Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

An inspection by Princeton’s Ed Felten of summary tapes not previously inspected from Sequoia Advantage voting machines used in New Jersey adds more evidence that Sequoia has misrepresented the cause of voting machine failures last February. Some of the summary tapes actually show that the total number of votes recorded on the machines is not accurate. That could not have happened under Sequoia’s nonsensical explanation that it was poll worker mistakes. It is clear that an investigation must be carried out with no involvement by the vendor.

Links to today's most notable voting new stories, including the above, follow below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Election officials in Pima Co., Arizona, have been on the wrong side of issues quite a bit lately. Because of this it is surprising that they may ask the Secretary of State to change the “Election Procedures Manual” to disallow tabulation of votes before election day, increase the size of hand-counted audits, disallow the use of modems to transmit results, improve ballot-verification procedures and chain-of-custody records, and other worthy changes. The county also wants to totally get rid of all DREs. It’s amazing what happens at times when a good citizen group stands up and demands that changes be made; people actually begin to listen.

{Ed Note: Yes, and it doesn't hurt that they had to take the county officials to court! Leave them little other option, eventually, but to do the above, or end up in court again. Thus, the actions of the Pima County officials aren't actually that "surprising" after all, given the tremendous work by the citizen advocates there, as John points out. - BF}

Meanwhile, in Georgia, citizens involved in an electronic voting lawsuit have announced they have filed a summary judgment motion seeking to ban the machines. The motion “centers on a lack of equal protection and due process that the plaintiffs claim Election Day voters have when compared to absentee voters who use optically scanned paper ballots. The motion contends that retention of tangible paper ballots is required for voters to verify their actual ballot choices, for election officials to provide true recounts as needed, to investigate voting discrepancies, to prevent fraud and to produce evidence for contested elections.”

Those stories, and the rest of today's notable voting news headlines, all linked below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

A recent study by Missourians for Honest Elections, of St. Louis County call center sheets and maintenance logs filed by election board technicians at the polls last Feb. 5, revealed interesting data. 181 problems were reported and of those reports 89 (essentially 50% of the problems) involved the voting machine voter verified paper audit trail printers. The problems ranged from 36 votes not appearing at all on the paper trail to failure to print, loose cables, jammed paper, and “printer error.” We want to save DREs by installing a vvpat printer. Why?

Mesa Co Colorado election officials were prepared to defy any orders from the state not to use their iVotronic voting machines in Nov. In fact, while the machines were decertified by the state the county purchased 130 more of the DREs. Now the county is hat-in-hand in front of the county commission asking for a whopping $5,759 per month for storage for those 130 new machines. If they were using optical-scan they would not need the extra storage and could probably cut down on the amount of storage they are using. It takes far less room to store one optical scan machine per polling place than it does all of the DREs needed to serve the county’s polling places....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today was a busy day in Congress. Two election related bills went through “mark-up” in the Committee on House Administration. One bill, sponsored by Rep. Susan Davis and others, would allow no-excuse absentee voting. If passed voters would no longer have to give doctor’s excuses or proof that they will be out of state. It will be the voter’s choice to vote absentee. Also marked-up was a bill sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt and others that would reimburse states and local jurisdictions that opt in for a vvpat and/or audits. Both bills were amended and passed out of committee. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As of today the New Jersey Secretary of State takes over all election duties from the Attorney General. This could change the state’s opinion on the Sequoia issue. Will the SOS be an advocate for the county election officials or side with the vendor? Time will tell.

A software error from Diebold is responsible for the revelation that John McCain won the Nov. general election.

Iowa Governor Culver signed legislation today that forces counties that use DREs to now purchase optical-scan machines. Another state added to the long list of states that have turned their backs on DREs and the voting machine industry that supports DREs....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Statements from Hart Intercivic’s spokesman with regards to the filing of a whistleblower fraud suit seem to have now been debunked. Claims that William Singer was a “disgruntled” employee have now been dispelled. We hope to see this lawsuit continue and look forward to hearing more about what may very well be bad acts on the part of this vendor. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Last weekend a diverse group of members of the Election Integrity community met in Palo Alto, CA. One of the group’s jobs was to write a mission statement. This statement became known to them as the “Creekside Declaration” and was recently memorialized by Chicago Tribune Columnist Robert Koehler, a participant in the meeting, in his column. The “Creekside Declaration” gives the mission of that small group, and I would argue all of us who work on elections integrity issues, as; “Mission: To encourage citizen ownership of transparent, participatory democracy.”

Back from New Orleans so today I will catch up on a few of the big stories that took place while I was gone and catch up with the latest.

