VotersUnite wants to wish every one a safe and sane holiday. Take a little time and read our Declaration of Independence. It is awe inspiring.

In today’s featured article one Palm Beach Co Florida commissioner wants to see about contracting with Sequoia to provide review and assistance in the voting-counting process. Is this where we are at now? Sequoia added some security software to the system and the county workers were not trained on that software change so they failed to count 700 votes. Now the county wants to pay Sequoia to have a more active part in counting votes. Rather than fixing the problems and hiring people who understand the system counties appear ready to out-source our elections. The problem is with the vendors. When we get them out of the process we will be much better off. And, the county plans on disabling the security feature that was installed. Amazing....

In our featured article today, Pima Co Arizona officials have told the Secretary of State that they don’t think much of her opinion on how the county should ensure the security of elections. One member of the county Board of Supervisors said, “"I am a little fed up with the secretary of state acting as a barrier and leaving us to take the blame”....

New Yorkers should be concerned about the quality of their voting systems. In today’s featured article Rady Ananda quotes the Co-Chair of the New York State Board of Elections (SBOE), Doug Kellner, who has said, “The voting industry sells crap, and that is the problem”. Ananda goes on to relate problems discovered with voting machines once they get to the counties, after SBOE testing. One county has complained that their Sequoia Ballot Marking Device (BMD)[voting machines for voters with disabilities that mark a ballot but do not tabulate the results] printers jam. It seems that Sequoia knows all about this defect but has neglected to mention it to the counties. Ananda goes on to compare the “crap” with the lever voting machines the state’s voters have used for decades. ...

“Daily Voting News” wants to congratulate and thank Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz for taking a stand against the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. Earlier this month the Secretary requested permission to visit veteran facilities in her state to register veterans to vote and instruct them in how to vote on the state’s machines. She was denied permission. The Secretary accompanied by the Attorney General, veterans, and representatives of veterans organizations defied the DVA and visited one facility to blast the policy, register veterans to vote, and to distribute information on the state’s new voting systems. The Secretary said, in part, “I view this denial of access both as a civil rights violation of the deepest measure and as a moral slap in the faces of those veterans who are supposed to be served by the VA Connecticut Healthcare System”....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite

The federal Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) has decided, this year, that veterans under their care do not need to vote, so they have ruled that any voter registration drives or other voting related issues are in violation of the Hatch Act. Of course the Hatch Act is a law that keeps federal employees from participating in partisan politics and veterans in veterans' hospitals and nursing homes are not federal employees but the DVA has chosen to ignore that fact.

The Secretary of State of Connecticut, Susan Bysiewicz, decided "Not In My State," so after asking permission to visit veterans' facilities in the state in order to register veterans and show them how to use the state's voting machines and being denied permission she, and the state AG, decided to defy the feds.

UPDATE - 7/1/08: The New Haven Register reports today that Secretary Bysiewicz registered a handful of veterans, including one 92-year old WWII veteran, while standing outside the front door of the New Haven Veterans Center.

"There was nobody here to do this last year," said Martin Onieal, the WWII vet of the Italian and North African campaigns.

Suddenly, when faced with a protest and possible law suit, the director of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System decided that he would reinterpret the rules from the Department of Veterans Affairs and blame any problems on a new employee. He told the Secretary that as long as she signs up as a volunteer and certifies that the registration drive is non-partisan, all is well. Of course this is after two unanswered letters and a phone call on Friday denying her access.

Will other states now take up the gauntlet for our veterans? Will congress step up and put a stop to the misuse of the Hatch Act and disenfranchisement of our veterans? We deserve much better than this.

The Secretary of State's original press release from yesterday follows below...

Today three featured articles discuss an issue of over 700 votes that just about went uncounted in Palm Beach Co. Florida this past week. But for the fact that the county did an audit and eventually found that election results on from three machines had not been reported in the totals. It is still unknown what happened with these three machines. There is speculation that a card reader may not have worked properly. Another excuse is that the cards may never have been counted at all. The county is investigating. What seems to be incredible is that the when asked by the media early Friday about the discrepancy the Supervisor of Elections, Arthur Anderson, told them that he was not aware of a problem because he was out campaigning for re-election. Typically the Sequoia spokeswoman, Michelle Shafer, ignored the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as she claimed that the public can be confident that the optical scanners worked and votes were properly recorded and tabulated. She ignores the fact that the voters were not properly reported....

The state of New Mexico has a couple recounts that must be done because of close election results in those races. Previously recounts were accomplished by rereading the memory cards. One candidate in one of the recounts protested this means of finding out the real results of the election. The Secretary of State has now changed the process and the paper ballots will now be recounted. This will happen for all ballots except those from two Cibola County precincts where the ballots came up missing. Those two precincts will have their memory cards read and the Attorney General is considering an inquiry into what happened to the missing ballots....

