Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Thank you to those who have already responded to our plea for funds. Your support is very much appreciated. Anyone still wishing to assist can find the information to make a tax-deductible donation to VotersUnite via PayPal or with a check here VotersUnite! is in affiliation with International Humanities Center, a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Section 501[c](3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Thank You....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

We know well that money is tight and everyone seems to have their hands out for a bit of your hard earned money. Unfortunately we have to be one of those and ask for some help. We don’t have any premiums (Our books sold out and thank you to all who helped out and received a book. We hope you enjoyed them.). We do have our work product though. Your help is greatly appreciated. $5 or $500 will be greatly appreciated and will allow us to continue doing this work for awhile longer. You can go here to help us. VotersUnite! is in affiliation with International Humanities Center, a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Section 501[c](3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Thank You....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Were you aware that HAVA mandates the accuracy of voting machines? Were you also aware that many of the voting machines used in elections today fail miserably to meet those mandates? The maximum legal error rate is 0.0002% or one error in 500,000 ballot lines. We have now begun to list the machines that have failed to meet those limits and some of the results are stunning. Who is regulating this failure to meet federal law?

On Tuesday an excellent report was issued by “Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under The Law.” It is an excellent report on the primary elections so far this year. (See the first link below)....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Again we want to remind everyone to check that they are registered to vote. Call your county or state officials and ensure your voter registration is up to date. A large majority of experts all agree that voter registration data bases will be the big problem this November. If you are in one of the states that has not had their primary/caucus check before election day....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today the House GOP members managed to block Congressman Rush Holt’s emergency voting bill with a 239 – 178 vote; a 2/3 majority was required for passage. It is unknown at this time what the next move will be. Maybe an all-out ban on DREs? The bill would get nowhere but it would bring the Election Integrity Community back together.

Today is “Match Day” for Sequoia. Can they satisfy Smartmatic with a matching offer that will save themselves from Hart Intercivic? And, if they do, will they have enough funds left to continue paying their contracts and employees? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The news from New Jersey is a bit distressing though probably not at all surprising. The Secretary of State, who just this month took over control of elections from the Attorney General, is backing Sequoia Voting Systems against concerned counties and the voters of the state. In a press release from last week and resulting news articles they have misstated the facts with regards to recent court decisions and have tried to make it appear that Princeton Professor Ed Felten rushed to judgment and made inaccurate statements. Let’s hope that Hart Intercivic will be a more ethical, honest vendor when they take over Sequoia. Any improvement is a pipe dream but it’s nice to dream occasionally....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Peter Lichtenheld, a spokesman for Hart Intercivic, told a Kane Co Illinois reporter (see below) that the Hart Intercivic voting machines received rigorous federal testing. This is the same disinformation put out by the other top voting system purveyors. Just like the other three Hart Intercivic paid Ciber Labs for their services in doing that testing. Of course, Ciber Labs was denied federal accreditation by the EAC for not properly filling out documents and for not accomplishing required testing. Lichtenheld needs to check his facts. It appears that if Hart’s take-over of Sequoia Voting Systems is successful there will be no real difference.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It appears that Sequoia Voting has misrepresented the facts to their customers in Pennsylvania and those customers and the media have gone along with the tales. Sequoia has told election officials in Montgomery Co that the recently reported problems with their voting machines in New Jersey are simply a poll worker problem wherein the poll worker pushed the wrong buttons. That excuse has been roundly and soundly questioned by New Jersey election officials and it does not pass the sanity test. Sequoia has now admitted to installing a “software adjustment” and a “panel” to preclude a poll worker from pushing the wrong buttons. The first question is how did Sequoia make these adjustments to hardware and software without getting them tested and certified by either the state or federal certifiers? The second question is, if the problem can be fixed as Sequoia claims then why are they spending tens of thousands of dollars; money they can use to keep themselves from being swallowed up by Hart Intercivic; for a test lab to check their source code to find what the problem was in New Jersey? Or are they really paying to have that inspection done at all? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today it was revealed that a “little fish” may devour a “bigger fish” as Hart Intercivic attempts a hostile takeover of Sequoia Voting systems. Will the Sequoia principals be able to scrape up enough money to stop Hart? Time will tell.

