Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Will the main stream media (MSM) continue to report on voting issues as they did in the long lead-up to the election? My guess is that they won't. Oh, there will be some follow-up on local issues but the networks and the cable news channels will surely forget that there is an issue with regards to voting machines. I expect to see even Lou Dobbs stowing the "Democracy at Risk" graphic away. It now goes back to the thousands of citizens who work in obscurity to try to convince our election officials that electronic voting machines should not have any place in our elections. This year's national election proved that fact though the national media immediately ignored the melt-down and blessed the election as having "wide-spread failures". As expected the MSM was joined by the Election Assistance Commission, electionline.org, the vendors, and many election officials. / Sarasota County and other Florida CD-13 counties have begun two days of recounts and number crunching without really recounting the voters' wishes....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As should be expected by anyone who follows elections as closely as we do, the news today is again full of articles from Sarasota Co., Florida where the counties paperless ES&S voting machines failed to register over 18,000 votes for a 13th Congressional District race. ES&S and the county elections director are, of course, blaming the problem on the voters just not wanting to vote in the race. Meanwhile the media is full of anecdotal evidence that the machines failed to register votes in that race. The lesson is that Never, NEVER should the decision of who wins a race come down to a decision made by a voting machine. Never! NEVER should a voting machine be part of the decision. If the voters don't want to vote in a race then it's their decision and there should be no doubt that was their decision. A paper ballot gives us that information. A box with circuitry and software gives us nothing. We need to take the box out of the decision process....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Faced with election results that show over 18,000 voters were disenfranchised by her voting machines, Sarasota Co. Florida Elections Director Kathy Dent has changed her mind about DREs. Dent has now come out in favor of a referendum that was on the ballot, and that she fought hard against, that would require the county to change to a paper based voting system. The referendum won overwhelmingly. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

A large majority of today's news comes from Sarasota Co., Florida where the voters won a referendum vote to require the county to provide a voting system that has paper and is verifiable. Unfortunately the voters spoke at the same time the machines decided not to count over 18,000 votes in a congressional race. / Polls were kept open late in Kane Co, Illinois, by court order, but now the state Supreme's are deciding if that judge overstepped in his court order. Many voters may now be disenfranchised. / Undervote rate for Florida attorney general in Sumter county was 22%; Lee was 18%; Charlotte was 21%. / In Benton Co. Arkansas a problem was found with the vote totals. They re-ran the ballots and the final results of 8 races changed. Another great election for ES&S...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It took over 24 hours for Cook Co. Illinois to count their votes. That's with their brand-new Smartmatic clone Sequoia voting machines. County Clerk David Orr conceded that the hardware and software being used should be re-examined. / One of the striking problems that has come up around the country is the reason for long lines in many places. They just didn't buy enough machines for the turnout they had. Another boon for the vendors when all they really needed to do was buy one PBOS for each precinct and there would have been no need to go out and buy more DRE machines. And the cause of the long lines in Denver; poorly written, poorly tested voter registration software from Sequoia. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

'Hey! Let's take all of our polling sites and consolidate them into a few large, super poll sites. Then we have thousands of voters vote in the same location on the same machines. We will save all kinds of money.' That's Denver Colorado and everything worked great until the machines began to fail and the process to get voters in and out slowed to a crawl. Result: Lines 4 blocks long. Day After Result: "Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher today asked that Denver's two elected voting commissioners resign and that the mayor fire Clerk and Recorder Wayne Vaden as well as the entire senior staff of the election commission." / Over 18,000 under votes were recorded in the FL-13 CD. In a race that has less than 500 votes difference. Unfortunately most of the votes were cast on paperless ES&S voting machines. The software needs to be removed from the machines and closely inspected by experts. This race will not be decided for awhile....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

David Tom, elections manager, county of San Mateo: "I feel very secure in the machines and how they work. We do a lot of testing on these machines and we're absolutely 100 percent sure these machines will work the way they do." Huh?? / “We can expect that things will go smoother this November,” said Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Sequoia. In other words, more problems will be blamed on 'human error' than in previous elections. / Tonights DVN is more heavily weighted toward reports of problems and less to the editorials and opinions. Some of the news services and local media outlets are talking about the 'minor glitches' and ignoring the major failures across the country. Today's election proved Ms. Shafer wrong but the blame will go on the 'human error' just the same....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

