Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Early voting is taking place in Shelby Co, Tennessee but the Memphis mayor wants the voting to stop and he seems to have convinced the city attorney that he is correct. The issue is that the county’s Diebold TSx voting machines seem to be flipping votes and numerous calls from voters to the mayor (a candidate) have convinced him that there is a problem. The city attorney actually went to one of the early voting sites and verified that touching just inside the lines separating the candidates would cast a vote to the name just above or below the voter's selection of choice. Amazingly the Shelby County Election Board chair had this to say, “…..we're comfortable with the fact that we tested those machines and there is nothing wrong with the way the machines are recording the votes. Apparently it's an issue of public education. If people press in the wrong area they're going to get the wrong result.” She also said that voters have a chance to correct their vote on the screen before they submit it. That’s the screen with the small writing that you didn’t do any voter education about? Is it any wonder that today’s “Enemy of Democracy” award goes to Myra Stiles for blaming the voter instead of the machines for the machines failures.

Coverage of that story "Meltdown '07" story, and today's many other voting news articles, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

First some business. I thought it was readily apparent that comments that I write and post in this lead ‘graf’ are comments and opinions on what has happened during the day or what may be happening in the future. What I write here is not news. Apparently a handful of readers failed to recognize that fact.

Now on to my comments. What is going on in New Jersey? The legislature passed a law in 2005 that any voting system used in the state would have to provide a voter verified paper audit trail. The state elections people were given until January 2008 to make that happen. There were no printers developed for the state’s full-face DREs so they had to be built and tested. The state chose to take that avenue rather than go with a state-wide change to optical scan and the state waited until the last minute and now is asking for extensions from the legislature and the court. This is a parallel to HR-811 which will require an as yet undeveloped printer for DREs and probably four years to develop that printer. This is Holt’s home state. They didn’t change systems. Why should anyone believe that his legislation, that does not ban DREs, would cause any state to change systems to get rid of their DREs?

Those stories and more voting news from today, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

HR-811/Microsoft-811 may be going to the floor for a vote sometime this week. Maybe not. Does it all really matter though? The bill will almost definitely get a majority of the votes, though it may be closer than some have thought. Then what? Then comes the Senate. The 811-clone, Sen Nelson’s bill, is still just sitting in a holding pattern and S-1487, Senator Feinstein’s destructive bill, is waiting on hearings before it is finalized, if it gets that far. Then what? It seems with the Senate, bills don’t get voted out of committee without having at least 60 votes. That’s to ensure they are filibuster-proof. A source in the Senate Admin Committee (Feinstein’s committee) has said that the minority has already said that no election-related legislation will go to the floor this session. Can deals be made? Sure. Anything can happen. I’m just not holding my breath. Today was supposed to be the court hearing in New Jersey to decide what actions would need to be taken regarding vvpat printers. As of press time there have been no reports from New Jersey....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It seems to be about time that I explain the loose rules that I use in selecting what goes into DVN and what stays out. First, though I have a position with regard to legislation I am very careful to not let my position cloud my decision as to whether an article on legislation is posted or not. I have posted just as many articles that are pro-legislation as I have that are anti-some aspects of that legislation. I will not post what is very apparently misinformation no matter on which side of the issue the article falls. I know the subscribers of DVN come from all sides of the issue so I try to cater to them all. I post news articles and blogs that I get from searches of the net. I don’t post articles that are older than a few days. I don’t post LTTEs. I don’t post data bases or .pdfs that are not posted somewhere. Ultimately the disclaimer at the bottom of the list of articles says it all.

And with that out of the way, the weekend's notable voting news stories are linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, is going to battle against ES&S over maintenance contracts and annual fees. The county has a plan that will save them $200,000 and they want annual contracts. ES&S wants a three-year contract and they claim that they are not bound by any promises made by their sales staff because they think that’s a “little unfair.” ES&S has also told the county that they are going to raise their cost for machine coding and ballot preparation by up to six percent. ES&S has given the voters and tax payers of Luzerne Co. a gift that keeps on taking; sucking tax payers’ money away from the county. ES&S: today’s “Enemy of Democracy.”

