Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Many on all sides of the discussions over HR-811 point to the “Hursti Hack” as proof of their arguments. Those who back HR-811 without any ban on DREs tell us that the “Hursti Hack” in Florida proves that optical-scan systems are equally as bad as DREs. Those on the opposite side of the argument, and for hand counted paper ballots make the exact same argument. What does Harri Hursti have to say? Harri says that DREs are not safe for use in elections, even with a voter verified paper audit trail. He also says that hand counting paper ballots is not feasible in the US because of the complexity of our ballots. It may work in Finland, or other countries, where the ballots are simple and may only have one or two races; but not in the United States with ballots that are pages long.

That story, and many more today, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The rise of electronic voting has created new ways to disenfranchise African-American voters—through high-tech ethnic profiling, inequitable allocation of equipment, and discrimination against non-computer-users and the elderly.

The solution? Prohibit the use of electronic voting systems, and replace them with voter-marked paper ballots, optical scanners, and stringent audits — a combination that provides the most secure safeguards available today and in the foreseeable future.

The opportunity to ban electronic voting is before Congress now. HR 811, the “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007,” does not prohibit electronic voting but must be amended to do so, in order to protect the voting rights of African-Americans.

“Many national organizations are pushing electronic voting machines, in spite of evidence that the machines are disenfranchising African-Americans and other minorities. Everyone must take a closer look at this — and soon.”
Velmanette Montgomery, New York State Senator...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Recent reports that Voting Technologies International has gone out of business have apparently been premature but now the company is being sued by past employees, vendors, and Wisconsin labor regulators, all of whom say the company did not pay them for accrued time off, services rendered and reimbursable expenses. How much longer can it be for VTI?

Meanwhile a congressional task force will meet April 17, for the first time, to begin discussions of the election in Florida CD-13. The GOP has, so far, chosen to not have any members on this task force. The group will meet with or without a GOP representative.

And speaking of Florida, the Governor and Senate seem to be in agreement that DRE voting must go. The state House seems to be holding out. The Speaker of the House is concerned that state funds are going to be used by the counties to correct their bad decisions. And then late this afternoon the GOP majority in one House committee voted to axe any funds for the state to purchase new machines to replace their DREs.

Also today, true to its seemingly partisan position the EAC has decided to disown a commissioned study on VoterID and do it again in an attempt to get the result that they want.

All those stories and more linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Just why is the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation (SCI) asking counties for all paperwork that applies to their dealing with Sequoia Voting Systems? They want “all bids, contracts, licenses, canceled checks and warranties relating to the purchase of voting machines from Sequoia.” Of course no one at SCI is saying anything while the investigation is under way.

And in more vendor news St Joseph Co, Indiana is paying an ES&S bill under protest and they may follow their check with a notice of a lawsuit. It seems the company may have made software updates contrary to county instructions and then when ES&S corrected the mistake they decided to charge for that correction.

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Since October of last year, The Coalition for Voting Integrity has been producing a radio show, “Voice of the Voters” - available on WNJC1360 AM and the Internet - devoted to the exploration not only of the impact of electronic voting but also the nature of Democracy and our role in it as American citizens.

The list of guests has been nothing short of astounding. From a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian to national experts on the issues and science behind electronic voting, every week has brought a wealth of information to the public. Mary Ann Gould has interviewed internationally known computer scientists and electronic voting experts, Dr. Avi Rubin, Dr. Dan Lopresti and Dr. Rebecca Mercuri. She’s talked to polling expert Dr. Steven Freeman of UPENN. She got the latest news about pending electronic voting litigation, including some in Pennsylvania, from attorneys and voting experts John Bonifaz, Marian K. Schneider and Lowell Finley. She’s talked to Congressmen Rush Holt (NJ-12) and Ron Paul (TX-14).

I highly recommend this weekly one-hour radio program. It airs on WNJC and on the Internet every Wednesday from 8PM to 9PM EST. Go to Coalition for Voting Integrity for more information on each week’s program and to find the archives of previous programs.

Aside from that, notable voting stories from today are linked below as usual...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The House Administration (full committee) is planning to markup Rep. Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 (HR. 811) on Thursday, March 29th at 10am. Any letters in opposition to this bill’s lack of a ban of DREs should be addressed to House Administration and faxed to them today or tomorrow so they can be inserted in the Record. Meanwhile a judge in Orange Co. California ruled in a contested election that the "voter verified paper audit trail" [VVPAT] did not have to be counted. And one more Cuyahoga Co. Ohio board of elections member has resigned leaving just one member to be removed from his position by the Secretary of State.

Those, and many more voting stories of note from today's media coverage, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today, Monday, the state of Massachusetts goes to court to defend themselves in a lawsuit brought by Diebold. Diebold claims that the state should have bought their accessible voting machines rather than the AutoMark that was offered by ES&S because the Diebold voting machine was the best of the two. Perhaps Diebold will offer to explain to the judge what makes their voting system accessible. I doubt that will happen because they would have a lot of problem proving the imaginary.

