Guest Blogged By John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

Local media and CNN are reporting that Horry County South Carolina's ES&S touch-screen voting machines are in a near total meltdown.

CNN reports:

Further CNN coverage here: "South Carolina primary plagued by bad voting machines"

This is happening in a state where election officials were recently asked about their paperless ES&S iVotronic touch-screen (DRE) voting system and the fact that other states have found the machines to be insecure, poorly designed, inaccurate, and not accessible for voters with disabilities. These officials have all said that they anticipated a smooth voting process for both the Republican presidential preference primary on Jan. 19 and the Democratic primary on Jan. 26 in South Carolina....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Direct Recording Electronic voting is on the wane. New Mexico has already gone from DREs to paper. Florida is in the process of making the change and will be there by Nov. Ohio may make the move from DREs to paper ballots before Nov. Colorado clerks in all but three counties want to go to vote-by-mail for all elections and their SoS has now flip-flopped over to their side. Maryland has now budgeted $6.8M to make the move. Yet officials in Northampton Co, Pennsylvania have decided to buy DREs from Sequoia and they won’t even have a vvpat printer. Even the vendors are beginning to admit that while they have made hundreds of millions of dollars selling flawed technology their time is coming to an end. Soon the DRE purveyor will go the way of the snake-oil salesman. But officials like those in Northampton need to look beyond their county border and realize there is a world out there and they can learn from more than just a “slick-willie” salesman who is selling them junk.

Tax payers in four California counties need to question their counties decision to file a wasteful lawsuit against the Secretary of State. How much San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Kern money was wasted in this attempt to not follow the rules? Kern stupidly announced they were joining the suit on Wed. and heard the tentative ruling against them on Thurs. That’s great planning....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today Congressman Holt has put forth a slimmed-down, modified version of his HR-811. This bill would reimburse all state and local jurisdictions that opted to convert to a paper ballot voting system, offer emergency paper ballots or convert audits by hand counts. Joining Congressman Holt in a press conference today were Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Robert Wexler. John Conyers has also signed on as an original sponsor of the bill according to reports.

Today the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Brunner in an attempt to stop Cuyahoga Co from switching to a paper voting system in time for the March 4 primary election....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

An urgent action alert has been raised in New York. As a result of the Department of Justice lawsuit regarding New York State's lever machine replacement, New York State's county level election commissioners have until February 8, 2008 to choose whether to use either a paper ballot based ballot marker and scanner system, or a direct recording electronic (DRE) voting system for each county.

After reaching a compromise with the federal court to provide ballot marking devices for disabled voters in each polling places in 2008, the New York State Board of Elections has recklessly redefined ballot marking devices to include DRE voting machines. Let's be clear - the untested DRE devices which commissioners are now empowered to purchase are not Ballot Marking Devices, they are DRE touch screen voting machines. Because this choice will commit over half of the funding available for new voting machines, if a county selects a DRE in February your county will vote on touch screen voting machines.

Concerned New Yorkers can help by notifying the county commissioners of the importance of choosing a paper ballot based system, and putting the media spotlight on the issue. It is urgent that you contact your local election commissioners in writing before the end of the month, and include newspapers and county legislators in that correspondence.

Please go HERE to learn how you can take action....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

I’m not going to hold my breath but it seems that maybe some common sense is now being used in Colorado. While SoS Coffman has everything mucked-up with machines decertified based on testing results and his offers to recertify them without any testing if a county appeals his decision. Now the Senate Majority Leader has stepped forward. Senator Ken Gordon, who lost in a bid for SoS against Coffman, is the co-chair of a task force looking at the election issues. He says that involved legislators and clerks have nearly come to an agreement that the voters will vote on paper ballots with either precinct or central-count optical scan or vote-by-mail. Vote-by-mail will be done much like it is in Washington state with centralized vote centers for voters with disabilities and anyone who wants to vote on an e-voting machine. A single system will be used throughout the state....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

VotersUnite Co-Executive Director Ellen Theisen called Kerry Asbridge, Hancock Co Illinois County Clerk, in regards to a news report from late last week that Mr. Asbridge had requested the DoJ to investigate the deceptive business practices of ES&S.

Asbridge spoke openly about how ES&S has treated his county; words that have been spoken previously by election officials across the country.

