Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Juneau Empire reports:

Sounds like the same “glib lobbyists” who have had an effect on federal voting legislation in the House and especially in the Senate.

That story, and links to many more of today's notable voting news items, listed below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Concerned about overseas and military voters? According to the Military Times:

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

According to an article on BRAD BLOG a recent study by a doctoral candidate at Rice University found that approximately two-thirds of voters failed to notice malicious changes made to their DRE review screens during mock election testing. Approximately two-thirds of another group of voters failed to notice vote swapping that took place on their review screen. If two-thirds of voters do not review the review screen when voting on a DRE what makes anyone believe that voters will verify a voter verified paper audit trail printed by a printer on the side of their machine?

Also the EAC announced [PDF] today that they have terminated the interim accreditation of CIBER Labs due to a lack of required notification of key personnel changes. Wyle notified the EAC that Shawn Southworth left CIBER and went to work for them. CIBER apparently forgot to make that notification.

Links to those stories, and the other notable voting news items today, all listed below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today’s news finds a scathing review of the Senate’s answer to the Holt Bill, HR-811. Senator Feinstein’s S-1487 was supposed to be the repository for fixes to the Holt bill; or that’s what the Election Integrity community was being told all along. However, S-1487 is a terrible response to problems the voters have been facing. Also in the news, Sarasota Co. has formally announced their plans to scrap their ES&S iVotronic DREs in favor of Diebold optical-scan machines and AutoMark ballot marking devices.

Links to those voting news stories, and many more today, all below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

There has been a lot of banter back and forth between members of the Election Integrity community who are on both sides of whether presently filed legislation should be passed or dumped. Today’s news finds four articles on HR-811 that discuss the issue in depth. We encourage everyone to read the four articles so they know what are the arguments. Today’s articles are from Ellen Theisen and Pam Smith, both members of the EI community; Michael Collins, of the media; and Mark Ritchie, the Secretary of State of Minnesota. Tomorrow Ellen Theisen will follow her article on HR-811 with another article on its Senate companion bill, S-1487, which is much worse and will be hard for any civil rights organization to support.

Links to those stories, and the other notable voting news today, all below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Did you know that the Iraq Spending Bill passed by Congress last week also guaranteed that states that had not yet complied with HAVA would not lose their funding? Well it did that. A hidden provision in the bill extended the HAVA deadline for purchase of new voting systems out two years. Who benefited from this extension? New York state and at least one Pennsylvania County; Bucks....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The New Jersey Star-Ledger reported today:

Links to that story, and the other notable voting news items today, are all below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Connecticut House has voted 150-1 to follow the unanimous “yes” vote of the Senate to require audits in 10 percent of randomly selected polling districts during state elections starting in 2008. Only 13 states require audits of election results, and most stipulate far less than 10 percent of polling places. Our congratulations go to the voters in the state of Connecticut.

The Sarasota County, Florida Commissioners decided that not only will they follow the mandate from the voters to dump their ES&S iVotronic DREs but also to dump ES&S. One commissioner said, “I’ve lost faith in ES&S entirely”. The county will now turn to Diebold to provide their optical-scan voting system.

Links to those stories, and many other such notable voting news items from today, all follow below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

We know that money is tight and that elections integrity is not one of the fashionable issues to support with what money you can afford to give to an issue. However, VotersUnite.org may not make it to another election if we don’t get some help. If you use our resources please help us to maintain our website and to continue providing those resources for you. Please help us out by going HERE. Thank you all again.

Today's notable voting news stories, as always, are all linked below...

It has now been well over a year since VotersUnite.org has bothered you with a plea for funds to keep our work going. We are proud to announce that we have been accepted as an activity under the auspices of International Humanities Center and, as such, any donations to VotersUnite are now tax deductible. We have appreciated the assistance that we have gotten in the past and will likewise appreciate any help you can give in the future. “Daily Voting News” and the data gathering and report writing that we do all take a lot of time and we know from comments from all of you that you use our work in your work. Please help us to continue to help you. Go HERE and give generously. Thank you.

And of course, links to today's notable voting news stories all follow below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In a combined statement Common Cause, VerifiedVoting.Org and VoteTrustUSA have said the following to Senator Diane Feinstein regarding her election reform legislation:

This statement is in regard to the lack of any solution in the Feinstein bill to address the widespread problem of paperless voting before the 2008 Presidential election.

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

When people try to make elections issues into a partisan issue we always tell them it’s not partisan; it’s about democracy. Actually it is very hard not to be partisan because we all are one way or another. It’s also not easy to be non-issue oriented. Some have said that because we feel a particular way about certain legislation that “Daily Voting News” will be used as our ‘bully-pulpit’ to spread the word only about our view point while stifling the other side.

Well, we are not Fox News Network. There’s a disclaimer at the bottom of every DVN that says that our view may not always match the views given in the articles we link to. That’s because we post articles from all over and we don’t take sides when we post. In fact, about the only things that I have consciously left out of DVN are articles that attack people or organizations that are in the Election Integrity community. If there are few articles posted that meet your particular view point it’s because none were written or I could not find them in my normal search places. Write an article/blog and get it posted somewhere and let me know. I’ll post it....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It’s good to be back from my well deserved trip to Alaska. A great time was had by all; except the fish.

Journalist, radio personality and friend Pokey Anderson opened her excellent article, “Peering Through The Chinks in the Armor of High-Tech Elections” thusly:

That voting news story, and many other important ones, all linked below...

NOTE FROM BRAD: Welcome back, Big John! And perhaps your regular readers would enjoy a photo of the man behind the DVN. Here he is enjoying much happier times off the grid last week. Here's to hoping he got plenty of rest to go with all that fish...I think he's gonna be needing it...

...And now back to your regularly scheduled Daily Voting News...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today is a hodge-podge of news and editorials. More on the for or against discussion of HR-811 and today Senator Feinstein announced the filing of her version of Holt’s bill. We also have editorials from two Utah papers that, of course, like HAVA just the way it is and more on the New Jersey lawsuit. All of those stories and more, are linked below.

Other than all of that, this is it for a week. The ‘Daily Voting News” staff (me) is taking a well deserved vacation. See you next Friday...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

For the first time in over four years of putting out “Daily Voting News” with only a one or two day break ‘DVN’ is going on a hiatus beginning after tomorrow’s edition and for a week. We will be back on Friday, June 1.

The Texas Voter ID bill has gone down in flames in and my new hero, State Senator Mario Gallegos has returned to be under his doctor’s care. Gallegos said, “"It's time to go home and do what the doctors tell me. It's something that had to be done. If I hadn't been here, they would have passed it."

Meanwhile US Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell has submitted an amendment to the immigration bill presently being heard in the Senate that would do the very thing that Senator Gallegos risked his health to stop.

Those stories, and many more, linked below...