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

The Princeton Report is being reported on, favorably, all over with demonstrations on CNN and Fox and recent articles in US News and World Reports, Information Week, and the UKs SC Magazine. Verified Voting Foundation has an excellent article with quotes from Dr.s David Dill and Doug Jones. / Do you have a file cabinet or office desk? Then you probably have a key to the Diebold memory card door. / "How many machines will Bucks County [Pennsylvania] receive for $5 million? Attachment B of the contract references 650 machines. Attachment E of the very same contract references 800 machines. When those who signed the contract are asked which number is correct, one is told “Neither. The county will receive 700-some machines.” No specific number is forthcoming." I have confidence. Not! ...

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

The fallout from the 'train wreck' in Maryland this week will not go away for awhile I'm afraid. There will surely be more calls for firings, and there should be. Heads should definitely roll but will the real people who are responsible be the ones to lose their jobs or will some underling suffer for the mistakes of their bosses? Will the state learn anything or will they just have an investigation and blame the problems all on poll workers and the voters? They hired the Election Center to do an investigation so there is no way Diebold will share any fault in this. Even the Washington Post has taken to disinformation and obfuscation in their reporting this weekend....

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

Diebold has now admitted that Maryland was the first state to use new 'e-poll books' and that they had no reasons yet why the machines were crashing throughout the day (three machines over 40 times in one polling place). Of course their first response is that the problem was all the poll workers and how they set-up the equipment. / Rhode Island conducted a state-wide recount for one race with the results being exactly the same as the original count. Of course, they just re-ran the memory and the recount was complete in 10 minutes. / The White House has named a new EAC Commissioner to replace Paul DeGregorio. The new nominee clearly has no qualifications for the job and her nomination actually violates the Help America Vote Act of 2002....

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

Milwaukee officials are counting every ballot by hand in order to find out how many ballots were really cast in Tuesday's election. They presently report 35,000 more ballots counted than cast. There is presently no plan to count any races. / The gentleman who "certifies" voting systems for the state of Colorado had to admit in court documents that he is not an 'expert'. He joins the growing list of non-experts who make crucial decisions on voting systems; people like Paul Craft, Brit Williams, Doug Lewis, and the EAC commissioners. / Tens of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots are still to be counted next week in Montgomery Co. Maryland / E-Poll books used in Maryland seem to have been a huge problem. Voters came to the polls to vote only to be told they had already voted according to the machines ...

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

Just as important as the voting machine issue is the issue of voter suppression. Why is it alright for legal voters to not be given a chance to use their right to vote? Why is it alright for states to overly restrict voter registration drives? Why is it alright to use ballots that are confusing and lack complete instructions? Today a US House committee met, after very little notice, to mark-up a bill that would keep hundreds of thousands of elderly, minorities and poor voters from being able to vote in Nov. This bill, HR-4484, would require every voter in the US to re-register to vote and to prove they are citizens and all before this November. This bill was replaced with another bill that will give us all another year but the substitute bill is even more restrictive in nature. Why is this alright? / On Wednesday EFF filed a brief with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to reject a request to dismiss an EFF lawsuit against the Ohio secretary of state and governor. The suit alleges the defendants abdicated their responsibilities to ensure Ohio residents had a right to vote. / Montgomery Co. Maryland is hiring the Election Center to investigate their failures. Sigh!!...

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

Today the Brennan Center released another report. This report congratulates Congress for implementing the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and taking us forward. However, the executive director said, "the way it is being implemented by many states, combined with new underhanded efforts to crack down on voter registration and participation, could move the country backward. We see a real problem coming up in November in the elections." / Today, also, Princeton University scientists released a report on the vulnerabilities of the Diebold TS voting system. This is the first time that hardware, firmware, and software have been investigated at the same time and the vulnerabilities are staggering. / Unbelievably Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams said Tuesday that he hopes the statewide adoption of electronic ballots will boost voting among young Texans and make elections more secure. Why would anyone think elections are more secure after witnessing what happened in Maryland yesterday? / Lancaster Co. Pennsylvania commissioners just purchased 92 additional eSlate DREs. Meanwhile the county elections director is asking all voters to use the paper ballots and eScans. It seems that someone has a lack of confidence in DREs. ...

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

Since when is "it's close enough" a good response when talking about our elections? Since when is "the problems identified won't change the results so we are going to ignore the problems" a good response when talking about our elections? Since when is every vote counts NOT a good response? / The Arizona SoS drug her feet and now a state law that requires a hand recount of ballots to check the machines won't be done on today's election unless the DoJ can approve the audit by tomorrow evening / Maryland seems to have been a complete 'Train Wreck' of an election. The problems will all be blamed on human error and people like Linda Lamone will do all they can to sweep the problems under the carpet. Human error was a large part of the problem and the blame should start at the top. ...

