In the wake of Connecticut’s Secretary of State, Susan Bysiewicz, taking action to highlight the terrible decision by the Federal Department of Veterans Affairs with regards to voter registration drives Washington’s Secretary of State Sam Reed has taken action. Well, he investigated and wrote a letter to the state congressional contingent asking them to take action. While Secretary Bysiewicz went to a VA facility and actually registered voters contrary to the DVA’s directives, Secretary Reed wrote a letter and issued a press release. I am one Washington state resident, Viet Nam Vet, who would have liked to have seen Sam stand-up for all veterans in the state. It’s too bad.

There have been estimates of as high as 1.4 million foreclosures in this country in recent months. That represents an estimated 900,000 or more voters who have been moved from their residence. That’s 900,000 new voter registrations if they all re-register to vote from their new residence. Or, that’s hundreds of thousands of voters who will not bother to re-register and who will be stopped from voting or challenged when they do get to the polls. Every registered voter needs to check to ensure their registration is up to date and then do it again later this year before their state voter registration deadline. Make sure you are not scrubbed from the rolls and don’t know it until you go to vote on election day....

New York state has a very real problem with the new voting machines they must have state tested and certified and county tested and ready for Nov. The state is getting the ballot marking devices to be used by voters with disabilities from Sequoia. The state is rejecting 50% of the machines they are testing. One county, Nassau, has rejected 85% of the machines they’ve received from the state. Either the state has failed to catch flaws when testing the machines or the machines were damaged in shipping. Either way, unless the shipping process is set-up to man-handle and damage the machines, the vendor is responsible. Sequoia’s quality control seems to be lacking totally if 50% of what the state receives is rejected. Sequoia’s product is poorly designed if shipping from one place in New York to another causes damage to 85% of the machines received. Of course, Sequoia will blame it all on everyone else. It is never Sequoia’s problem....

VotersUnite wants to wish every one a safe and sane holiday. Take a little time and read our Declaration of Independence. It is awe inspiring.

In today’s featured article one Palm Beach Co Florida commissioner wants to see about contracting with Sequoia to provide review and assistance in the voting-counting process. Is this where we are at now? Sequoia added some security software to the system and the county workers were not trained on that software change so they failed to count 700 votes. Now the county wants to pay Sequoia to have a more active part in counting votes. Rather than fixing the problems and hiring people who understand the system counties appear ready to out-source our elections. The problem is with the vendors. When we get them out of the process we will be much better off. And, the county plans on disabling the security feature that was installed. Amazing....

In our featured article today, Pima Co Arizona officials have told the Secretary of State that they don’t think much of her opinion on how the county should ensure the security of elections. One member of the county Board of Supervisors said, “"I am a little fed up with the secretary of state acting as a barrier and leaving us to take the blame”....

New Yorkers should be concerned about the quality of their voting systems. In today’s featured article Rady Ananda quotes the Co-Chair of the New York State Board of Elections (SBOE), Doug Kellner, who has said, “The voting industry sells crap, and that is the problem”. Ananda goes on to relate problems discovered with voting machines once they get to the counties, after SBOE testing. One county has complained that their Sequoia Ballot Marking Device (BMD)[voting machines for voters with disabilities that mark a ballot but do not tabulate the results] printers jam. It seems that Sequoia knows all about this defect but has neglected to mention it to the counties. Ananda goes on to compare the “crap” with the lever voting machines the state’s voters have used for decades. ...

“Daily Voting News” wants to congratulate and thank Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz for taking a stand against the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. Earlier this month the Secretary requested permission to visit veteran facilities in her state to register veterans to vote and instruct them in how to vote on the state’s machines. She was denied permission. The Secretary accompanied by the Attorney General, veterans, and representatives of veterans organizations defied the DVA and visited one facility to blast the policy, register veterans to vote, and to distribute information on the state’s new voting systems. The Secretary said, in part, “I view this denial of access both as a civil rights violation of the deepest measure and as a moral slap in the faces of those veterans who are supposed to be served by the VA Connecticut Healthcare System”....

