Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
Today was a big news day. The Election Assistance Commission announced that they have adopted the new 2005 voluntary voting system guidelines. Diebold is very prominent in the news. We now have a pretty good reason for the sudden resignation of their CEO and President, Wally O’Dell. A securities fraud lawsuit was filed in federal court in Ohio against the corporation and 8 present and former officers. Also, late this afternoon (in fact so late that there is nothing yet in the news about it) it was reported that a security test was done of the Diebold voting system in Leon County, FL. The system failed miserably to stop the intrusion and changing of votes and no record of the intrusion was given though votes were changed. This has resulted in the county elections director to say that he would never use Diebold in an election again. (See BlackBoxVoting.Org for more information)…
NAtional: Securities Fraud Litigation Filed Against Diebold, Inc! LINK
NAtional: Scott+Scott, LLC Files Securities Fraud Class Action Against Diebold Inc. LINK
NAtional: More troops voted than ever before, but were all ballots counted? LINK
NAtional: EAC Adopts 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines LINK
NAtional: E-Voting Deadline Looms LINK
NAtional: Federal panel plans better voting system LINK
NAtional: OpEd � John Bonifaz Candidate for Massachusetts Secretary of State – A Voter’s Bill of Rights LINK
CA: Sutter County – Touch voting OK expected (Sequoia) LINK
CA: Humboldt County – Does your vote really count? LINK
CT: Editorial – Extend HAVA Deadline LINK
FL: Broward County – Broward voters won’t be able to double-check ballot with printout LINK
FL: Volusia County � Editorial – Reliable elections. County’s long-term option: paper ballots for all LINK
IN: Voting changes will ‘even things out’. Official defends plan to reorganize precincts LINK
IN: Tippecanoe County – County to buy voting machines (They are trading in their 3 year old Diebold DREs for new ones) LINK
KS: ‘Others’ may find voting easier LINK
KY: Unaligned voters get more role in primary LINK
MO: St. Louis County – County is close to contract for new voting system LINK
NC: New Voting Systems Could Cost Millions For Some North Carolina Counties LINK
NC: Mecklenburg County � Opinion – Shop and Vote LINK
NJ: Middlesex County – Stephens still won’t concede Edison vote (Sequoia DREs may be the culprits) LINK
NY: Citizens gives views on new voting machines LINK
OH: Ohio may require voter ID LINK
OH: Senate Says ‘Yes’ to Faulty Election Reform Bill LINK
PA: Cumberland County – Voters asked to test 2 ballot systems (TSx and iVotronic) LINK
SC: Voting Legislation LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
When do we get the Supremes to outlaw Diebold, or similar, voting machines? Who’s going there? When?
Excellent! As a Leon County resident, this is great news!!
Isn’t it true that DIEBOLD counts something like 80% of the votes in America? How can this stand??? This cannot stand!!! Immediate attention needs to be paid to this issue at the expense of all other issues, by our Congress and president. This supercedes the Iraq War! We’re spreading democracy to Iraq, and we don’t have it here? This supercedes all other issues in this country!
Let’s all face the fact that the last election was stolen. Undeniably, the next election will be stolen as well. If the senate and house dems don’t stand up as a block and threaten a shutdown of Congress unless we get serious election reform, they deserve to lose again. Our democracy is more important than the go-along-to-get-along mentality that seems to have a stranglehold over the congressional dems and the media. Thank you to BradBlog and Black Box Voting for all your hard work.
Actually, the Tallahassee Democrat has done very good coverage of Hursti and Ion Sancho up to now. We finished the testing activities at 7 p.m. tonight, well after their press deadline.
You’ll see mainstream media coverage of this, and I’m sure it will appear in the Tallahassee Democrat.
Cheers,
Bev
Voting districts in Texas have been designed by the gerrymandering of neoCons headed up by Tom DeLay.
His money laundering trial, associated with electioneering, is widening in scope. The prosecutor is now looking at DeLay’s ties to the California bribery scandals of another neoCon who was recently plead guilty and resigned from the congress (link here).
While the odds are quite high that DeLay would partake of the laundering of defense department money into election coffers, it remains to be seen whether or not DeLay covered his tracks.
A nation wide mechanism to funnel taxpayer dollars into campaign war chests brings up yet another war.
We have had the faux war on Christmas, and now the war money of the defense department may be being used in the neoCon war on truth and civil rights.
