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

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim of Florida Congressman Robert Wexler in ruling Tuesday that paperless machines don't violate Floridians' constitutional rights. Congressman Wexler is now considering an appeal to the Supreme Court. “Primary elections will give people a chance to ‘test drive’ the new voting machines," says Thad Hall, a voting expert and assistant professor of political science at the University of Utah. Since when are primaries, or any other election for that matter, a time to 'test drive' voting machines? Voters are not 'test dummies' and no election is a test medium. I would think a 'voting expert' would understand that....

Guest blogged by John Gideon

Late last night the Arizona Legislature took the steps necessary to pass legislation that will guarantee the voters in the state have more transparency and auditability in their elections. The bill passed the House of Representatives 51-0 then immediately went to the Senate who passed it 25-3.

I received an email that originated from Arizona state Representative Ted Downing last night that says:

The Arizona Daily Star article mentioned in Representative Downing's email can be found here.

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

"Candidates, prior to conceding, should obtain detailed vote count data that is normally withheld from the public and have it independently analyzed." (Proposal from the National Election Data Archive)

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

Arthur Anderson, famous for his broken campaign promise to have a paper trail in Palm Beach Co. Florida, has now come out in favor of the SoS proposed state voting system testing plan. No surprise there. / From Arkansas comes an article that gives us a peek into the inner workings of an ES&S contract printer....

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

Quote of the Day - Doug Jones, a computer science professor and voting systems examiner in Iowa. "If we had sufficient transparency in our elections systems, the devil himself could build our voting systems and we could still hold honest elections."...

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

There seems to be a new vendor on the block. Precise Voting is still at least a month away from ITA testing and federal qualification of their DRE voting system. What is amazing is that, according to their website, a vvpat printer is part of their system and the printer actually cuts each vvpat off and puts it into a ballot box. Amazingly this system also has a binary switch that allows 'sip-n-puff' and other technology to make their system actually accessible for voters with disabilities. What's wrong with Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S? Are they really "technicallogically challenged"? / It now appears that the Arkansas legislature may step-in and investigate what went wrong with ES&S in the state primary and what legislation needs to be written to protect the voters from this vendors questionable service....

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

Another slow news day today. The next primary is in Utah on 27 June with run-off elections in Mississippi and South Carolina. / Arkansas has started an investigation into the failures by ES&S in early voting, the primary and the run-off election. It will be interesting to see what they actually decide was the problem. / To the Fathers on the list. Thank you and Happy Father's Day....

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

It has been a very slow news day even with "No Confidence" press releases from various groups in response to security breaches in San Diego Co. California during the recent state primary. / The one bit of news is a new "Quick Start Management Guide for New Voting Systems". The "Quick" in the title seems to point to how fast the document was rushed out. There is nothing there but a reminder of things most elections officials probably got in classes held by the Election Center. The EAC needed to look at the melt-down in recent primary elections and put out a guide to officials with emphasis on how to keep from being affected by poor vendor service....

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

The hardest part in preparing the machines was setting up the audio. Try getting a computer to say 'Sprynczynatyk,' or 'Motschenbacher,'" said Burleigh Co., North Dakota County Auditor Kevin Glatt about their AutoMark's and referring to two candidates in Tuesday's election. / An injunction against the use of paperless voting machines has been filed in Texas / Officials in Saline Co. Arkansas revealed that they had to hand-count boxes of ballots due to the ballots being miss-cut by the printer, ES&S....

The map at left shows recent ballot programming flaws across the country. (Click it for details). It is by no means indicative of all flaws. Just the ones we know about. So far.

These are just some of the places where there may be failures in Nov. 2006. How can companies that can't program a couple state's machines for a primary election do 20 to 40 states all at the same time?

Trainwreck ahead. Don't say we didn't warn you.

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

A must read is an "Opinion" piece from a Miami Herald columnist, Fred Grimm. "Florida['s] first priority is to protect the vendors. We'll let California worry about the damn voters" says Grimm. / VotersUnite would like to applaud the decision by the National League of Women Voters who have now come out in support of a voter verified paper audit trail / EAC Commissioner Ray Martinez has agreed to stay in his position until a suitable replacement can be named and confirmed ...

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

Utah's chief election's spokesman, Joe Demma, went to Mississippi to watch their elections because the two states are using the same voting machines, Diebold TSx. Demma will probably not be welcome in Mississippi again as he reported that "educationally, it was a worthwhile trip, because a fair number of Mississippi's electronic voting experiences were bad to the point of absurdity" / Webb County, Texas (Laredo) is now considering a law-suit against ES&S for failure to meet their contractual duties. / Emery County's Bruce Funk is stunned by San Diego County procedures allowing Diebold voting machines to be sent home with poll workers prior to last Tuesday's special run-off election for the U.S. House...

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

"We can make lemonade but we can't count votes with a lemon." Ann Frisch of Oshkosh, Wisconsin in an LTTE....

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

UniLect is trying to regain a foothold in the voting machine market after their equipment meltdown in Carteret Co., North Carolina in 2004. Oh, wait! It wasn't the machines fault it was the elections officials fault. We hear that tired litany over and over again. / In Arkansas 8 counties have now chosen to eschew their poll site voting machines and their voters will use paper ballots in the run-off elections next week. ES&S has failed to service their contracts in those counties. Those counties will be violating state and federal law....

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

Alameda Co. California supervisors voted 3 to 2 to purchase Sequoia voting machines. Of the 3 yes votes one supervisor said "I have no idea what's happening here - I have no idea what you're talking about" before he voted 'Yes'. One other said, "I must admit I don't have a clue what to do" and "I feel like I'm in the twilight zone" before she voted 'Yes'. / At least one journalist got it right when he mentions all of the press about how Alameda's hand counting of paper ballots was going to delay election results for the whole state. It was, pure and simple, a ploy to put pressure on some supervisors to buy new machines / State investigators have investigated how Kern Co., California voters could have gone to the polls and been asked to use last years memory cards, which did not work. Voters were then directed to use paper ballots until they were exhausted. Voters were then asked to come back later. / Pulaski Co., Arkansas decided to eschew the ES&S ballot programming for their optical-scan machines and they did their own. / "Someone else should administer the election? How can they even stand up there with any credibility and talk about that stuff?" Carlo Loparo in defense of his boss, Blackwell keeping control of elections in Ohio as he runs for Governor. ...