If you have a problem voting, call The Election Integrity Response System at 1-866-OUR-VOTE / 'The state of Florida was on high alert today as an electronic voting machine that was being tested in advance of Tuesday’s midterm election went berserk and killed nine in a terrifying rampage.' (Satire) / 'There are reports from at least seven states of voters being harassed by multiple phone calls with recorded messages - "robocalls" - that appear to be a devious manipulation of voter's pre-election advertisement overload.' / Well, it all starts/ends tomorrow. Let's hope things go smoothly in all 50 states and that every losing candidate is satisfied with the results of the election. I'm a dreamer but what the hell…...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The full, un-redacted SAIC report has finally been released today. / Today marks the 58th anniversary of the "Polk County Massacre" in Tennessee. / The news for the past week, today and surely tomorrow has been rife with 'feel-good' articles about how prepared counties are and how well the voters like their voting machines. If the primaries and early voting are a gauge, then we are looking at many of these counties, especially those in states with no early voting, to have problems. / Bibb, Camden and Cobb Co.s Georgia will all use machines with a vvpat for the first time this year. Let's hope the state is serious about this test and that the printers are properly serviced and not allowed to fail just so the state and Diebold can claim it is a mistake. / Anderson Co South Carolina has sleepovers this weekend. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The good folks in Luzerne Co. Pennsylvania are starting to wake-up and realize they may be spending a bit more of their tax money than they expected. Their contract with ES&S does not cover maintenance fees for next year. The tax payers will be expected to pony-up over $250,000 just for next year. Previously, the tax payers paid NOTHING for their lever machine maintenance. ...

Gosh...maybe there's a pattern here or something. Is there something to be concerned about here?...Here are just a few of the headlines from the National section (much more in the state-by-states) of today-only's 'Daily Voting News' from John Gideon...

This list is also notable because it contains the very first story ever on e-voting concerns (at least that I could find in a quick search) from the completely useless Los Angeles Times! Waytago, guys! Just in time! You win the BRAD BLOG's "Most Useless and Irresponsible Big City Newspaper in the Country" Award!

Their very first article comes today despite a mountain of problems for years, not to mention the last few months, across California, including the myriad disasters ("sleepovers" and everything else) just down the road in San Diego; a hapless Sec. of State who has approved one hackable, malfunctioning electronic voting machine after another (offering an ersatz blessing for the rest of the states from "the country's largest voting market," as Diebold calls us); and one of the most important Sec. of State races ever, with a real democracy champion, Debra Bowen, running against the inveterate liar and democracyhater, SoS Bruce McPherson.

Add to that list of reasons why the LA Times should be utterly ashamed of themselves is this comment in their own article today from one of the top scientists on McPherson's own team of voting systems advisors:

Of course, Jefferson's been saying that for months. But has the LA Times bothered to report any of it? Little wonder they haven't devoted a single article to this issue until just three days before the election. Nothing to see here at all. Move along. Don't read those headlines above. Everything's still just fine.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The complete, unredacted SAIC Report is finally in the process of being released by someone on the inside. There will now be a mad crush of people who will want to read the report. Diebold's worse nightmare. / Here's a five-step plan guaranteed to make an obscure company [Diebold] absolutely notorious. First get into a business you don't understand, selling to customers who barely understand it either. Then roll out your product without adequate testing. Don't hire enough skilled people. When people notice problems, deny, obfuscate and ignore. Finally, blame your critics when it all blows up in your face....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

'Lawyers for the state and groups that opposed Ohio's voter identification rules claimed victory Wednesday in a settlement that suspends the law for absentee voters and clarifies and expands it for voting in person.' / Hart Intercivic has been under the radar lately. VoteTrustUSA has an article that lets you see who is behind the company. / Cuyahoga Co Ohio is back in the news again. Seems they decided that they would make free use of workers lap-tops to make memory card reading a bit easier. No telling what viruses may have been passed around. / There seems to be a yellow button on the back of Sequoia DREs that is suddenly getting a lot of attention because it can be used to gain access to the machine and could be used to vote more than one time....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Remember – 1-866-Our-Vote / In an attempt to stop HBO from airing the documentary 'Hacking Democracy' which starts tomorrow evening and runs for the whole month at various times, Diebold has made threats and pointed out mistakes that they feel are in the documentary. What is funny is that the errors Diebold claims are in the documentary are not even in this film. / On Guam, Bill 355 passed the territories legislature, if now signed into law by Governor Felix Camacho, would suspend the use of electronic voting machines in local elections until their use can be demonstrated to be as accurate and effective as traditional paper ballots. / Today we feature links to a well done series of informational articles in 'Computerworld'....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"Voice of the Voters" 1360AM OR on the Internet at Link or click from our website saveourvote.com; Wed. evenings at 8PM EST. Avi Rubin will be tomorrow evening's guest. / ""They erroneously assumed these machines are like computers," Bear said of the computer scientists and hackers who claim they've cracked voting-machine codes. "They are only plugged into the wall for power; they are not computers [and] they're not plugged into the Internet. A lot of these 'security experts' that have passed judgment don't have an appreciation for the environment we're operating in. They're saying these are how these things would operate in a computer/Internet world, but we're not in a computer/Internet voting scenario." According to Bear, before elections the machines are kept behind a locked door with a secure piece of tape covering the slot where the memory card is inserted." / And while David Bear is perfecting his stand-up act UConn has done a full study with a Diebold Optical-scan machine and the results are just as scathing as the Princeton study of the TS DRE."...