week's Election Center conference, where election officials and vendor representatives gather and talk about issues of importance to the lucrative American Voting Industry. He is quoted in the Times with this remarkable comment...

In today’s “Featured” article Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America voices the opinion shared by many veterans, including this writer, with regards to actions by the Department of Veterans Affairs with regards to voter registration help to our nation’s veterans. For some reason the DVA just does not want our veterans to be able to vote....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.org

In an article at Huffington Post, Paul Rieckhoff, the Executive Director of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), has spoken out against the Bush Administration's ban on voter registration activities in our nation's Veterans Affairs facilities. Writes Rieckhoff:

Readers of The BRAD BLOG will know, this is a very important issue for us and we thank Rieckhoff for adding his important voice to this most important of American issues.

If I lived in Butler Co Ohio I would be very concerned about whether my vote was going to be counted this November. If you recall Butler Co uses Diebold/Premier DREs and in the March primary and April recount over 200 votes nearly went uncounted. The cause of the problem proved to be a conflict between the voting system software and anti-virus software. Rather than take action against Diebold/Premier, as recommended by Election Integrity attorneys, the state sat back until the vendor sued them and nearly forced the state to counter-sue. But the county, and many others in the state, will be using the same voting system with the same software in November.

Diebold/Premier claims to have a software patch but also claims it will be years before they can use it because it has to have federal approval. Meanwhile, Secretary of State spokesman Kevin Kidder says, "We've never lost a vote because of the problems we cite in the counterclaim because election officials have caught them. We can't prevent it. We can only catch the problem and correct it."

As good as election officials may be they cannot and will not catch everything and when they don’t find a problem it means votes are lost or incorrectly tabulated. The solution should have been to force the counties involved to go to paper based systems. It’s too late for that now...

Voter registrations and voter registration data bases have been a huge problem during the primary elections. There is no reason to believe that they will not be a huge problem in November. One of the only ways to ensure a voter is registered is for that voter to check his or her registration. We recommend every voter check now and then check again just before the voter’s state registration closes before November. We urge voters who find themselves purged from the registration roles to write letters of complaint to their local Boards of Supervisors, especially their own representatives, with copies to their SoSs, their local newspaper Editors, and their congressional members. If those responsible for representing the citizenry start receiving such letters they might act to eliminate the cause. You can find out the date that your state is closing registration and whom to check with to ensure your registration is still HERE. You should also give 1-866-OUR-VOTE a call and report the incident to them They may be able to assist you on the legal side [See our Featured article]...

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, Sen. Diane Feinstein tries to defend her “Bipartisan Electronic Voting Reform Act” against the editorial accusation that her bill is just “A Bad Electronic Voting Bill”. The Senator tries to make the point that no other voting systems legislation will pass in this Congress. She forgets, “First, do no harm”. Her bill allows software verification schemes which will allow the proliferation of DRE voting systems. This bill is a huge step back and she knows it. As a friend pointed out, Feinstein essentially is saying that the best they could do was to make matters worse, and they are still demanding praise for taking action. Before going on summer break the Senator’s Committee on Administration and Rules held a hearing on the bill. No one from the Election Integrity Community was invited to give testimony; only supporters of the vendors and a few chosen for their known pro-DRE positions. No matter how the Senator colors this bill it is still BAD LEGISLATION....

As Steven Rosenfeld says in his Alternet article, and this evenings “Featured” article, “The first large block of voters to be disenfranchised in 2008 are the wounded warriors from recent wars and homeless veterans living at hundreds of Department of Veterans Affairs facilities across the country, according to veterans and voting rights activists.”

While the state Department of Veterans Affairs in Connecticut has allowed the Secretary of State to register voters in one facility, the national office has not budged off of their insistence that no voter registration drives can happen on their property. The House and Senate must pass their legislation to instruct the DVA to allow voter registration drives when they return from their August vacation. ...

For over two years Election Integrity attorneys have been urging the state of Ohio to file suit against Diebold/Premier, ES&S, and Hart for failure to meet their contractual obligations with the state. The Secretary of State ignored that urging. It was only after Diebold/Premier filed suit against the state that the state took action in a countersuit. Rather than being courageous plaintiffs in this case, the state is a defendant and Diebold/Premier chose the most favorable court to hear the case. If the state had done the right thing two years ago they very well may have had the funds to have gotten rid of all Diebold DREs in the state for this November. Instead counties are still at the mercy of Diebold and their flawed voting systems. And remember, it may be Diebold/Premier in this case but the other vendors play the same game in different ball parks. They are all complicit. For more on this issue see HERE....

Today we are going to have a change of pace and introduce a new word to the vocabulary of some. This is actually a word that I heard for the first time a couple days ago and I like learning new words. Today’s word is “obscurantism”. What does obscurantism have to do with voting issues you ask? Obscurantism (‘tist) is defined as the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known. There are two common senses of this: (1)opposition to the spread of knowledge—a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public; and (2) a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. It seems to me that the voting machine vendors are an excellent example of both definitions of obscurantist....

Today we have two “Featured” articles. The Connecticut Office of Veterans Affairs, under threat of a lawsuit, has allowed Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz to enter the Veterans Hospital in West Haven to register voters and to do voter education. Let’s hope this is a small hole that will finally cause the wall between the DVA and veteran’s rights to vote to crumble into dust.

More good news from the US Election Assistance Commission where computer scientist and election integrity advocate Dr Barbara Simons has been selected to fill a seat on the EAC Board of Advisors. This is a good addition as Dr. Simons will add a voice of reason to combat the voices of the vendor’s surrogates who are on that committee....