Clearly Ohio state’s Republican lawmakers are going to do all they can to put up roadblocks to stop SoS Brunner from doing any inspection of the state’s voting machines. Payback for Brunner firing the state Republican Chair and County Board of Elections boss, Bennett?

Those stories, and today's other notable voting news, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

A new think-tank has stepped forward to have their voice heard in regards to voting technology. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation correctly argues that paper trails don’t ensure accurate e-voting totals. We agree with that argument. However, rather than use that argument in a move to ban non-transparent DRE voting machines, this group makes that argument and then argues that more non-transparent, unverifiable technology should be used along with the DREs. They want more unproven technology that costs more money and further removes the voters' ability to have a say in the election process.

Today was the deadline for the New Jersey Attorney General to announce what their back-up plan was if vvpat printers were not certified for use on the state’s DREs. The plan? A change to optical-scan and paper ballots? Hand-counted paper ballots? Not hardly. Their plan is to do what they have already told the court they would not do; they want to ask the state legislature to extend the deadline for another six months. Today’s “Enemy of Democracy” Award is presented to New Jersey state Attorney General Anne Milgram.

Those stories, and all the other notables today (a bunch of 'em!) linked below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today’s “Enemy of Democracy” is George Gilbert, the director of the Guilford County, North Carolina, Board of Elections. In making an argument against a voter verified paper audit trail and against HR-811, George uses a disingenuous argument when he states, “Some people have convinced them there's something magical about counting it [the vote] by hand.” He added errors are more likely to occur when ballots are tabulated by hand and results will be significantly slower. Clearly George would like all who will believe him to think that the choice is only paperless DREs or hand-counted paper ballots. George conveniently forgets that optical-scan machines are used in almost every county in the country and they are used much more successfully than his favorite paperless DRE machines.

Meanwhile, where are the final reports that were part of the California “Top-To-Bottom Review”? Why has the state kept them from the public? What is in those reports that is so secret?

Those stories, and many more, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Franklin Co., Ohio, Board of Elections Chairman Matt Damschroder said, "I don't think that anyone can point to any empirical evidence that would lead any reasonable person to say the voting systems used in Ohio are flawed, thus requiring a new round of testing." Is this man kidding? He points to the federal and state testing and then makes a totally idiotic statement like that. He only needs to look back to the last general election and how poorly machines operated in his state. He only needs to look at the California “Top-To-Bottom Review” to see what federal testing means. Perhaps it’s time to begin naming an occasional “Enemy of Democracy.” Matt is it until replaced by another numbskull....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

The California "Top-To-Bottom Review" of state certified voting systems was to include four investigations; Security (Red Team), Accessibility, Code Review, and Document Review. All of the reports were released soon after they were presented to the Secretary of State, Debra Bowen; all but the Document Review.

Why has the Document Review been kept from the public? What is contained in those reports that we should not know? The Secretary of State's Press Office will only say, "We don't know when they will be released."

In his "Not Quite a Blog 2.0" Joseph Lorenzo Hall, one of the members of the document review team, reveals that each team member had to agree to the following secrecy:

On Sept. 6 those 45 days of confidentiality had passed and Joe spoke about some of the basics with regards to the reports. He did not go into any specifics. In his blog he revealed the following...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The 2006 elections cost the tax payers of Cuyahoga Co Ohio $47.86 per voter. Franklin Co paid $16.04 and Hamilton Co paid $21.30 per voter. Part of the cost for Cuyahoga Co is that every election they must spend $800,000 for 6000 new memory cards. The cards from the previous elections have to stay in storage for 22 months. Blackwell sold these systems to the counties based on the fact that they were supposed to be inexpensive and easy to use. He lied.

