Guest Blogged by John Gideon, Executive Director, VotersUnite.Org

In the weeks following last November's mid-term election, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) sent retiring Commissioner Paul DeGregorio out to cheerlead and to make the voters feel warm and cozy about the election.

The Commissioner keeps telling the voters that we should have confidence in the election process. He constantly states that everything worked just fine except for isolated incidents. Meanwhile, he ignores the facts about failures that happened across the nation. He ignores data such as that which is reported in "E-Voting Failures in the 2006 Mid-Term Elections" written by VotersUnite, VoteTrustUSA, VoterAction and Pollworkers For Democracy.

Early last week Commissioner DeGregorio had an Op-Ed posted by a McClatchy-Tribune News Service newspaper in Mississippi. In this Op-Ed he opens with the following paragraph:

My immediate attention was brought to the mention of an exit poll which showed that 98 percent of voters had a confidence level not seen since before 'Election 2000'. This was news to me and I wanted to see this exit poll so I sent an email to the EAC's spokeswoman, Jeannie Layson:

Here is the remarkable response I received back from Ms. Layson...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

""¦"¦.all types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic traditions and its is democracy turned upside down.
So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind "” it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact "” I can only submit to the edict of others. So our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., excerpted from a speech that Dr. King delivered before the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington, on May 17, 1957, three years after Brown v. Board of Education and eight years before the enactment of the Voting Rights Act....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In Ohio, as well as most states, "elections directors, particularly those operating with touch-screen voting machines, say their charges for special elections are rising because of the rising costs associated with modern voting systems, including delivering and setting up machines, building rentals and custodial fees, the paper that backs up the touch- screen voting and training sessions." This is part of what HAVA is costing this country. Direct Recording Electronic voting machines are not just expensive to buy; they are expensive to operate. Local school boards, fire districts, port and park commissions who have historically used county elections equipment will no longer be able to afford to have elections to raise funds to do their work....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, today sent a letter to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission seeking answers as to why the Commission failed to notify election officials or the public about a serious problem with Ciber Labs of Colorado, one of three major labs that tests much of the nation's software used in voting equipment. Senator Feinstein also asked for information regarding what went wrong at Ciber Labs to warrant its loss of accreditation." / "The move came one month after Brian Phillips, president of SysTest Labs, accepted the invitation of a Florida law firm representing a Republican candidate to witness a recount in a Florida election. 'When there's a conflict over an election, like there was in Florida, we don't want (these companies) to be hired by one party or another,' said Donetta Davidson, formerly Colorado secretary of state and now chairwoman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission." This from the woman who told Florida election officials that she was unhappy to see the Republicans lose the Senate because she had promises from them that they would not allow any changes to HAVA. Commissioner, while you're on the conflict of interest theme, let's look inwardly; OK? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"The manufacturer of voting machines under scrutiny in Sarasota County accused a House Democrat Tuesday of trying to ''intimidate'' and ''unduly influence'' a Florida appeals court. The move by Election Systems & Software comes days after Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, wrote a letter to the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee. She said she was ''concerned'' that a lower court judge had declined to give Democrats access to the software used in voting machines in the contested District 13 congressional election." // "Voting equipment suppliers built faulty machines and election officials failed to test it properly," say studies released Tuesday about the slow vote count in November's election.
A laptop-sized piece of equipment at each polling place that was supposed to total up and transmit the results from each precinct apparently had multiple problems" say reports from Cook Co. Illinois....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"Voting machines are different from other things bought by a government. In purchasing voting equipment, election officials must rely heavily on the integrity, honesty and reliability of the vendor selling them this equipment."--Gary Greenhalgh, VP ES&S. The same Gary Greenhalgh who was President of the Election Center and worked for convicted felon Ransom Shoup of Shouptronic fame and with MicroVote, another voting machine company with a checkered past. / "The 2006 election was a success: Most of the millions of Americans who cast their ballots did so with confidence. Despite some isolated problems, exit polls showed that in 98 percent of U.S. jurisdictions, the process worked so well that voter confidence rose to levels not seen since before Election 2000." This according to EAC Commissioner and Chief Blower of Smoke, Paul DeGregorio....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, Executive Director, VotersUnite.Org

Moving the ball forward a bit in regard to New York Times' stunning report last week that Ciber was refused interim accreditation last July. I've been able to learn a bit more about the existence of the paperwork concerning that denial of accreditation.

The refusal, according to the Times front page exclusive last week, was due to an inspection the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) conducted at the lab. Ciber is one of the three e-voting test labs or Independent Testing Authoritys (ITAs) which are paid by the Voting Machine Companies themselves to test their hardware and software prior to federal certification.

But contradictions have been flowing from the EAC in the considerable fallout from the Times report which revealed the commission not only failed to accredit Ciber, they also failed to tell the public, or even state and local Elections Officials who used the systems approved by Ciber for last November's election. What nobody --- except the EAC knew --- was that, according to the Times Ciber "was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests."

