Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

A patched E-Poll Book will be tested by Diebold and elections officials in Maryland on Tuesday. Past reports in the Baltimore Sun have stated that the poll books have never been used before then Diebold admitted that they were used in Georgia's primary but that version was an earlier machine. Diebold also admitted that the Georgia machines had the same problem as those used in Maryland. Diebold thought the problem was a hardware failure and that it would not happen in Maryland. Now they have had to install three patches in software, two written by Diebold and one by their hardware supplier. Will Diebold tell the rest of the states that are going to use these e-poll books in the November general election? Will patches be installed? These machines are a part of the overall federally certified voting system. Will the Independent Test Authorities (ITAs) test the certified software now that it has been modified? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

I hope that everyone had a chance to read the San Jose Mercury News article from Thursday. Our overseas military voters will now have an option of emailing their ballots to the Pentagon. Those emails will then be sent to a contractor, who makes partisan contributions, and the emails will then be copied and fax'd to those states that do not allow email but will allow faxes or forwarded on to those states who do allow email. The military voters are not told that their personal information and voting choices may be released and they are required to waive their right to a secret ballot. The article is posted again, below / Ever hear of voting problems in Oklahoma? In over three years of doing DVN I don't think I have ever included an article from OK. Today I did and it's a good one. / ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Diebold responds to criticism from Avi Rubin. Diebold's Radke claims the e-poll book problems were just a minor 'glitch' though reports are that it took three software patches to correct this minor 'glitch'. / Louisiana is conducting an election today with local and state elections and issues / Voters in Caddo Parrish, Louisiana had problems with some races on some machines today. The media hid that fact under a headline discussing voters finding their polling places. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

It appears that the qualification to become a voting system technician in Maryland has gotten a bit tougher. They now require a high school diploma. Class work only will not make the grade any longer. / The Nov. 7 ballot in Belmont Co. Ohio will be 12 pages long. Look for long lines here. / Lou Dobbs of CNN has been doing semi-regular segments on voting machines for several months now. He is now being joined by CBS Evening News and ABC Radio News to name a few. / Boone Co. Missouri is withholding $800,000 from ES&S until the vendor fixes faulty machines it has delivered. / A majority of the House of Representatives has now endorsed HR-550 ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Maryland Gov. Ehrlich feels so negatively about his state's use of e-voting machines that he is actually using an automated phone message to encourage his supporters to vote absentee in Nov. / Overseas e-mailed ballots from the military are handled by a Pentagon contractor with partisan ties, according to an article in the San Jose Mercury. / Mississippi may disenfranchise all voters who use absentee ballots. They cannot get them mailed in time. How can that be all right? How can the military not be given time to vote? / Today was the House Admin. Committee hearing on voting technology. The AP reporter who attended must have fallen asleep after ten minutes. He only touched on one small part of what was discussed in the hearing. / The Tarrant Co. Texas Democratic party is preparing a federal lawsuit against the SoS for refusing to allow the county to have a vvpat. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Diebold has now divulged that there were three software problems with the e-poll books used in Maryland in the primary a couple weeks ago. These poll-books were federally certified. Why were these problems not found when they were certified as part of a complete voting system? Is the EAC going to track the software updates and ensure they get inspected prior to use in other states, if Diebold even makes the corrections in other states? / Diebold has also now divulged that the same e-poll book failure in Maryland also happened in July in Georgia. How many other states are using these machines and will they be told of the failures? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

In this segment from yesterday, Kitty Pilgrim reports on Florida and their failure to provide recountable ballots for half of the voters in the state. Congressman Wexler wants to do something about that and he has now taken his case to the US Supreme Court.