Ohio counties were required, in the March primary, by the SOS, to have paper ballots on hand, at each polling place, for any voter who wanted to use them and in case there were problems with DRE voting machines. Secretary Brunner wants the same thing for the general election. The difference may be that counties will have to actually ensure those ballots are at the precincts and that the voters are told they have an option. The Ohio Association of Election Officials is making excuses for those counties that do not already have paper ballots and they are fighting any directives from the SOS....

This is a good opportunity for us to remind all of our subscribers that 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 their registration. We recommend every voter check now and then check again just before the voter’s state registration closes before November. You can find out the date that your state is closing registration and who to check to ensure your registration is still HERE:...

Today’s featured article comes from Colorado but it could just as easily come from many states in the nation. The article discusses the changes that are being made in election technology; changes to the good. There will be more paper ballots and less touch-screens used in the coming Nov. election when compared to the last couple national elections. The state Senate Majority Leader is quoted as saying this about the election integrity community, “I believe the group has gotten larger. It's become more mainstream and people are paying more attention to them. They are an entity that's at the table and has a voice that is listened to”. Meanwhile the Secretary of State told the newspaper, “"I think they have a fundamental belief that anything electronic, as it relates to voting, is evil and undermines our political system. They live in a world of conspiracy theories and are highly motivated. No matter what I do, so long as it leaves some form of electronic voting intact, it will be wrong by their standards”. I’ll leave it to the reader to make up their mind who is correct....

Today we begin something new; a “Featured Article”. Whenever there is an article that we feel is a must read, we will list that article at the top of the list of articles.

Today’s “Featured Article” is about John Gardner, the ex-Colorado SoS’s voting systems expert. The ‘expert’ who had little to no IT experience and who admitted in court that he was not qualified to hold the job. The man who kept his job even after his court admission and who led the testing of the state’s voting systems for present SoS Mick Coffman. It seems clear from this article that the voters in Colorado need to be very concerned about the voting machines they may be using in Nov....

Recently in this space I reported that a report from the Ohio SoS to the Governor and Legislature glossed over the fact that, among other issues, four of eleven counties who did hand-count audits found discrepancies and had to change the results of their certified elections based on the audit results. Three of those counties were DRE counties and the vvpat paper tapes were the source of the hand-count. Why was there a difference in the count of the vvpats as compared to the count of the machines? If the vvpats cannot be hand-counted accurately then why are some satisfied that DREs with a vvpat are good enough? If the vvpat count was accurate then why are some satisfied with the use of DREs that are flawed? ...

A New Jersey judge today reversed her opinion and ruled that computer experts who will be inspecting the state’s Sequoia voting machines can release the results of their research to the voting public. The inspection will begin immediately and probably not wrap up until late September and the results can then be released.

Richard Hayes Phillips new book, “Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election” nearly never made it to press. The original publisher, even though there was a signed contract, suddenly decided to suppress the book and not publish it. Phillips, being dogged, found a local printer and book binder and did his own typesetting in order to get the book out to the public. This book is a primer on the many and varied ways of analyzing election results and for that it is valuable....

Want a Diebold DRE? Ballot box? Tamper proof seal? Smart card? Well, Diebold is holding a “Red Hot Summer Sale” and everything must go.

I want to go back to my comments in yesterday’s DVN about the ETC and their report. Prior to the EAC taking over voting system testing and certification from the National Association of State Election Directors the vendors had a direct line to the volunteers who approved and qualified the testing of the voting systems. The vendors wined and dined election officials at gatherings of Secretaries of State, State Election Directors, and the Election Center. They had a close relationship with those who reviewed testing and made the decisions as to whether voting systems should be qualified; and they always were. No wonder voting systems fail with regularity. Now the vendors have lost the ability to influence the system and they don’t like it at all. The jury is still out but our voting systems have to be better for all of the scrutiny they are getting before certification. It’s time to give the vendors a hanky to dry their tears. ...

Last Friday election activist and founder of the Florida Fair Elections Coalition, Susan Pynchon, announced her run for Volusia County Supervisor of Elections. Susan joins Ellen Brodsky, who is running for the same position in Broward County and who is also a member of Florida Fair Elections Coalition.

The vendor’s lobby group, The Election Technology Council (ETC), recently published a report in which they whine about not having the power that they had before the EAC took more control over the voting system testing and certification program. The ETC wants the testing and certification process to be easier for them. They want to be able to engage EAC commissioners and staff in ex parte conversations. And they want a seat at the table on the Technical Guidelines Development Committee. In all cases the EAC has said NO! and today EAC Chair Rosemary Rodriguez has reiterated that NO!, loudly and clearly. We thank the Chair and the rest of the commissioners for taking this stand for the voters. We need well tested voting systems and not voting systems that have been certified just because the testing would take too long....