Ellen reports this from her conversation with Asbridge:

"The county, for years, sent their ballot information to ES&S on paper. Last year, the vendor told them they wanted it in Excel in a specific format. So, last November, the county sent it to ES&S as requested for this coming election. A week before Christmas, ES&S contacted them, said they had changed the format and **for a fee** would convert the data for them. The county resubmitted it themselves in the new format. Then a couple of weeks ago ... a repeat. New format, and for a fee ES&S would convert it."

How many other counties across the nation have had to face the same business practices from a vendor that has been called “arrogant” and, as one retiring Arkansas election official pointed out last year, they “lack competency to make their equipment work timely and effectively. They ... make a difficult job impossible to do. They can’t spell, meet deadlines, send documents to the right address or code elections correctly. They leave races off the ballot for us to correct, they can’t program their software to work and you have to hand add the results. And they don’t return phone calls. The ES&S people in Arkansas are capable but the people I have dealt with in the home office in Omaha prevent them from being effective. They are also mean-spirited when you try to get them to correct the numerous and recurring errors.”...

I have editorialized quite a bit lately about the “mash-up” in Colorado. Secretary of State Coffman has made a mess of a court ordered recertification of voting machines. The state hired consultants and test labs to test the machines. The results from those tests were that none of the systems used in the state met state requirements for voting systems. Coffman then decertified every system except the Premier/Diebold system and immediately people pointed out that the lobbyist for the vendor is also Coffman’s advisor for his planned run for Congress.

Then Coffman began to “flip-flop” as he began telling counties to retest the machines themselves or just to appeal his decision and he would change his mind. Then, this past week, the state legislature, including the Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, began talk of new legislation that would make it easier for the state to certify their voting systems. Essentially the legislature wants to protect Coffman from any further lawsuits about voting machine certification. Ken Gordon, by the way, ran against Coffman for Secretary of State in 2006.

It is truly unbelievable that these politicians are cutting corners with elections. They don’t seem to care if the voters use secure, accurate, accessible voting machines. They do seem to want to protect themselves from voters’ lawsuits. I would argue that the voters should stand and vote these bums out of office but it’s hard to do when the voting system is corrupt.

That story, and the many other notable voting news item today, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Congratulations to the Pima Co Arizona Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians who all worked together along with their attorneys and Election Integrity activists like John Brakey and Jim March. This group, and the countless other citizens of Pima Co, were able to convince the County Board of Supervisors that they need to release all of the data files from the Diebold system used by the county. Because this group was “rock-solid” in their stance they now have all of the files from the 2006 primary and general elections and the May 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election. These files will now be scoured for evidence of election fraud or hacking. The information obtained from them will be used to create a computerized tool that will help elections officials and political parties nationwide investigate their own local voting systems for security weaknesses that could be used to rig elections. Great job!!

A couple days ago I mentioned a letter from a Solano Co California Supervisor who wanted a Board of Supervisor’s hearing about last Nov.’s election and 1,321 phantom votes. The supervisor has now apologized for a mistake in computing the number of votes. The total is now 11 more votes cast than voters who voted. The Board of Supervisors has also put elections on the agenda for their next meeting....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

New Hampshire will now conduct a full recount of all ballots cast in the primary. This, after formal requests were made by Dennis Kucinich and Republican candidate Albert Howard.

Solano Co California Supervisor Barbara Kondylis has requested that the rest of the Board of Supervisors discuss the fact that in last November’s election in the county 1,321 more votes were counted on their ES&S voting machines than voters who voted. The Chair and immediate past-vice Chair, who set the board's meeting agenda, have refused to allow the Supervisor’s concerns to be heard. She has now sent an open letter to the citizens of the county in hopes they will pressure the Chairman to put this issue on the board's next meeting agenda.

