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

Tennessee law says "no voter who is voting without assistance may remain in a voting machine booth or occupy a voting compartment for more than five (5) minutes if other voters are waiting or more than ten (10) minutes in any event." Voters with disabilities now get to vote (supposedly) without assistance. The Tennessee ballot will be very long this year. 5 min.? 10 min.? / Utah continues to brag about how their recounts are proving their DREs are accurate. Of course the recount only compares the machines results against the machines results. / Voters in Georgia have filed a lawsuit to stop unverifiable voting / A federal "qui tam" lawsuit has been filed by RFK Jr. and others / "The designers of video games have built far more sophisticated security into their systems than have the manufacturers of voting machines," said Lowell Finley, co-director of Voter Action...

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

Salt Lake County has 2 primary races to recount. The recount will be done in a couple hours according to news reports this morning. That means they will just run the tapes again and come up with the same answers. No real recount. Garbage in "“ Garbage out! / This evening the county reported that they had completed the recount. There was no change. Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says the result is a big boost of confidence in the new electronic voting machines. / The Arkansas Co., Arkansas Election Commission Chair told a court that she got a bill from ES&S for programming PEBs in the primary and run-off elections recently and "of course it's wrong". / Avante International Technology is suing Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia for patent infringement / Accenture is failing in another state, Wisconsin, to provide a voter registration database on time and that works....

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

San Diego Co. is charging between $0.76 and $0.95 per ballot for a possible recount but Orange Co. California charged $0.14 per ballot for a comparable recount last April. The county says the extra cost is to cover making other documents available. / Over 4000 Riverside Co. California ballots were rejected because they were not received prior to election-day. / Unfortunately a judge in Texas found that Travis Co. can continue to use their unverifiable voting machines....

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

Voters in at least one precinct in Mobile Co. Alabama were apparently given the wrong ballots on June 6. In precincts with split districts all voters were apparently given ballots for only one district. In one precinct 108 voters live in one district but no votes were voted for either candidate for State Representative. / The EAC is finally going to take over the testing and certification of voting systems. Will anything change? / ...

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

While the GOP in Utah is demanding recounts in three races the state has to figure out how to do those recounts. If there is any doubt as to how the state is leaning you only need to listen to the Lt. Gov.'s spokesman, Joe Demma, who says "The area we see the most susceptibility to need a recount are the paper ballots." / A Grand Jury may explore nine issues with one race in Boyd Co. Kentucky where 530 more votes were cast than voters who voted. / Wherever the elections are close this fall, they'll most likely be scrutinized by armies of lawyers. By setting those January 2006 deadlines for various reforms, "Congress designed it this way so we would have 2006 be our 'get experience' year," says Doug Lewis, head of the nonprofit Election Center, which trains election officials. Then everything will be smoothed out in time for the 2008 presidential election. Or that's the idea, anyway.(USNews)...

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

In a sharply worded ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melvin Westmoreland said Friday that Georgia's voter ID law "unduly burdens the fundamental right to vote rather than regulate it" and would cause "irreparable harm."...

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

Recently Catherine Crier of CourtTV did a segment of her "Crier Wire" on elections and democracy. It is a must see. / The state of Indiana has now announced that they are sending their old voting machines to Benin in order to help to nurture democracy in that country, according to SoS Todd Rokita. Benin has been hand counting their paper ballots. Why can't we just leave the rest of the world alone? Maybe they have it right and we are wrong. / The county of San Diego has decided that any recount will cost petitioners about $1 per ballot to count. That's over twice as much as any other county is presently charging for a recount. One can only assume that the county really, really doesn't want any recount of their ballots....

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

Three Utah counties face the possibility of having to do recounts from the state's recent primary-election. However, the state has no procedure on how to do recounts, when to use the vvpat and when not to use it. The Lt. Gov seems to want the vvpat only used in 'extreme' cases but others point out that state law suggests the paper ballot is the official ballot. / Linda Lamone, Maryland's State Elections Director, in a statement on NPR's Diana Rehm program and speaking about the Brennan Center Report said that the job of election administrators is to promote confidence in the electoral process. What happened to running elections where the voter's choices are actually counted with no doubt as to the accuracy of that count? What happened to promoting confidence by ensuring the system to be used by the voters is secure? Burying your head in the sand and ignoring security vulnerabilities does not promote confidence....

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

A losing incumbent in Polk County Iowa has filed all necessary paper work and a surety bond in order to qualify for a contest of the election. This was based on a ballot-counting malfunction in Pottawattamie County that prematurely named nine losing candidates as winners. County officials there acknowledged last week that they had failed to properly test their new machines prior to Election Day. (I spoke to a reporter last week who told me that the county had admitted not doing any L&A test at all.) / If you read the article from Winston Co. Mississippi you will come away with a warm and fuzzy feeling about their use of Diebold TSx machines recently. Diebold and the state have spared no expense in passing out disinformation and obfuscation....

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

A report from Ireland says, "The Independent Commission also says that the traditional paper method is moderately better in terms of secrecy and accuracy than the proposed e-voting system in its current form." The e-voting system is the same Liberty voting machines being touted for some east coast states. / Happy 4th. Please be Safe and Sane....

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

So what do you do when a voting system you want to use doesn't meet the standards you have set up? If you are Colorado you certify it anyway and then when questions begin to be asked you change the standards to meet your actions. / "If, as a practical matter, [the electronic voting machines deployed prior to an election] can't be secured, then perhaps they ought not be used at all. Period. Until the impediment can be removed." Freddie Oakley, Yolo County Registrar of Voters. / BlackBoxVoting has released the full Hursti II report, unredacted and with more pictures than were taken during the "Alice's Restaurant Massacre". / VoterAction has announced they are filing an injunction in California against the use of Diebold TSx machines....

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

The Utah Lt. Gov. office is talking about requiring audits in Nov. and in the future. The audit in Nov. may be done by the Lt. Gov. office itself. One can only wonder what transparency there will be. They will go to the state legislature to ask for funding and a law for future audits. Perhaps the Brennan Report is getting through to a few people? One can only hope....

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

A report by a grand jury in Boyd Co. Kentucky, which met for the last time Thursday, lists nine items for the next group to review, including that the vote count from the primary exceeded the reported number of total voters, the reason behind barring the media and candidates from vote counting and whether certain elected officials became involved in the decision to keep candidates and the media out of the clerk's office. The finger for this problem seems to be pointing at the county sheriff and Harp Enterprises who is a purveyor of Hart Intercivic....

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

On the subject of audits in Utah - The lieutenant governor's office will seek expert advice on the matter this summer and add the requirement administratively, said spokesman Joe Demma. "We could just randomly take 10 or 15 machines and audit the paper trail, but what we want are professional guidelines," Demma said. "We're going to look for professionals to set some guidelines for what would qualify as an accurate statistical model." How about Hawaii or New Mexico as examples of good audit laws?...

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

"This report is based on speculation rather than an examination of the record. To date, voting systems have not been successfully attacked in a live election. The purported vulnerabilities presented in this study, while interesting in theory, would be extremely difficult to exploit." Bob Cohen, a spokesman for the Election Technology Council, a voting machine vendors' trade group speaking the party line (disinformation and obfuscation) regarding the Brennan Report. / I heartily recommend that you read the Internet news article that is the first on the list. If you thought the Elections Assistance Commission was in existence to assist and protect the voters this article might influence you otherwise. Two of the commissioners can't even get their misinformation right....