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

Today is successes and failures. New York activists are generally pleased with the new voting machine policy adopted for the state. Meanwhile a judge in Allegheny County has found in favor of the county and will allow them to go forward with the use of the ES&S voting machines. Ireland has finally declared the Liberty voting machines they have as being a "dead duck". Time for us to go buy them cheap and begin using them. They can't be much worse than iVotronics, TSx, etc. Legal complaints have been filed against ES&S today, in Indiana and West Virginia. And, no surprise, MicroVote was certified by the state of Indiana....

Today is successes and failures. New York activists are generally pleased with the new voting machine policy adopted for the state. Meanwhile a judge in Allegheny County has found in favor of the county and will allow them to go forward with the use of the ES&S voting machines. Ireland has finally declared the Liberty voting machines they have as being a "dead duck". Time for us to go buy them cheap and begin using them. They can't be much worse than iVotronics, TSx, etc. Legal complaints have been filed against ES&S today, in Indiana and West Virginia. And, no surprise, MicroVote was certified for use in Indiana....

Today is successes and failures. New York activists are generally pleased with the new voting machine policy adopted for the state. Meanwhile a judge in Allegheny County has found in favor of the county and will allow them to go forward with the use of the ES&S voting machines. Ireland has finally declared the Liberty voting machines they have as being a "dead duck". Time for us to go buy them cheap and begin using them. They can't be much worse than iVotronics, TSx, etc. Legal complaints have been filed against ES&S today, in Indiana and West Virginia. And, no surprise, MicroVote was certified for use in Indiana....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

The ES&S Meltdown around the country which The BRAD BLOG exclusively covered yesterday, as the Texas Sec. of State's office informed Election Officials to "create emergency paper ballots", now continues to widen to other states around the country.

Legal action in two more states against Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), the largest Electronic Voting Machine Company in America, has now commenced.

In Indiana, the a formal complaint has been filed today against ES&S by the Sec. of State for failures to provide working equipment and ballots in several counties in time for early primary voting in the Hoosier State.

In West Virginia, the County Commissioners Association announced they will be filing legal action against the company with the help of the WV Sec. of State and Attorney General's office for similar problems, some of which we reported late last night here at The BRAD BLOG. As well, one county Manager has been told to withhold payment of a $1.2 million check made out to the company until the problems are corrected.

The Associated Press covers the developing situation in Indiana where Sec. of State Todd Rokita has filed his formal complaint against ES&S for violating state law. The Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal covers it this way...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

On top of Brad's earlier report today on the ES&S meltdown in Texas, and loads of other states, we find out that still more problems with ES&S have been encountered in West Virginia.

On Thursday the Associated Press reported that a software "glitch" has delayed testing in 11 counties. The reason?

Though electronic ballots on the ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are programmed and seem to recorde votes accurately during testing, it's taking six hours or more to tabulate all the results. That is a huge problem for machines sold on the premise of accuracy and speed.

But the larger concern? "Version control". Apparently an ES&S engineer programmed the machines using outdated software. The company seems to not bother to ensure the correct version of software is being used and installed on the machines. And counties are not watching to ensure ES&S is keeping their machines current.

Ben Beakes, the chief of staff for WV Sec. of State Betty Ireland, explained:

That said, was the software version used federally qualified with the hardware and firmware version being used by those 11 counties? Do the states or counties even care? Maybe not but they should because not all versions of software will work with all versions of firmware. That's why there are version numbers.

And that's just one more reason why we're headed for an electoral train wreck.

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

Texas 'ES&S Counties' will probably be using hand counted paper ballots in the run-off elections on May 13. They have already been given permission to use paper ballots by the state. I highly recommended that people interested in the workings of a small voting technology vendor read the article entitled, "Vote of confidence? Firm has low profile" (link below). The article is an expose on MicroVote and worth the time. New York announced their new voting machine standards today. West Virginia announced that out-dated software has been installed on their iVotronics....

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

Nevada County (California) Registrar of Voters/County Clerk-Recorder Kathleen Smith recommended against contracting with ES&S for AutoMark deployment for the June 6, 2006, election, at the Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday. Mr. Tom O'Brien of ES&S said ES&S would not agree to the County's request for contract terms regarding shared cost of upgrades or specific trade-in terms on future improved equipment. Now, 41 days before California's Primary Election, Lou Dedier of ES&S refuses to provide services to Nevada County (software coding for optical scan ballot tabulation equipment) for the June 6 election without a service agreement. A typically arrogant act by a company that does not care if they lose business because they have much more than they can possibly handle....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Regular readers will remember the last time we discussed Summit County, Ohio and the failure of their E-Voting vendor, Elections Systems and Software (ES&S), to get anything right. First they discovered that 30% of the memory cards, which store vote totals and other vital information, had completely failed. Later, they were able to get the number down to 10%. And then, as reported by THE BRAD BLOG the Director of the Board of Elections, Brian Williams, had announced that he had no confidence in ES&S and was predicting failures in the primary election that will be held next Tuesday, May 2.
Bad enough? Not for Train Wreck '06!

Today the county announced that they have completed all testing of their ES&S optical-scan voting machines and another 17 memory cards suddenly failed. These are cards that had previously been tested over and over again with no problems.

