In one of our ‘Featured’ articles CBS Evening News has raised the “Red Flag On Purging Voter Rolls”. This article reports on a just released report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law on voter roll purges. The report “provides troubling new insight into the process. There are no national standards and as a result, the cleaning up of voter rolls is not as precise as it should be and eligible voters are often wrongly removed. The Brennan report calls the nationwide process 'chaotic,' 'shrouded in secrecy', 'riddled with inaccuracies', 'prone to error' and 'vulnerable to manipulation'."

Our second ‘Featured’ article is a report done by USPIRG (Public Interest Research Group) in which they blow the whistle on nineteen states that are violating federal law in their handling of voter roll purges.

Neither of these articles should have been necessary. State election officials should be carefully following the law and carefully ensuring voter rolls are properly purged and not in such a way as to deny legally registered voters their right to vote. Any election official who does not feel the need to ensure due diligence should be replaced and, if they violated federal law, they should be investigated for that violation. ...

According to today’s ‘Featured’ article: With record voter turnout expected at the polls this November, the Election Protection coalition, which includes the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Rock the Vote say they have prepared the largest and most comprehensive election watch effort ever undertaken.

"We’re confident that we can help millions of Americans overcome obstacles to make sure their votes count," said Jonah Goldman, director of the National Campaign for Fair Elections, part of the Lawyers’ Committee.

The primary tool will be a toll-free phone number, 1-866-OUR-VOTE (and its Spanish counterpart 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA), a nonpartisan confidential voter services hotline. ...

In a clear victory for Ohio voters a federal judge and the State Supreme Court all agreed that voters can register to vote and vote all on the same day within a week-long period during early voting. The courts found that Secretary of State Brunner had, in fact, correctly interpreted a law passed by the state legislature.

Are you busy on Nov. 4? Of course you are going to vote but how about the rest of the day? Contact your county and volunteer to work for the election department for the day. Be a poll worker or work at the election office supporting the officials. Be involved. ...

In our featured article today we again get information about the pending shut-down of the Social Security Administration’s databases for maintenance. As related in the article by Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice, this shut-down is important because:

Why has the SSA scheduled this shut-down within three weeks of the Nov. election? Now Sen. Diane Feinstein has asked the same question. That letter can be found with the featured article...

Over 25 years ago one well-known political hack said this about voting, “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Democracy is only effective when everyone participates. Please don’t be left out on election day. Make sure you are registered to vote now and ensure all of your information is correct and up-to-date and then exercise your right to that vote on election day. Forty-one states have a registration deadline between Oct 6 and Oct 20. Find out where to go to get information from your state HERE: ...

Forty-one states have voter registration deadlines between Oct. 6 and Oct 20. One of the tools that states need is the online system provided by the Social Security Administration (SSA) that allows states to match Social Security Numbers on voter registration forms. So what does the SSA do? They schedule a total shutdown of their National Computer Center Building for annual maintenance from Oct. 10 to Oct. 13.

States are extremely busy right now checking a record number of new voter registrations. Closing down SSA’s online system, even over a weekend, will result in many new registrations not being filed and those new voters not being able to participate in this election. The chair of the Election Assistance Commission, Rosemary Rodriguez, has sent a letter to Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue asking that the SSA reconsider the date of the shutdown.

There is now evidence, and an investigation by a county District Attorney, that the fraudulent act of “slamming” is happening in two California counties; San Bernardino and San Joaquin. “Slamming” is the act of changing the party affiliation of a voter without their consent and knowledge. ...

Why is it that some election officials in swing states have decided to discourage voting by college students? The answer seems obvious: they know how a majority of them will vote and they don’t want that.

According to our “Featured” article today one Colorado county election official sent information to one Colorado College and asked that it be promulgated to all students. The information falsely claimed that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as dependents on their tax returns. When faced with the truth the official tried to claim that his office had misinterpreted state law and “mistakenly published information that was incorrect.” This same misinformation drive has also taken place in Virginia and South Carolina, amongst others...

The election nightmare may be over in Palm Beach Co., Florida. After seven recounts, machine and hand, the election for a county circuit court seat has been certified. The losing candidate, of course, is considering legal actions. Still not explained is how ballots were lost then found and how the machines just couldn’t seem to get an accurate count. Sequoia should have some explaining to do beyond just “No, no, no, it wasn’t us.”

Think no one is using punch-cards anymore? You’re wrong. Eight counties in Idaho are still using them and they like them.