That story, and many more today, linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

First I want to welcome Kim Zetter to the “blogosphere”. She has been a respected reporter for Wired News and has covered voting technology for a few years now. You can find her work at Informed Consent.

As reported by both Kim and The BRAD BLOG:

That story, and much more from around the country today, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In what may be the first local action to HR-811, Westmoreland Co. Pennsylvania is asking for more state or federal funds to allow them to change voting systems if their present system is affected by federal legislation.

Meanwhile Florida’s Governor, Charlie Crist, has announced that he wants to use new ballot on demand technology for early voting thus allowing the state of Florida to go to 99% paper ballots in any election.

In Ohio newly elected SOS Jennifer Brunner warned members of the Cuyahoga Co. Board of Elections that they all need to resign. The two Democratic members of the board have taken this advice but the two Republican members have decided to ignore Brunner’s warning that she will air their dirty laundry if they don’t resign. True to her word, and as reported here on The BRAD BLOG, Brunner has sent an 18 page document to each of the hangers-on that spells out their failures and makes those failures public. The failures include numerous instances of misfeasance, nonfeasance, and violations of state election law in five distinct areas. The big question now is who is going to conduct elections in this county? The Board is gone, the election director was fired, one manager is now going to prison for 18 months along with one employee, and there have been many resignations. And all of this is on top of yet another criminal investigation to find out whether vote counts from early and absentee voters were totaled before Election Day. ...

Today is one of those days when I wish I could act like the US Senate and just claim the absence of a quorum and put on “Pachelbel’s Canon” or some concerto by Mozart or Bach. There is a lot to talk about; but not a lot to say about; any one thing.

I did find out from Steven Harsman, Montgomery Co. Ohio Board of Elections, that they inspected a total of 256 voting machines but the test done for screen calibration was done on 124 machines and they found that 56 of those machines needed recalibration.

Also today CA SOS Bowen issued a press release and a draft of a plan to review every voting system used in the state. If the present draft is finalized as it is now it is going to be hard for DRE machines to pass the review and maintain certification.

In Cuyahoga Co. Ohio a second Board of Elections member has resigned leaving only two recalcitrant members who are refusing to leave their jobs. Meanwhile in the county there is another investigation into misdeeds within the county elections office. This time investigators are gathering evidence that will show someone entered the county voting system prior to election day and printed absentee and early voting results illegally.

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As a result of complaints from voters the Diebold DREs used in Montgomery Co. Ohio have been tested. Voters complained that votes flipped on the screens. Testing of the machines that were used by the complaining voters has proven that 56 of the number tested failed the test and did, in fact, flip votes. The blame has been put on possible mis-handling of the machines by the shipping company that delivered the machines to the poll sites. Diebold claims that no votes were lost and that every vote was counted accurately. Of course, the accurate count claim does not mean that the choices of the people were counted; just that the selection made by the machine was accurately chosen. What is interesting about the media reports of the testing is that the local Dayton Daily News reports that 125 machines were tested resulting in a 45% failure rate while the Associated Press reports that 258 machines were tested which results in a 19% failure rate. Which number was true? I’ve got calls in but the Montgomery Co. Board of Elections has ignored my query so far....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Some HR-811 proponents state that while DREs may be bad we have them now and we need to fix what we have.

My problem with this thinking is that we are talking about elections; not a line of computers. Think about those things you know about for a minute. If your University purchased a specialized computer that failed as much as DREs do; would your University keep it and try to fix it for the future or would you send it back and go somewhere else? If you used an online legal library that was missing references; would you keep using that library or pay the money to change to another one? I know that when I was doing nuclear refueling on Naval ships if I had a tool that failed constantly, use of that tool would be stopped immediately and something else would be designed for use.

The big issue is that the special computer would never have gone on the market; the reference library would never have gone online; and the tool would never have been sold to the Navy. Industry does not work that way. Why is it that our elections are not as important as our work?

Why is it that it's alright to allow a technology that has constantly failed to continue to be used? And why is it that we can continue to use it while trying to fix the problems? How many votes are to be lost, flipped, or not counted while we continue to allow the use of the machines that are responsible for the loss, flipping and not counting?

Links to today's notable news reports on elections follow below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In an article on BRAD BLOG, Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.Org challenges...

Links to that article, and many more, follow below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In the words of Dale Carrico in his blog “Amore Mundi” on the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies website:

That item, and many more, linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In an article in OpEdNews Teresa Hommel calls voters to action and asks that HR-811 be amended to correct problems. She identifies a couple problems with the worst being:

That seems pretty clear and is just one more reason that HR-811 must be amended.

Links to many more such stories follow...