Meanwhile the state legislature has told SOS Brunner that she will have to wait for two more weeks before they can announce whether they will release the funds she needs to complete a review of the state’s voting systems.

Last Nov. ES&S had a lot of problem with delivering paper ballots for their op-scans and electronic ballots for their voting simulators (DREs) to their customers on time. The excuse? Too much work to do all at one time. Now, St. Francis Co Arkansas wants to do a school election and begin early voting tomorrow. ES&S has delivered no paper or electronic ballots. What’s your excuse this time, ES&S??

Links to those stories, and the other notable voting news today, all below...05

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Mississippi’s election laws are very questionable. During the August 7 state primary some voters who were not able to use Wilkinson Co’s DRE machines used paper ballots. These would be absentee, affidavit (provisional) and curb-side (for voters with disabilities). In Mississippi the political parties administer their primaries. When all of the votes were counted three incumbents were re-elected. However, there were allegations of wrong-doing in regards to some Democrat paper ballots so the county Dem. Executive Board disqualified all paper ballots which then caused the three incumbents to lose their elections. How many good ballots were disqualified? No one knows.

Next week we can look forward to something being done in regards to HR-811; or nothing at all.

Will California finally release the results of their Document Inspection portion of the “Top-To-Bottom Review” and will the media even know about it? Will the state of New Jersey finally provide an alternate plan for when the vvpat printers are not ready for use? And there is supposed to be a follow-up on “Dan Rather Reports” as early as next week....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

According to a transcript of the Rules Committee meeting on Wednesday, Congressman Alcee Hastings had the following to say about HR-811: “I need to be persuaded. Otherwise I would do something that I have not done since I have been here, and that is vote against a proposed rule. If we ain’t gonna fix it all, then we oughtn’t fix something that ain’t a fix and is not an assurance that we have done the best we can. This isn’t good enough for me.” Meanwhile a Cuyahoga Co Election Commissioner ranted, “We should sue Diebold,” when the discussion came around to the growing cost of the county’s voting machines. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today’s news includes more and varied articles on HR-811, including an editorial against the use of DREs from the NYTimes.

It appears that the bill will go back to the Rules Committee for another shot at a decision from that body. If it clears the Rules Committee in some form it will go to the floor. What is still unknown is if and how amendments will be handled. There is also more from the New Jersey court decision.

Also reported is that the Ohio SoS has named the firms that will be involved in the state’s attempt to copy California’s “Top-To-Bottom” Review. The problem is that one of the ‘firms’ that will be involved is also an Independent Test Authority that probably tested some of the voting systems used in the state. That fact is a real “head scratcher.”

Another county has stepped up and decided that DREs are garbage and they will be reverting back to optical-scan. Good decision Taylor County, West Virginia.

All of those voting news stories, and more from today, linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It’s been a hectic day today with HR-811 going to the Rules Committee as it must before going to the floor for a vote. The Rules Committee is supposed to decide whether amendments can be added to the bill; what amendments will be accepted; or whether the process will be open to all amendments. While some are telling their supporters that the bill is going to the floor tomorrow, we are hearing from a committee staffer that no decision has been made and the bill may still have to go before the committee again.

Meanwhile a New Jersey Superior Court Judge has told the state that they had better figure out how to replace all 10,000 of the state’s DRE machines with optical scan and the state has 8 days to figure it out. It seems that the vvpat printers to be used on DREs made by Sequoia and Avante have been proven to be garbage and the state ignored a ruling from the court made weeks ago that the state have a back-up plan by today. The state ignored the court.

Those stories, and the other notable voting news from today, all linked below as usual...

Just announced this morning and reported by The New Jersey Star-Ledger is the news that a state judge has given the state Attorney General eight days to report an alternate means of voting to the state's 10,000 touch-screen machines.

The ruling undoubtedly comes as an embarrassment to Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey, who has been championing an Election Reform bill in the U.S. House that would allow for the very voting systems the judge in his own state has now disallowed.