According to reports from Colorado, the state legislature has “A bill to be introduced today would offer greater latitude in recertifying machines deemed subpar.” So, the machines are deemed to be “subpar” when being certified by present standards. In an upside-down world, it only makes sense to lower the standards to accept those “subpar” systems. Simply unbelievable. The Secretary of State and all complicit state legislators need to be recalled and replaced with people who will protect the voters of the state....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It appears that Hart Intercivic has admitted that the optical-scan tabulators certified by the state of Colorado and used in that state show a significant error rate when a ballot has stray marks. This was mentioned, and nearly lost, in an article in today’s Denver Post. The vendor has offered a software upgrade to Colorado and they think that upgrade MAY fix the problem. In the mean time counties across the country may be using these same machines with no knowledge of a problem and no knowledge that Hart is providing an upgrade to one state while ignoring theirs....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Yesterday while voters in New Hampshire were going to the polls a large group of activists filled the Board of Supervisors conference room in Pima County Arizona. A judge recently decided that the county should release the database from the 2006 primary and general election. The supervisors began by voting not to appeal the court’s decision. Then a raucous crowd of more than 60 people demanded to be heard. John Brakey was gaveled down and threatened with expulsion. The board decided to hear from the citizens and after hearing from about 20 the board turned totally and unanimously agreed to release the 2006 primary and general election data tapes, PLUS the RTA data that was the original reason for the court case. Great job by the folks in Pima County and by our friend John Brakey.

The Cuyahoga Co. Ohio Board of Elections is discussing the possibility of seeking a refund from Premier/Diebold for the DRE voting system that has been failing miserably for the past two years. As much as that system has been a disaster Premier should just refund the total purchase price of $21M and consider themselves lucky.

For the past two years counties in Arkansas have had huge problems with ballot programming supplied by ES&S. Many of those counties have decided to leave the vendor out of the process and they are doing it themselves. Any progress toward getting the vendors out of voting administration is good progress.

Just minutes ago it was reported that the county clerk in Hancock Co Illinois is requesting the DoJ to investigate the deceptive practices of ES&S....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Colorado’s Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, seems to be doing all he can to get away from the decisions he made recently that were negative toward the state’s voting machines. Amazingly he has allowed ES&S and Mesa and Jefferson Counties to run a test on their equipment in an attempt to prove his computer experts wrong. Of course, they can find none of the problems found during the testing done by experts for the state. Also today there are reports that Coffman called election officials in Denver last week and told them that all they need to do is to appeal his decision and he will probably change his decision. This all happened after Coffman met with Sequoia Voting Systems officials. Coffman might just as well have ignored the court when they told the state they had to retest and certify all voting systems. Simply amazing!!...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today is another busy day with news. The “Supremes” are about to hear the Voter-ID case and The New Yorker actually printed an article on the lack of voter fraud

There is also a new report put out by Common Cause that addresses Vote-By-Mail.

Also be sure to read the “The Kudzu Effect: The Voting-Industrial Complex Chokes Our Democracy” from Cleveland Free Press. It gives a lot of background about how we got where we are now and who is behind it.

And I have to mention that there is an editorial for a state that I think I may have mentioned only once or twice before in the four-year history of “Daily Voting News”; Oklahoma and any previous mention was not due to problems with their machines. You see, in 1992 Oklahoma bought ES&S Optech III-P Eagle optical-scan machines then immediately kicked ES&S out of the state. Since then Oklahoma has done all ballot printing, software updates, ballot definitions, and maintenance themselves. They don’t have problems.

All of those stories, and many many more today, linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today’s news includes a lot of articles, opinion pieces, and editorials about the upcoming (January 09) Supreme Court hearing regarding Indiana’s restrictive Voter ID law. This case could decide whether you and I will be required to get a voter ID in the future.

A Civil Grand Jury in Monterey Co California actually interviewed four county election officials and toured the election office and then they found that the county should just go ahead and use their Sequoia Advantage voting machines because they are secure. They did not interview any computer scientists, members of the Election Integrity community, or members of the Secretary of State staff. Whether this Grand Jury has the ability to tell the county to ignore state directives is an unanswered question but we will keep an eye on this....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Ohio counties have begun to fight back against SOS Brunner’s dictate that all DRE counties must provide a paper ballot for anyone who wants one. Counties are wringing their hands over how much longer it will take them to count the ballots --- a threat heard often from California counties. Of course they dismiss the fact that an accurate count of ballots that people can be confident in is much more important than having final results within a couple hours of the polls closing. Let the media wait for the results but count the votes accurately. County officials have also begun to show some concern about the added cost of having ballots printed. This is a valid concern, but would the counties really rather have voters standing in long lines in order to vote on a machine that flips their vote from one candidate to another or let those who want, vote on a paper ballot? They need to spend the extra money and do the right thing.

As usual, all of today's notable voting news stories, are linked below...