Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As hard as Sequoia must have had to search they actually found a way to blame the problem found on their machines in New Jersey on the poll workers. I am duly impressed. They even appear to admit that they stopped looking after they were able to figure out a way to blame the poor poll workers for the problem. “We identified a way in which poll worker error can result in the party turnout totals to be reported incorrectly.”

Did they look for any other potential answers for the problem? They don’t say.

Remember that the problem was the vote counts were correct, as far as anyone can know from a DRE, but the party totals did not match between the internal memory and the internal paper record. There were one or two Republican votes registered as being Democratic votes or vice versa. This only happened on 59 machines in 6 counties. Sequoia claims there were some special machinations poll workers used inside the control panel that allow them to select the R or D ballot for each voter. How did these machinations result in a different report in the electronic memory from the paper memory? Also, why did it only happen once or twice on each machine? If a poll worker was making an error in the process why didn’t that error happen much more often??

I have, again, requested that the EAC do their jobs and notify any potentially affected jurisdictions outside of New Jersey of this problem. They will ignore this problem as they have all previous problems with voting systems. Election officials in Pennsylvania counties that use these machines need to be made aware of the issues. Please pass on the word.

Late this afternoon it was reported that the first two pretests of Cuyahoga Co Ohio’s new ES&S optical-scan machines were failures. The computer showed error messages during the first two tests. The third test was successful. What? Me Worry?...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Florida Secretary of State has found someone to take the state’s Direct Recording Electronic voting machines and “de-manufacture” them. ES&S iVotronics will be resold, if possible. The state’s Sequoia machines will be scrapped for spare parts and recycle.

In a not surprising announcement today Secretary of State Coffman of Colorado announced that he is recertifying the state’s optical scan machines to go with the state’s DREs that he has already recertified. Essentially the state lost a court decision and had to recertify all voting systems used in the various counties. Coffman hired test labs at great expense to the tax payer to test the machines. They found problems with every system they tested. Coffman, after taking many positions, finally decided to recertify the DREs last week, even though they were decertified for good reason. Now, today, he has ignored the test labs, again, and recertified the optical scan machines. This includes the Hart Intercivic eScan that was decertified because it read stray pencil/pen marks on the ballot, even reading the mark and ignoring a correctly made vote. The tax payers in the state of Colorado need to ask, “Why did you waste our tax money to test machines and then ignore the tests and recommendations of the testers?” The state has come no where since the court found that they had not legally certified voting systems in the first place. Now they have the same machines and nothing is better now than it was in the past.

Those headlines, all the rest of the notable voting news stories, all follow below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today Election Assistance Commission (EAC) commissioners met before the House Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee to answer questions about how they have been spending taxpayers' money. One Congressman, Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), asked the commissioners about their HAVA mandated duties as a “clearinghouse.” The commissioners who responded, again, denied their responsibility to warn anyone of voting machine problems. They claimed that they just don’t have the staff or funds to do the job. I need to point out to the commissioners, some of whom read DVN, that I am the compiler, writer, editor, and publisher of DVN and it doesn’t take a dime of taxpayers’ money to do what I do. All they need to do is to forward DVN out to election officials across the country and their mandate would be met. If that’s too hard, I already send them reports of voting system failures every time they appear and ask them to forward them on to others who may need the information. All they need to do is to pass on the information as I request. Job done and the taxpayers don’t pay anything for warnings that voting machines may have failed in one state and that failure may happen on the same machines used elsewhere in the nation. I guess it is easier to ignore problems and hope they just go away. It’s easier, anyway, until you have to go before Congress and Congressman Hinchey begins demanding answers.

That story, and the rest of today's voting news, all linked below (at no expense to the tax payers)...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Colorado Secretary of State Coffman has done it again. Every time he makes a decision; it ends up being the wrong decision. Can’t this guy get anything right? Now Coffman has certified a host of DRE voting machines that have been sitting in limbo for many months awaiting a decision. However, he has made no decision on any of the optical-scan systems that had been decertified. The problem with all of this is that the Governor and Legislative leaders filed legislation today that will require that paper must be an option in the November general election. Vote by mail will also be an option for all voters.

At least half of the estimated 49,500 uncounted nonpartisan ballots from the Feb. 5 presidential primary election will be tallied after all, acting Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan told county supervisors today. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

While activist eyes will be watching Ohio next Tuesday I am going to be watching Texas. The March 4 primary is one week from tomorrow and some Texas counties are just now deciding that turn-out is going to be huge and that they are not prepared. El Paso Co. is leasing 100 voting machines to help. Fort Bend Co is leasing 200 machines from Dent Co. to get them through the primary. Readers will recall that Fort Bend is the county that recently accepted the resignation of their election director because he warned that there would be long lines and he wanted to solve the problem with paper ballots. Now the county is leasing paperless voting machines in hopes of keeping the lines short.

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Mercer Co New Jersey election officials have found that 5% of their Sequoia Advantage Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines reported the incorrect post election data. Vote totals were properly reported (as well as anyone can tell from a DRE) but party totals were incorrect on 30 of the county's 600 machines. This is the same problem reported by five other counties in the state all with regards to results of the “Super Tuesday” primary. Though the vote totals may have been correct every machine attributed one Democratic vote as being a Republican vote. Naturally the Sequoia spokeswoman, Michelle Shafer, did all she could to minimize the problem while misinforming the public that all votes were counted properly, a fact that she cannot know. Finally some county officials are beginning to get uneasy about these machines. It’s about time....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Colorado Secretary of State Coffman seems to be jumping from one boiling pot to another. No matter what decision he makes now he stands to make someone mad. The counties want their voting systems recertified as soon as possible while voting activists are pointing to the fact that he has broken the law more than once in his attempts to appease the counties.