While at first the EAC had denied there was any paperwork documenting the reasons why they had denied interim accreditation to Ciber, I've now been able to learn from an EAC source that such paperwork actually exists. The EAC has simply, again, withheld it from the public. So far. I was then able to get confirmation about it from an EAC spokesperson, along with a hint as to when the world might get to see the actual reasons they withheld accreditation from the private testing lab...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"There is by now no doubt that there are serious problems with electronic voting machines: they fail to record votes, and even flip votes from one candidate to another. Election officials like to defend the machines by noting that they have been certified by independent testing labs. But the certification process has long been deeply flawed, and last week there was even more disturbing news "” that the leading testing lab has been unable to meet the federal government's standards." NYTimes Editorial / Lowell Finley, the lead attorney for the non-partisan voting machine legal watchdog organization VoterAction.org has been named to be the new Deputy SoS for Voting Systems Technology and Policy in California today. This is a huge piece of news for all voters....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The EAC seems to be hiding a lot with regard to their not giving interim accreditation to Ciber for testing voting systems. One commissioner says there is no report that led to the lack of accreditation by the EAC. Part of that interim accreditation is an inspection of the lab's facilities and procedures. An advisor hired by the EAC did that inspection. How can there not be a report? Maybe it's not the final report. Maybe it's an interim report. No matter what it is called there must be a report. The government does not run without reams of paper. Why is the EAC obfuscating? What are they not telling us and why?...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

States are now beginning to question whether their voting systems were originally inspected and tested by Ciber and whether the quality of that testing should be questioned. / Meanwhile the EAC has sent their commissioners out to handle damage control. Commissioners are denying the existence of negative reports against Ciber and denying that Ciber has any problems beyond what they think is normal for an accreditation process. They, however, are not explaining why two other labs were accredited almost immediately and why Ciber's process has taken 5 months longer and is still not complete. / Another key member of the House of Representatives has weighed in on the disputed Florida Congressional election, saying that not only the litigants but the House itself would benefit from more open discovery. On Thursday, the incoming Chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, which has the responsibility for evaluating any House election contest, submitted a letter to the Florida First District Court of Appeal expressing concern with the inability of the Plaintiffs to pursue their claims....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"A laboratory that has tested most of the nation's electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests" according to the New York Times and the EAC forgot to mention it. Ciber Inc., apparently up until last summer, was one of three Independent Test Authority (ITA) labs that were allowed to hire themselves out to voting machine manufacturers for inspection and testing and ultimate certification of those voting machines. Ciber, along with SysTest and Wyle, held a very lucrative position in what has become the boondoggle of certifying of voting systems. They get test procedures written by the vendors and a hefty check from those same vendors and, apparently in Ciber's case, they don't do the paperwork or testing required and pass the voting systems on to the voters....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Did you think that Florida is the only state that still has questions about voting machines and results? If you answered yes you were wrong. As in Florida Ohio has thousands of unexplained undervotes and concerns from candidates as to whether they really lost their elections. / "The evidence presented indicates that electronic voting in its current form is systematically flawed and will require significant corrective measures to remedy the problems that have been exposed," concludes the 23-page report issued by Voter Action, VotersUnite.Org and VoteTrustUSA....

A report [PDF] prepared by civic watchdog groups VotersUnite.org, VoteTrustUSA and Voter Action found the 2006 mid-term elections were marred by persistent and widespread voting machine malfunctions. In preparing the report "E-Voting Failures in the 2006 Mid-Term Elections," the groups examined data collected from the Election Protection Coalition hotline (1-866 OUR VOTE) and the Voter Action hotline, reports submitted from Election Day pollworkers through the Pollworkers for Democracy project and local and national news accounts collected by VotersUnite.Org.

In all, 1022 accounts of machine related problems from more than 300 counties in 36 states were examined and categorized. The report summarizes and provides contextual and comparative analysis of the difficulties caused by each type of equipment problem, such as machine malfunctions that impeded polls from opening, machine failures at poll closing and vote tabulation, and votes lost or changed on the voting machine screen. It also includes first hand accounts from voters and pollworkers describing the machine difficulties they encountered on Election Day and how the machines hampered the voting process.

The report recounts incidents of voters leaving without casting a vote because the machines would not start or broke down during Election Day. Machines often failed to record the voter's correct choice on the ballot or summary screen and caused voters to question if their vote was recorded. Several pollworker accounts described problems closing the machines, retrieving vote totals from the computerized systems, and aggregating the totals with software, sometimes counting votes multiple times or failing to count them at all. The report suggests that in some cases votes were lost.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It's good to be back. The "Best of" and "Year in Review" articles have all been put to bed for another year. There isn't a lot more to report though. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"As 2007 rolls in, millions of Americans will have to make what looks like a momentous technical decision: Should they upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Windows? At the same time, legislators and election boards will be pondering a far more important decision: Do we want Microsoft Windows - or any operating system - running elections?" asks Mike Hemowitz of the Baltimore Sun. A very good question that can be answered easily. No! No software for casting ballots. No '1's' and '0's'. No DRE's in our elections. No! / On Jan. 4 and 5 Democracy will again be under attack as the vendor sponsored Election Center goes to Washington DC in hopes of influencing your congress people and Senators to vote against new legislation that we have been working for over the past couple years. Call your Senator and Congressman/woman and ask them not to be fooled by this group. They do not speak for the voters and they do not speak for Democracy....