Did you think that no one uses punch cards any longer? You were wrong. One of the last, Ada Co Idaho has decided to change over to optical-scan because their punch-card machines and tabulators are just getting too old....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today attorneys for the state of New Jersey were asked, in court, whether the state had a confidentiality agreement with Sequoia. The attorneys admitted that they were not sure. Judge Linda Feinberg then ordered that testing of the voting machines move ahead. Sequoia’s media person is on vacation so she was not able to respond to media questions. There will be more details on this story as agreements are made but Sequoia does not now appear to be in a position to dictate what will happen.

DVN will be on hiatus until Saturday evening. I am going to take a few days and enjoy New Orleans....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

One week ago today California SoS Debra Bowen sent ES&S a letter and informed them that they basically have one more chance to provide information before their version 2.4.3.1 is decertified and their version 3.0.1.1 is finally denied state certification. By April 8 ES&S must provide updated Use Procedures that satisfy the conditional recertification of version 2.4.3.1. One week later they must provide satisfactory Use Procedures for version 3.0.1.1. This may directly affect 13 California counties. Has there been any MSM reporting of this? None....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The news has been rather sparse this weekend. It appears that Liberty Voting, owned by the Dutch company known as Nedap, is pressuring counties in New York to buy their voting machines even though they have not been tested by the state and their use would violate some state laws. Liberty seems to be poised to go back to court and do anything necessary to get a solid foothold in the state. These are the same machines that have been outlawed in the Netherlands and Ireland.

Tuesday will be the last day for “Daily Voting News” until the weekend. We are going on hiatus and will be attending a conference in New Orleans....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In order to help get themselves out of a very real PR problem Sequoia Voting Systems has followed their recent “Half Truth” press release with an announcement that they are sending their Advantage voting systems to “Kwaidan Consulting of Houston, Texas.” This is great! Wonderful! Oh wait a minute….Kwaidan Consulting? Just who is Kwaidan Consulting of Houston Texas? They have no website though their domain name is registered. They have no phone number in Houston or Sugar Land, Texas. What expertise does this seemingly fictional Kwaidan Consulting have to review Sequoia’s software? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

After spending what must be over $1M total in Colorado and many months the state is in nearly exactly the same position they were in when they started. The court told the state they had to recertify their voting systems so all voting systems in use in the state were tested. Based on test results and information from the test labs nearly every voting system used in the state was denied certification. SoS Coffman proudly announced that voting systems were flawed. Then under pressure from the counties who use the systems and the vendors who stood to lose money, Coffman folded and decided that it would be alright for the counties and vendors to retest the machines. Naturally the counties and vendors reported that there were no problems and Coffman went along with that biased opinion and recertified the systems for use. The Governor and some legislative leaders then decided that paper ballots should be used in Nov. But no money could be found to support that change. So, long story short, nothing has changed from the time the court made their decision except a lot of labs and consultants made a lot of money. The same machines will be used with the same safeguards as previously were in place. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Rightfully, Sequoia Voting Systems has been taking a beating over the past few days due to its threatening emails sent to New Jersey counties and to computer scientists at Princeton University. It is clear that Sequoia knows something about the problems with its voting machines used in the primary and doesn’t want anyone outside of the company to find the problem.

That story, and today's other notable voting news articles, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Sequoia Voting seems to be very concerned that scientists in New Jersey might actually discover the truth about Sequoia’s implausible explanations for the recently discovered problems with their Advantage voting machines. Of course Sequoia has blamed poll workers in a scenario that makes no sense at all. Unless the state Attorney General, Ann Milgram, demands that an independent investigation take place, it won’t happen. Why? Sequoia seems to have sent threatening letters to concerned New Jersey counties and to the Princeton computer scientists who were to inspect the machines. Sequoia claims to have hired local counsel and threatens legal action if any inspection, or even report of the behavior of their software, takes place. Unfortunately the counties have decided to back down for the time being. Phone calls and/or email to the Attorney General may help to convince her that action must be taken: Go Here...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Éirinn go Brách! In testimony before the Committee on House Administration last week, EAC Commissioner Caroline Hunter testified that there were no EAC certified voting systems at this time and that there would be none used in the election in November. The certification process should not become what it was under NASED where they qualified all of the garbage that is presently being used. The long process for certifying voting systems will surely become shorter as the labs and the EAC’s representatives get experience. Unfortunately the long process will surely affect the voters in New Jersey. The state legislature mandated a vvpat printer be added to the Sequoia Advantage machines used by the state by January 2007. The Attorney General has now moved the deadline for the printers twice with support from the legislature and is now asking that it be moved again until after November.

Perhaps it is time for the courts and the legislature to step in and take action to get rid of those machines and force the Attorney General to accept paper ballots for November and beyond.

That, and links to the rest of today's notable voting news stories, follow below as usual...