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Election officials in three Colorado counties claim that they can catch all of the stray marks on ballots. Those stray marks may be read as votes by their Hart Intercivic eScan voting machines. Those claims don’t seem to carry any water when you consider that some of the marks that were read by the machines instead of the actual votes were just dots where voters may have rested their pens.

On the heels of reports of serious problems with Sequoia Advantage voting machines used in New Jersey the state Attorney General has announced that there is no way they can have voter verified paper audit trail (vvpat) printers for those machines by the November election. Of course, some would have you believe that the inclusion of a vvpat printer would mitigate the problems reported yesterday. No vvpat printer on those machines would have made any difference with the internal memory and voters do not verify their ballots using those printers. The only savior would be to replace the machines with a paper ballot voting system....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today New Jersey media reported that some Sequoia Advantage voting machines used in that state’s primary election on February 5 were not accurately reporting vote totals. The totals found in the memory were not the same as the totals reported on the internal paper-record. According to the media this was found in at least 5 counties. Sequoia tried to pass this off as an anomaly but one official would not accept this minimization of the problem as she corrected Sequoia "Initially, when I called Sequoia they said it was an anomaly. And I said, 'Excuse me. It's not. It's an error,'" she said.

That story, and the other notable voting news items today, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Yesterday, in a closed meeting of the Fort Bend County Elections Commission, commissioners accepted the resignation of the county Election Administrator, J.R. Perez. According to a member of the commission Perez was going to be asked to tender his resignation anyway. Perez is another heroic election administrator who has lost his job because he has taken a position against the use of paperless voting machines. In this case Perez has argued that the continued use of the county’s Hart Intercivic ESlate Direct Recording Electronic voting machines would cause long lines and disenfranchise voters during the state's March 4 primary. Perez, instead, argued for paper ballots. Thank you J.R. Perez....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

I’ll take the opportunity, once more, to remind you that the work we do takes a lot of time and requires assistance from all of you. We appreciate all of the assistance that our supporters have given us in the past few years. That assistance has allowed us to continue doing our work and has allowed us to support local groups in their work. Please consider helping us. We are a project of International Humanities Center so any donations to us are tax-deductible. We also have a few copies of “Runoff” by Mark Coggins that are still available. “Runoff” is a fun mystery novel sure to keep you reading and there are more than a few laughs as you do so. What is really fun for those of us in elections is that the mystery is centered around a hack of an election in San Francisco. We will happily send you a copy, signed by the author, for a $50 donation. Visit our donations web page and give to help us continue to do our work. Thank you.

Links to today's notable voting news stories follow below, as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Another voting system has been proven to be inaccurate and deeply flawed. Colorado’s Secretary of State has posted a report from his “Voting Systems Testing Board” on the Hart Intercivic eScan voting system. The test panel found that stray marks on a ballot may cause the optical-scan machines to count inaccurately. A stray mark can be read as an overvote by the machines, ignored by the machines, or read as a vote while the real vote is ignored. This is yet another voting system that was tested by an Independent Test Laboratory and accepted by members of the National Association of State Election Directors Technical Panel even though it clearly does not meet the Voting Systems Guidelines for accuracy. Will NASED take any action? Of course not. No one will warn other states that there is a problem that they should know about. The EAC? They tend to ignore their mandated duty to act as a “clearinghouse” so they will take no action. If you are in a jurisdiction that uses Hart eScans, pass on the report to your election officials so they are warned about the problem. You will be the only one who will do it....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Try as I might I just can’t come up with anything to put in this space. That has not happened very often in the four years that I have been doing this work. So I guess I will take this opportunity to remind you all that we do this work thanks to the support of the election integrity community. We are a project of International Humanities Center so any donations to us are tax-deductible. We also have a few copies of “Runoff” by Mark Coggins that are still available. “Runoff” is a fun mystery novel sure to keep you reading and there are more than a few laughs as you do so. What is really fun for those of us in elections is that the mystery is centered around a hack of an election in San Francisco. We will happily send you a copy, signed by the author, for a $50 donation. Visit our donations web page and give to help us continue to do our work. Thank you.

With that, today's notable voting news items are all linked below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It has been a very slow day today. Secretary of State Bowen has now sent a letter to the Los Angeles Registrar asking him to provide information back to the state with regards to the tens of thousands of uncounted “Double Bubble” ballots. She has also suggested that the county actually count many of those ballots where they know the voter intent. When “Decline To State” voters went to the polls and asked for a ballot to vote either American Independent or Democratic the poll workers were supposed to annotate the party (AI or DEM) in the poll book. If all of the DTS voters at a polling site asked to vote DEM then all of those ballots can be counted because the voter intent is clearly known. Only when an AI voter is thrown into the mix does the count become more difficult....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

There are about 1 Million ballots still to be counted in California not including the “Double Bubble” ballots in Los Angeles Co that may or may not be counted. New Mexico is still counting ballots since their “Super Tuesday” state caucus. The Colorado Senate Majority Leader intends to file legislation that would require that the state’s August primary and November general election be done on paper ballots and not e-voting machines. He has the support of the Governor. Colorado Secretary of State Coffman is now facing two ethics complaints filed yesterday. Ohio Secretary of State Brunner is in court today, where a judge will decide whether she has the power to require counties like Union Co to offer paper ballots at the polls.

Those stories, and all of the other notable voting news items today, linked below as usual...