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

Texas' voter database, required by federal law to be in effect on 1 Jan. 2006 will not be ready this year and the state's best estimate is now 1 Jan. 2007. / VVPAT problems? Here's a good solution from Ken Blackwell's office. If the VVPAT printer jams, runs out of paper or otherwise destroys the ballot; just run a new tape from the memory card and use that. It doesn't matter what state law says or that it's not 'voter verified'. / Tomorrow we have primary elections in Arizona, Delaware, Washington DC, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. ...

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

Voters with disabilities are being asked to call for an appointment to vote using the new, accessible machines in some New York counties. "Scheduling in advance allows boards to arrange transportation and minimize waiting periods for the ballot-marking devices, which can take up to an hour to use, elections officials say." Advocacy groups say this puts up unnecessary barriers for those voters. / Florida counties have used new voting machines for a couple years now but they still seem to be stumped on how to make the system work properly....

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

Sequoia Voting has been in a media blitz lately. Today it is a media release announcing a demonstration of their full-screen Advantage DRE in New York. Unfortunately they are still not telling the truth about their accessibility features which actually force anyone who uses them to vote as if they were blind which actually makes voting much more difficult or impossible for voters who have mobility or cognitive disabilities. / Berkeley Co. West Virginia has already identified that they don't have enough DREs to put in their polling places but it is going to cost them $480,000 to purchase enough and they can't afford them if they had gone with optical-scan they would only need to buy more pencils / ES&S has accepted blame for all of their problems in the Arkansas primary election....

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

Late this afternoon a US District Court judge ordered all Ohio counties to preserve all 2004 ballots. / Poll watchers on Guam report that ballot boxes have two doors on them. One has a padlock installed and the other has 'twist-ties'. Poll watchers were kicked out of at least one polling place by Election Commission staff for 30-minutes with no explanation. / Voters who chose to vote on paper ballots in some predominately African-American and Democrat precincts in Duval Co Florida found that the precincts ran out of paper ballots early in the day. The county blames the mistake on human error. / State required vote-sorting software seems to have failed all over Florida on Tuesday night....

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

For those who were not aware, Warren Mitofsky 'exited' last Friday. Our best wishes go to his family and friends. / The major failure reported in Florida's primary, so far, seems to be the failure of getting speedy results from the polling places to the counties. Problems were reported in several counties. / Mahoning Co. Ohio still owes ES&S over $400,000 for services previously provided. ES&S refuses to provide new batteries to replace those that are beyond their useful life span. The county refuses to pay the bill, not because of anything to do with ES&S but because of a completely different matter. The county is now in a position where they may have problems running an election in Nov. / Texas has named the Univ. of Texas baseball coach as the new spokesman for the SoS's VOTEXAS program. Unfortunately the coach has never voted in his ten years living in the state....

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

A lawsuit has been filed against Shelby Co. Tennessee and Diebold alleging that the Diebold AccuVote Machine is subject to tampering, that workers in some cases were not properly trained in the use of the machine and that the machines denied voters the right to cast secret ballots. / Problems with ES&S voting machines not counting the votes on Guam has led to the election commission not to certify the election. / Sequoia issues a PR that touts their accessibility though it does not say that, in fact, it forces voters with disabilities who are sighted to vote as if they were blind; a very real handicap to those voters, and one that will make it nearly impossible for those voters to vote in privacy....

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

A Georgia State Elections Board member has stated his concern that touch-screen voting machines count accurately and he will be calling for hearings around the state. He says it is his guess that Nov. will be the last election in the state on DREs. / It appears that no matter who is the majority winner in any Congressional races in Nov. if there is any doubt that would lead to a recount or challenge those actions are up to the branch of congress that is affected if the nominal winner has been sworn into office....

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

Humboldt Co California is being forced to purchase $804,000 worth of Hart Intercivic for their accessible voting rather than use the $65,000 worth of Vote-PAD. The SoS certainly did this county a big favor when they unfairly rejected Vote-PAD. That gift from the SoS to the county is also a gift that keeps on giving as the county will have to pay the hidden costs annually while Vote-PAD was a one-time only fee. / The Tennessee GOP rejected a primary candidates request for a recount. Apparently the parties run their primary in the state. / A federal judge has ruled the Ohio registration laws as being unconstitutional. ...