Over 25 years ago Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Coalition and a "Godfather" of the Conserviative movement said this about voting:

Democracy is effective only when everyone participates. Please don’t be left out on election day. Make sure you are registered to vote now and ensure all of your information is correct and up-to-date and then exercise your right to that vote on election day. Many states have a registration deadline the first week of next month. Find out where to go to get information from your state here: ...

This morning a judge in Florida authorized Palm Beach Co. to do another recount. That is they are going to recount the recount of the recount of the original count. In this machine recount the county hopes to find 159 ballots in 54 precincts in which good ballots were mixed in with ones that contain over- and under-votes. Those 159 ballots will then be inspected to determine what the voters intended.

Also featured is an article by Bev Harris with regards to voter list databases. These databases are largely untested in real elections and will almost assuredly be a point of problems in November. Some states made their own central data bases while others spent millions of tax payers dollars for ES&S or Sequoia or Bermuda-based Accenture to build their data bases. Errors in these data bases serve only to disenfranchise voters....

Early voting has begun, as of today, in Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, and South Carolina.

Colorado doesn’t begin early voting until October 20 and it is probably a good thing because the ballot is so long that the voters guide is 144 pages long.

Palm Beach Co Florida still has no final results to report. My guess? They will end-up with the court deciding that this race go back on the ballot and the voters will be asked to do it over again.

Last but certainly not least is the plea once more that everyone who reads this check to ensure their voter registration is still good and that every piece of information is correct and up-to-date....

This from our “Featured” article today:

The unbelievable is still happening in Palm Beach Co Florida. The county counted, re-counted by machine all previously machine counted ballots and recounted by hand all under and over voted ballots. The recounts showed that thousands of ballots were suddenly missing from the original count totals. A search was carried on by elections officials, police and fire personnel. That search found all of the missing ballots plus more. Now, under orders from the courts, a new recount is underway. The machine recount has added votes for both candidates from the original count, 227 ballots more than election officials reported were cast during the primary and 29 more ballots than officials said they had in their possession after the search and ballot count. Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson didn’t show up for the search or the re-recount that is still going on today and will probably not finish until tomorrow. He called in sick. Probably the right move and maybe he should just resign and let someone else fix the problems....

It is now a bit fun watching some previously silent news organizations fall all over themselves as they suddenly recognize that our election process is seriously flawed. Today CNN reported, and many smaller organizations picked up the report, that the GAO released a report this week on voting system testing that finds that the Election Assistance Commission [EAC] has not notified election officials across the country about electronic voting machine failures.

This has been no secret within the Election Integrity community and has been one of our main complaints about the EAC. Voting systems fail and the EAC does nothing about it. They argue instead that none of the voting systems were certified by the EAC so they have no right/mandate to do anything about them. The GAO recommends that congress step in with legislation to force this issue.

We agree but dislike the fact that we have to wait on a snail-slow congress to do anything. CNN also reports on the CommonCause/Century Foundation report that was also released this week and that points to 10 states that they believe will have problems in Nov. My guess is that the “ten states” will grow substantially to 40 or more by election day and on beyond.

Also in the news is that the re-re-recount of ballots in Palm Beach Co Florida is taking place today and tomorrow. One can only guess what they are going to find. Ballots from 2004? Punch cards with hanging chads?

And a member of the Washington DC council has subpoenaed Sequoia for records that may reveal what really happened in the recent primary. Could it be that the council will find that the Sequoia spokeswoman, Michelle Shafer’s, declaration that the company is not at fault; “No, no, no” is really “Yes, yes, yes”? ...

We’ve been telling you that voter registration issues are going to be important this year. Even voters who have been registered for years and who have voted in recent elections may find out, when they go to the polls in Nov., that they are not eligible to cast ballots. In our “Featured” article Kim Zetter of Wired News has done a great job in gathering information on voter registration data bases and presenting that information. It’s a scary story. Everyone needs to check to ensure they are still registered to vote and that the registration is correct. Do it now while there is still time to make corrections...

SAVE R VOTE is a group of election watchdogs in Riverside Co California. Yesterday the group gave the county Board of Supervisors a report that they wrote after pouring over more than 10,000 documents for the past three months. Their report included evidence of elections staff correcting documents to balance ballot inventory; electronic voting machines being delivered up to 11 days before the election, some times to bathrooms [Election law permits officials to deliver voting machines a week before Election Day]; and missing electronic voting cartridges. Of course the county registrar could only do all she could do to minimize the issue. Congratulations to SAVE R VOTE. They got the county supervisors to listen. They have ordered an audit of the Registrar’s office to determine why there were hundreds of violations found. ...