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Two Senators have introduced a bill in the Senate that will reimburse counties for paper ballots if they are provided along with DRE voting machines in precincts. This bill was begun as an idea from a blogger and shows the power of the blog. / Diebold claims to have solved a design flaw that caused their e-poll book to crash constantly while being used in Maryland's primary. One has to wonder how that fix was made and put on the Maryland machines without ever going through federal certification testing. / Denver Colorado seems to have purchased second-hand Sequoia "card activators" from Chicago. They were used in the failed Chicago primary. The equipment then failed in Denver last month. Good plan and they saved a whole $10,000....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

MicroVote seems to be in trouble in Indiana again. They have still not settled with the state on violations from the primary earlier this year that could bring fines of $300,000 per incident. Now they have admitted disabling the straight-party feature on their Infinity machines because of a software error and they told no one in the state about the action. They are scrambling to fix the software and get the fix reinstalled. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

From an article on the Colorado lawsuit; "Whenever you hear an assertion from an election official of why you should trust their machines," [Expert witness Dan] Wallach said, "inevitably it boils down to 'because they are federally certified."' The reliance on federal testing for computer vulnerabilities was called into question during the case. "The evidence is that there were pretty significant areas at the federal level where such testing simply wasn't done," Judge Manzanares said in his ruling. / Why has Sequoia misled in a recent press release concerning their products and the Brennan Center Report? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Most of today's news is on the Colorado court decision. This was a resounding win for the voters of the state. The state's DREs will be used in Nov. but they will be decertified immediately after and may not be re-certified. Great job by the legal team including VoterAction. / Mississippi will be disenfranchising absentee and overseas/military voters by not allowing them to vote in a special legislative election that will be held on Nov. 7 along with the general election. / Two excellent articles in today's NYTimes. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

San Mateo Co California planned on using all Hart eSlate machines at polling sites. They are concerned about the voters and poll workers not having enough time to get acclimated to the machines so they will now have just one machine and ask the voters to use paper ballots. Warren Slocum, the county's Chief Elections Office, should be applauded for caring. / Connecticut has now announced plans to do random audits of their LHS (Diebold) optical-scan machines / Today is the last state primary (Hawaii) this season. / A judge in Colorado has found that though the state can still use DREs in Nov. they will only be used with increased security and that they will all be decertified following the election and reports are that the new certification may make it impossible to get DREs certified in the state in the future. This sounds like a resounding success and there will surely be a lot more....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

In Maryland Diebold TS voting machines, the same machine recently hacked by Princeton University, were left in polling places on election night and, in some cases, for days after the election with all memory cards and paper tapes still inside the machines. / A selected handcount of precincts and races in Pima Co. Arizona found one discrepancy that was explained away and took about 3 hours yesterday afternoon. They do not have to be cumbersome, huge tasks. / 29 disabled voters used accessible voting machines in New York City last week. That's $52,000 per voter. / Write-in votes from 8 Boston precincts were not counted after last week's primary. The court has told the city to unseal and count all votes not counted. / Why did Sequoia Voting Systems put out a press release that misrepresents conclusions of the Brennan Center Report? / Why are Diebold voting machines sold in Connecticut as LHS AccuVote OS? Why is no mention of Diebold ever made in the media. Is someone trying to keep secrets?...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

CNN's Lou Dobbs, "When voters lose confidence in our elected representatives, we can vote the bums out. But what is the recourse if American voters lose confidence in our electoral system?" / Pima Co. Arizona had 4 DRE and 3 Optical-scan machines turned in with evidence of tampering with security seals. This was election night. What do they do now, ignore the votes in the machines? Ignore the security issues? / Montgomery Co. Maryland has 10 to 12 thousand provisional ballots to count due to their voting problems. It will be next week before final results can be announced. / Voters who do not want to use e-voting machines in the Netherlands can get a voting pass and go to a municipality that allows voting with a paper ballot and pencil. This right has sparked a whole new industry called, "Voting Tourism". ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Today is primary day in Washington and Massachusetts. / The Sebastian Co. Arkansas clerk will be telling the SoS that ES&S iVotronic voting machines are NOT accessible. / Boulder Co. Colorado expects to have long lines in Nov. due in large part to the size of their ballot which for absentee voters will be up to 4 11×17 inch pages. The time to vote a ballot this size on touch screen voting machines will cause a huge back-up and send many people home without voting. ...