One of the often overlooked mandates in HAVA is an accuracy requirement. Recent problems with Sequoia Advantage machines in New Jersey and Diebold/Premier TSx DREs in Butler Co Ohio violate that mandate (federal law). And, they don’t just barely violate the law but they destroy it. In the case of Sequoia the error rate is more than 600 times as high (or 60,000%) as the maximum error rate allowable under by federal law. In Ohio the Diebold/Premier machines the error rate is between 400 to 900 times (40,000% to 90,000%) the rate allowed by federal law. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Newspapers in New Jersey are reporting that Sequoia has gone to court in an attempt to quash the subpoenas of voting machines from six counties. One has to wonder what Sequoia has to hide. They claim to have sent the system used in New Jersey to Wyle Labs to be inspected. They also claim that Wyle is independent, however, Sequoia is paying for the inspection and Wyle has in their best interest to not find any problems because they previously tested this voting system and allowed it to be qualified by NASED. If they find any problems Wyle would open themselves up to the question of why did they not find that problem when they ITA tested the system a couple years ago?

{Ed Note: Sequoia's 82-page court filing today may now be downloaded here [PDF, 7.5mb]. - BF}

Diebold/Premier has responded to the 105 lost votes in Butler Co., Ohio, by claiming there was an “anomaly” and that it had never happened before. Hopefully an investigation into this problem will give us the facts. Of course, Diebold/Premier may do the same as Sequoia and try to hide those facts from the voters.

Those stories, all linked below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The GEMS data base used with Diebold/Premier TSx DREs in Butler Co., Ohio, last month seems to have a problem. The election board has reported to Diebold/Premier and the Ohio Secretary of State that during loading of memory cards from the DREs into the GEMS server two memory cards did not load even though the computer reported all cards had been loaded. This resulted in 105 votes being missed. It is not yet known if this is a statewide problem or if it is national. Of course, the only way news of this problem will get out is if members of the EI community do the work.

Six New Jersey counties have now been served with subpoenas for the Sequoia Advantage voting machines that were proven to have a problem. The machines will probably be going to Princeton for inspection. Naturally Sequoia says they are going to attempt to quash the subpoenas.

Those stories, and many more, linked below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Lackawanna Co Pennsylvania is leasing 85 old, no longer usable, Advanced Voting Solutions DREs to Elections USA Inc. EUSAInc is the company made up of ex-AVS officials that has taken over the AVS contracts. Now they claim they are going to use the machines to develop an electronic poll book. Who is this poll book being developed for? AVS is no longer in business and their machines are only used in very few jurisdictions. Why does EUSAInc. need 85 machines? Just two questions to ask an industry that has been involved in questionable dealings for years....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today we have the typical Sunday hodge-podge of news, editorials, and columns. I’ll take this space to remind every voter that one of the major problems we are seeing is voter registration databases and the fact that a lot of otherwise qualified voters are being left off of those lists. Check with your local elections office and, if necessary, the state and ensure your name is still in the file. Do it now and maybe again in October. Better safe than sorry....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

An inspection by Princeton’s Ed Felten of summary tapes not previously inspected from Sequoia Advantage voting machines used in New Jersey adds more evidence that Sequoia has misrepresented the cause of voting machine failures last February. Some of the summary tapes actually show that the total number of votes recorded on the machines is not accurate. That could not have happened under Sequoia’s nonsensical explanation that it was poll worker mistakes. It is clear that an investigation must be carried out with no involvement by the vendor.

Links to today's most notable voting new stories, including the above, follow below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Election officials in Pima Co., Arizona, have been on the wrong side of issues quite a bit lately. Because of this it is surprising that they may ask the Secretary of State to change the “Election Procedures Manual” to disallow tabulation of votes before election day, increase the size of hand-counted audits, disallow the use of modems to transmit results, improve ballot-verification procedures and chain-of-custody records, and other worthy changes. The county also wants to totally get rid of all DREs. It’s amazing what happens at times when a good citizen group stands up and demands that changes be made; people actually begin to listen.

{Ed Note: Yes, and it doesn't hurt that they had to take the county officials to court! Leave them little other option, eventually, but to do the above, or end up in court again. Thus, the actions of the Pima County officials aren't actually that "surprising" after all, given the tremendous work by the citizen advocates there, as John points out. - BF}

Meanwhile, in Georgia, citizens involved in an electronic voting lawsuit have announced they have filed a summary judgment motion seeking to ban the machines. The motion “centers on a lack of equal protection and due process that the plaintiffs claim Election Day voters have when compared to absentee voters who use optically scanned paper ballots. The motion contends that retention of tangible paper ballots is required for voters to verify their actual ballot choices, for election officials to provide true recounts as needed, to investigate voting discrepancies, to prevent fraud and to produce evidence for contested elections.”

Those stories, and the rest of today's notable voting news headlines, all linked below as usual...