But never fear. If there are problems on Election Day, ES&S has a plan!

They've now announced that their technical team for on-the-ground assistance will be made-up of 19 university students from the University of Akron. The students will get training on Saturday. Yes, one day of training and they will be expected to represent ES&S for all technical matters in Tuesday's primary.

And, on top of all of that, two-thirds of the ballots needed for primary day have still not been received from the printer, an ES&S hired contractor.

Full speed ahead!

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

"Over a very short period of time, we and West Virginia counties are working to literally revolutionize the way elections are run in the state," according to ES&S spokesperson Jill Friedman Wilson in an email to the Associated Press. Revolutionize as in don't meet contracted dates? Disabilities accessible voting machines are not programmed going into the second week of early voting. Also Pulaski County, Arkansas joins the ES&S hit-parade today as they announce that there is no software for their DREs. The last round of testing of the Summit County memory cards found 17 more failures. And how does ES&S plan on covering an problems in the county? They are hiring 19 University students, giving them a days training and sending them out to represent the company....

Did you know that if your state took any funds from the federal government to purchase voting machines you have the legal right to file a complaint? And that you must be given a public hearing in the bargain if you ask for one?

According to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) Section 402 any person who believes that there is a violation of any provision of HAVA Title III (including a violation which has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur) may file a complaint which must then be dealt with in 90 days time.

Title III of HAVA is the section that includes such things as the accessibility mandates of voting devices for disabled-voters, the ability to verify the votes selected by the voter on the ballot before the ballot is cast and counted, the requirement for warning voters of overvotes, audit capacity of voting systems, provisional voting, computerized statewide voter registration lists, and other issues.

Part of this right to file a complaint is the right to request, and be granted, an on-the-record public hearing of your complaint. This cannot be denied to you according to federal law.

Realizing that I had this right, I spoke with some attorneys who are working on voting technology issues and I was told that actions that I took by filing a complaint would not hurt their work in any way and it might be helpful as it will help to build a public paper record. I then composed my complaint, which is now posted at VoteTrustUSA in full, and filed it yesterday.

We'll see where it goes, but I wanted to mention this to BRAD BLOG readers who might consider doing the same thing. HAVA mandates that every state must create a process for such complaints to be filed by voters. Check with your Secretary of State's office to see what might be required in your state.

If "6 or 7" of us do this in each state, who knows what might come of it? Since all the states have different procedures, please feel free to share your experiences for others here in comments, along with any tips for filing in your own state as you may find them.

Feel free to use my complaint as a template if you like, or drop me an email if you have any specific questions

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

California counties are switching back to paper based systems. Alameda is the latest to announce that they will be using optical-scan and paper ballots for the primary and probably in the future. In what is an extremely quick response MicroVote got their uncertified software ITA tested in just six days (less than four working days). Indiana now needs to certify it for use by the counties....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon,
Exec. Dir. for VotersUnite.Org & Info. Mgr. for VoteTrustUSA.Org

It is a fact that this primary season is proving to be a disaster.

The locomotives of the voting machine vendors and unwary, naive elections officials are headed down the same tracks, straight towards each other, in many states. The vendors only have the bags of government provided cash in sight and they don't seem to care about anything but putting those bags into their coffers. They don't seem to care about signing contracts that they know they cannot meet. They seem to be under the impression that "act now and apologize later" is good business. They seem to understand that the only criteria for getting paid for contracts with the government is having signed the contract.

As for the elections officials well, they are blinded by the lights of the fast approaching locomotive and many can only apologize and cover for the vendors. They just don't seem to know, or care --- or acknowledge that they either know or care --- that the same story is playing out in the next county over and in the next state over. Ignorance is supposed to be bliss, but it also spells chaos for elections.

But wait, all may not be lost. This past week we have seen a bit of progress toward stopping the chaos of ES&S in Indiana and Oregon, while West Virginia just doesn't seem to know or care what is happening to them. As well, New Jersey may be making headway against their bad acting vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems...

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

An editorial today applauds the Allen County Indiana decision to violate state law and use uncertified voting machines. The editorial may be correct and Allen County may be in a position where they are faced with being illegal no matter which way they decided and they took the path with less consequences. VoteTrustUSA has put the complete testimony from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law as presented to a state senate committee and regarding the California voter registration database....

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

Allan County Indiana's elections director is blaming the state for the fact she has been knowingly using uncertified software on her MicroVote machines and MicroVote did not submit it for federal certification until just last Tuesday. In New Jersey a judge found that Sequoia would probably not be able to install a printer on their Advantage machines by 2008 and the printer would cost far more than represented by Sequoia. And in Ohio the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has found that punch-card voting discriminates against minority voters....

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

Yesterday it was revealed in Indiana that MicroVote has installed uncertified software on voting machines in 47 counties. Just two days ago MicroVote sent that software for federal inspection and certification. They hope to have that complete by an ITA by Friday or next Monday. Some counties admit they knew the software was uncertified but they trusted MicroVote when they were told it was in the process. Allan County has announced that they will ignore the uncertified software and take a chance on lawsuits. In Oregon the SoS has announced he is suing ES&S for breach of contract. And Bucks County Pennsylvania has announced they will use their lever machines in the state primary....