Today three featured articles discuss an issue of over 700 votes that just about went uncounted in Palm Beach Co. Florida this past week. But for the fact that the county did an audit and eventually found that election results on from three machines had not been reported in the totals. It is still unknown what happened with these three machines. There is speculation that a card reader may not have worked properly. Another excuse is that the cards may never have been counted at all. The county is investigating. What seems to be incredible is that the when asked by the media early Friday about the discrepancy the Supervisor of Elections, Arthur Anderson, told them that he was not aware of a problem because he was out campaigning for re-election. Typically the Sequoia spokeswoman, Michelle Shafer, ignored the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as she claimed that the public can be confident that the optical scanners worked and votes were properly recorded and tabulated. She ignores the fact that the voters were not properly reported....

The state of New Mexico has a couple recounts that must be done because of close election results in those races. Previously recounts were accomplished by rereading the memory cards. One candidate in one of the recounts protested this means of finding out the real results of the election. The Secretary of State has now changed the process and the paper ballots will now be recounted. This will happen for all ballots except those from two Cibola County precincts where the ballots came up missing. Those two precincts will have their memory cards read and the Attorney General is considering an inquiry into what happened to the missing ballots....

Ohio counties were required, in the March primary, by the SOS, to have paper ballots on hand, at each polling place, for any voter who wanted to use them and in case there were problems with DRE voting machines. Secretary Brunner wants the same thing for the general election. The difference may be that counties will have to actually ensure those ballots are at the precincts and that the voters are told they have an option. The Ohio Association of Election Officials is making excuses for those counties that do not already have paper ballots and they are fighting any directives from the SOS....

This is a good opportunity for us to remind all of our subscribers that voter registrations and voter registration data bases have been a huge problem during the primary elections. There is no reason to believe that they will not be a huge problem in November. One of the only ways to ensure a voter is registered is for that voter to check their registration. We recommend every voter check now and then check again just before the voter’s state registration closes before November. You can find out the date that your state is closing registration and who to check to ensure your registration is still HERE:...

Today’s featured article comes from Colorado but it could just as easily come from many states in the nation. The article discusses the changes that are being made in election technology; changes to the good. There will be more paper ballots and less touch-screens used in the coming Nov. election when compared to the last couple national elections. The state Senate Majority Leader is quoted as saying this about the election integrity community, “I believe the group has gotten larger. It's become more mainstream and people are paying more attention to them. They are an entity that's at the table and has a voice that is listened to”. Meanwhile the Secretary of State told the newspaper, “"I think they have a fundamental belief that anything electronic, as it relates to voting, is evil and undermines our political system. They live in a world of conspiracy theories and are highly motivated. No matter what I do, so long as it leaves some form of electronic voting intact, it will be wrong by their standards”. I’ll leave it to the reader to make up their mind who is correct....

Today we begin something new; a “Featured Article”. Whenever there is an article that we feel is a must read, we will list that article at the top of the list of articles.

Today’s “Featured Article” is about John Gardner, the ex-Colorado SoS’s voting systems expert. The ‘expert’ who had little to no IT experience and who admitted in court that he was not qualified to hold the job. The man who kept his job even after his court admission and who led the testing of the state’s voting systems for present SoS Mick Coffman. It seems clear from this article that the voters in Colorado need to be very concerned about the voting machines they may be using in Nov....

Recently in this space I reported that a report from the Ohio SoS to the Governor and Legislature glossed over the fact that, among other issues, four of eleven counties who did hand-count audits found discrepancies and had to change the results of their certified elections based on the audit results. Three of those counties were DRE counties and the vvpat paper tapes were the source of the hand-count. Why was there a difference in the count of the vvpats as compared to the count of the machines? If the vvpats cannot be hand-counted accurately then why are some satisfied that DREs with a vvpat are good enough? If the vvpat count was accurate then why are some satisfied with the use of DREs that are flawed? ...

A New Jersey judge today reversed her opinion and ruled that computer experts who will be inspecting the state’s Sequoia voting machines can release the results of their research to the voting public. The inspection will begin immediately and probably not wrap up until late September and the results can then be released.

Richard Hayes Phillips new book, “Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election” nearly never made it to press. The original publisher, even though there was a signed contract, suddenly decided to suppress the book and not publish it. Phillips, being dogged, found a local printer and book binder and did his own typesetting in order to get the book out to the public. This book is a primer on the many and varied ways of analyzing election results and for that it is valuable....