Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 gives specific qualifications for Election Assistance Commission commissioners. They “shall have experience with or expertise in election administration or the study of elections.” Yesterday the Senate Rules and Administration Committee passed, with no hearings, the nomination of Caroline Hunter to replace Paul DeGregorio as a commissioner. Hunter has voted in the past. That is most of her experience in elections. Most recently Ms. Hunter served as Deputy Director of Public Liaison for the White House. She’s also been a Deputy Counsel to the RNC. Clearly Hunter was not selected for this position based on HAVA mandated experience....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

As much as we may disagree with People for the American Way (PFAW) of late concerning their position fully supportive of the deeply flawed and potentially quite dangerous Holt Election Reform Bill (HR811), we think they're dead right on this issue, from a press release sent to The BRAD BLOG today (full release at end of this article)...

And PFAW Director Ralph Neas had this to say:

The full press release from PFAW is below, followed by details on just why the RNC's former White House liason, Ohio 2004 operative and White House employee, Caroline Hunter, should be a great concern to democracy lovers as well as Democrats in the Senate, who have failed here to perform their mandated oversight duties...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

I never thought I would be in agreement with a Florida Secretary of State but Kurt Browning was exactly right when he stated, "The interest groups are looking for a system that is 100 percent perfect. I don't know how many times I have to tell them this: it's just not going to happen." The statement was aimed at groups like American Association of People with Disabilities and Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition and People For The American Way. These groups argue against solutions that will allow the disabilities community and the foreign language community to vote in private and without assistance while preaching that only Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are the solution.

Yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein formally asked the Government Accountability Office to do a “top to bottom investigation” of paperless voting machines with a focus on the machines used in Sarasota....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

According to a new report issued by VoterAction and Demos, “Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines, once considered essential to ensuring private and independent voting booth access for voters with disabilities, often do not work as promised, according to a new report published today. Authored by access technology expert Noel Runyan and published by election reform groups Demos and Voter Action, 'Improving Access to Voting: A Report on the Technology for Accessible Voting Systems' shows that, due to inadequate or malfunctioning voting machines, voters with disabilities are frequently forced to ask for assistance or compromise the privacy of their vote— severe violations of federal disability accommodation requirements. The report details significant difficulties for voters with disabilities, including: the lack of a controllable interface for those who are unable to use touch screens or tactile key inputs; inadequate audio access features for people with visual or cognitive impairments, with dyslexia, or with severe motor-impairments; and lack of privacy curtains to prevent others from reading the voters’ selections on their visual displays.

'I originally had high hopes for the new voting machines' said Noel Runyan, the author of the report. Runyan, who is blind, is a professional electrical engineer who has spent much of his career developing access technologies for people with visual impairments. 'Even with my technical background and the help of poll workers, I could not get the Sequoia Edge II DRE to work. I have since tested most of the available voting systems at conferences and at the National Federation of the Blind’s accessible voting systems lab, and my fears have been confirmed: Most of the DREs deployed were not designed with real disability access in mind.'”...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The groups and individuals endorsing this statement commend Congressman Rush Holt for all that is excellent in HR 811, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007" --- such as the ban on wireless communications, requirements for disclosed source code and hand audits, and the mandate that testing labs be contractually independent from vendors. However, we cannot, with good conscience, give our endorsement to HR 811. We believe we have a duty to call attention to the bill's unacceptable shortcomings and to call for the needed amendments.

In a press release to respond to the Princeton statements about Sequoia’s lack of security mechanisms in their voting machines Sequoia says, “Election security encompasses people, processes and voting technology. And all of Sequoia's voting systems have numerous safeguards to detect any attempt to tamper with a machine or election results --- as true security demands a combination of features.” It’s funny that Princeton Professor Appel found none of the security safeguards present in the machines he has inspected....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Orlando Sentinel opines, “Such controversies [Jennings-Buchanan] have added impetus to calls nationwide to require paper trails for electronic voting. But printers on a touch-screen machine wouldn't prevent software problems or tampering that could taint the results. Florida's experience with touch-screen voting has shown that operating the machines properly has been beyond the technical abilities of some poll workers. Printers could introduce a new set of mechanical problems. What happens if the paper jams, or the toner runs out? Meanwhile, optical-scan is a low-tech system that produces ballots that can be recounted by hand to verify election results. Rather than require states with electronic-voting machines to add a paper trail, Congress should be encouraging them to follow Florida, and cut their losses.” We agree.

A Portland [Maine] Press-Herald columnist says, “Legislation to this effect was introduced in the House of Representatives this past week, and companion legislation is being prepared in the Senate. The proposed Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act does not, however, solve the problems of confusion, intimidation and machine malfunction generated by touch-screen technology. Ultimately, the best overall solution may be a semi-automated one that combines traditional paper ballots with comparatively inexpensive optical scanners; it's the system already used successfully in Canada for national elections, as well as by all or part of 28 states in the United States. And it provides a reliable paper trail for those inevitable recounts. Obviously, Diebold won't like it. Too bad; it's our democracy.”...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Ex-New Mexico SoS Rebecca Vigil-Giron was term-limited out of office in Nov. The Governor then named her to a new position as the head of the state’s new film museum. Now that job has been put on hold by the Governor until a $3Million shortfall in the SoS office can be explained.

It appears that the state of New Jersey may have violated its state laws when it certified the Sequoia AVC Advantage machines they have been using for years. There is no documentation to show that the system was ever inspected. Also a team at Princeton purchased five of the machines from an on-line government clearance house for $86. The same machines cost one New Jersey county $8000 per machine. The Princeton team put them to good use as they picked the locks within 7 seconds. They quickly learned how to manipulate the software to switch votes....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, with additional reporting by Brad Friedman

"We can take a version of Sequoia's software program and modify it to do something different --- like appear to count votes, but really move them from one candidate to another. And it can be programmed to do that only on Tuesdays in November, and at any other time. You can't detect it," Princeton's Professor of Computer Science Andrew Appel explains in New Jersey's Star-Ledger today.

Like Diebold's touch-screen machines before them, Sequoia's voting machines have now been found to be hackable in seconds by a Princeton University professor who says the systems could be "easily...rigged to throw an election." Someone may wish to let the folks in Riverside County, CA, know since County Supervisors there recently issued a "thousand to one" bet that their Sequoia voting systems couldn't be manipulated.

In the same report, it was revealed that an attorney has filed suit, claiming the Sequoia AVC Advantage Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines used in 18 of New Jersey's 21 counties were never reviewed by the state before they were improperly certified for use and that Princeton's Appel was able to acquire five Sequoia voting machines for only $86. The same machines were recently purchased by the state for $8,000 apiece.

According to the Star-Ledger...

Venetis argues that the state certification is in violation of NJ state law which says such systems must "correctly register and accurately count all votes cast," be "of durable construction" to be used "safely, efficiently, and accurately."

The lack of documentation and testing, however, is hardly the only problem, as reported by the paper today. "Had the machines been tested," Election Integrity advocates have found, "they would have proved to be a hacker's dream."

Princeton Computer Science Professor Andrew Appel revealed that he bought 5 of the Advantage voting machines from an on-line government equipment clearinghouse for a total of $86. Virtually identical machines were bought in 2005 by Essex County New Jersey for $8,000 per machine.

"Appel had to submit only minimal personal information and a cashier's check to close the deal," the Star-Ledger reports. He and his team then put the 5 machines to good use...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

I highly recommend that everyone reading this take the time to read Lowell Finley’s “Testimony to Senate Committee on Rules and Administration” [see below]. It is excellent.

The New York Times editorializes, “It is good news that Ms. Feinstein has called for the federal investigations — and that she is pushing a bill to require paper trails nationally. As long as there are no paper records, and voting machine manufacturers continue to insist that the software that runs the machines is a 'trade secret,' voters cannot be expected to trust that votes are being counted correctly. The leadership in Congress needs to focus on making sure that Ms. Feinstein’s paper-trail bill becomes law, along with a companion House measure from Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.” We need to add that we hope that Senator Feinstein will fix the various problems that are in the Holt bill. We don’t expect that she will ban the use of DREs, though we encourage her to do that, and we cannot support any legislation that does not include that ban. We do hope, however, that she fixes audit language that would allow a county to easily skirt the bill's requirements; language that squelches the use of alternative, low-tech voting systems amongst other; and the co-opting of “paper ballot” when the legislation uses that term to describe what is really a voter verified paper audit trail. These are only three of a short list of items that must be addressed. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Some things stay the same and some things change. It keeps things interesting. The Associated Press is reporting the following from Cuyahoga Co., Ohio; “Vote totals couldn't be pulled from memory cards of some electronic voting machines used in a special election, forcing poll workers to transport the machines to Cuyahoga County's election headquarters for results to be counted.” This happened the day that the county’s election director, Michael Vu, was resigning under duress. The failed memory cards have failed before. No one has yet got a clue that they need to change the way they are holding elections and the first step should be to get rid of the Diebold TSx machines. // Meanwhile in Sarasota Co, Florida the county Supervisor of Elections and constant proponent of paper-less voting, Kathy Dent, is pushing to get rid of her failed ES&S iVotronic DREs so she can get the optical-scan system that the voters demanded. My how people suddenly change their tunes when the voters speak loudly in an election. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As related by John Bonifaz of Demos and the National Voting Rights Institute, in a blog on BradBlog.Com, “[Yesterday], Congressman Rush Holt introduced H.R. 811, a bill trumpeted as requiring 'a voter-verified permanent paper ballot.' But before we all jump on this train as the new guarantee that our votes will be properly counted in future elections, we ought to beware of the warning flag. A paper trail from DRE (Direct Recording Electronic, usually touch-screen) machines cannot protect the integrity of our elections.” And “the Holt bill tries to say it is requiring a paper ballot even for DREs, but, in the end, a DRE 'paper ballot' is nothing more than a paper trail, which requires voters to verify their votes after they have cast them in the DRE machines. Studies show that most voters will not spend the time to verify their votes after casting them into DRE machines. Thus, the 'voter-verified paper ballot' is a fiction when it comes to DREs.”

In the wake of the resignation of Cuyahoga Co Ohio’s election director is the news that memory cards used in local elections in the county failed again.

Officials in California and Idaho are calling for legislation to allow counties to use the Oregon Vote-By-Mail plan....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today has been a huge news day. Two bills were filed in Congress; one that we support (HR-756) and one that we don’t. HR-811 (the new HR-550) was filed, with 168 co-sponsors, and became the new Holt Bill. Newspapers began writing editorials and voicing their opinions before any of them could have read the bill. Many groups tripped over themselves in a race to endorse the bill; some without ever having read its contents. One group began, two weeks ago, asking their members to begin making calls to support the bill which was then changed more than once in the ensuing period. VotersUnite will not support this legislation because of its allowance for the continued use of DREs and its corruption of “paper ballot.” At this time, we will also not work against those groups who wish to support the bill. Instead we will stand neutral and report the facts, and an occasional opinion, as we have always done. // It appears that beleaguered Cuyahoga Co. Ohio elections boss, Michael Vu, is to be removed from his job. // Also being reported from Ohio is that the new SOS has asked the state auditor to do a complete audit of the SOS office over the past two years. Blackwell seems to have left a mess and a few problems....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

According to an ‘Opinion’ in the New York Times today, “Governor Crist is asking the Legislature to finance the purchase of new optical-scan machines, and it is expected to agree. Choosing optical scans is Governor Crist’s second good move. In optical-scan voting, voters mark a paper ballot that is then read by a computer. Polling place lines are shorter, because many voters can fill out ballots at the same time. These paper ballots are the official ballots, and can be recounted by hand to resolve a dispute. More than half the states — including large ones like California, New York, Illinois and Ohio — require computerized voting machines to produce a paper record. The addition of Florida would be a major defeat for election officials and voting-machine companies that have stubbornly opposed paper-trail requirements.”...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

ABC News reports this quote: "This is the wave of the future, that states are looking to scrap their electronic touch screens and move to some other system that has a paper trail," said Michael McDonald of the Brookings Institute. "It's not always good to get ahead of ourselves," he said. "The best way of doing elections is just the old-fashioned way, by paper." To which I say: “This wave is the result of the unprecedented work of thousands of Election Integrity activists around the country. Aided by the Internet and new means of communication the Election Integrity community has grown and its voice is being heard. The fight is not over but we have them on the run." // U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) announced that the U.S. Senate Rules and Administration Committee has scheduled a hearing on Wednesday, February 7 on "The Hazards of Electronic Voting – Focus on the Machinery of Democracy." The hearing will focus on concerns related to the security and auditability of voting systems used in federal elections, with an emphasis on reported problems in the 2006 federal elections....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

According to an article in Hometown Annapolis; “Addressing the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee yesterday, state Elections Administrator Linda Lamone conceded that a paper voting record will be a part of future Maryland elections, although she still believes in the integrity of the state's current system. "After meeting with you and other policy-makers over the past several days, it is clear that there is a consensus to take the next step towards a voter verifiable voting system," Ms. Lamone said. "As we move forward, I want to work with you to ensure that we do not lose the advantages that we have gained - a secure, accurate and reliable system - or make mistakes that will undermine the rights of voters with disabilities or diminish usability."” Lamone will continue to ‘jibber-jabber’ about her paperless Diebold machines until they pry them from her control....