The focus of the war would be, in substiantial part, in support of insecure voting machines. That would tend to show that those congressmen advocating the use of such machines are of the DeLay camp.
Another big day issue.
The Texas gerrymandering case has been put on the fast track by the US Supreme Court (link here).
This is unusual under normal circumstances, but is all the more unusual since the cases have been stalled and have therefore been on the slow track in the US Supreme Court until now.
The case (it now seems will be reversed) is Henderson v Perry (link here);
#6 Bev, heard you on Coast to Coast last night. This program has a large audience so people are getting the news. Thank You and Brad and all that work so tirelessly on this issue. M4
I’m glad someone is actually testing these things.
I couldn’t believe that people would actually OK a system that is so unaccountable.
The fact that voting districts that required paper backups didn’t have any exit poll discrepencies as compared to Ohio districts should be proof enough that something is wrong.
Why do people think it can’t happen here? It is!
Read an open letter to Howard Dean questioning where the DNC is on the voting issue.
http://crisispapers.org/essays-p/dean.htm
Bev, about a month ago the Tallahassee Democrat was traded in a strange deal. Knight-Ridder traded with Gannett for 3 papers in another area. Since then the Democrat has given us absolutely NOTHING! There is nothing on the front page that would in any way evn slightly insult our
REPUBLICAN Governor, REPUBLICAN President or anything that insults REPUBLICAN or traditional christian value. It is just another fluff "news"paper being spoonfed the garbage that spills from the mouth of the establishment. The truth is out there. You just gotta find it yourself.
Soul Rebel #11
The author of the letter to Dean doesn’t seem aware that Democrats don’t have clean hands in relation to elections. This is a non-partisan issue. The problems extend far deeper than any aspect of Republican/Democrat finger pointing. Sure I suspect the Republicans have honed their skills in the election tampering, but elected Democrats are doing NOTHING to facilitate examination of the election machines or ballots in their areas. Doesn’t it make you wonder why?
This has got to be dealt with as a non-partisan issue. People of all parties deserve to have their votes counted accurately.
Thank you, Bev Harris and Brad Blog. You really care about America!
Everyone should make a folder in their "favorites" bookmarks, titled "NEWS", and have http://www.blackboxvoting.org , http://www.bradblog.com , and http://www.rawstory.com in it.
All other supposed news sites should be in a folder called "Goebbels Ministry of Propoganda".
Big Dan #15 –
I would also suggest that for voting related issues VoteTrustUSA (www.votetrustusa.org) is an excellent site. (Full disclosure: I blog there as well as my guest blogs for Brad.)
It’s not in the news in Leon County because the Tallahassee Democrat did not feel that the news was significant.
See my blog http://sendthlesbianstocanada.com
I spoke to Ion Sancho about this on Monday after talking to a news editor at the Democrat who felt that the resignation of the CEO was not newsworthy! He gave me the scoop that they were dumping Diebold, as I said on my blog yesterday.
Here are mine and another’s reactions to new EAC Voluntary Guidelines – Bizarre!:
Mine on Ohio election reform lists:
That these are still "voluntary guidelines" – even thru 2007 – I think is bizarre.
Only 39 states have so called "volunteered" Actually let’s make that maybe 38, since Blackwell "infers" alot that may at first glance look OK – but anyone with any experience with him, or has really read the piled-highness in Ohio vendor contracts knows that in reality he remains very married to his Diebold security holes that can give him the governorship… lots of points with his party, and can make him the biggest puppeteer of all candidates throughout Ohio.
I mean when one gets his directions from directly from God why not make sure to implement what his "God" is telling him…. The heck with the voters….
Let’s see how he "infers" 2005 style…. like the part about submitting the software to a national library…. Maybe it will be similar to Ohio "having the source code in escrow" per the present contract – (which is the same source code Diebold has refused to put into escrow in NC. I really do wonder what’s "in escrow" in Ohio. A signed picture of Bill Gates or what?)
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Jim March of Black Box Voting – on Ohio lists:
Funny how they’re not yet publishing ’em, eh? Odd that the FEC site doesn’t include the 1990 or 2002 versions for that matter. The only copies I know of online are at BBV and they’re…well a little bit screwed up, we’ve got "get definate official drafts" on our to-do list but we’ve been kinda busy…
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums...tml?1106259798
At one point the FEC *did* have these online, the California SecState linked directly to them not long ago, but the FEC yanked ’em.
Makes ya go "hmmmmmmm….."
Jim
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Mine on Ohio lists:
In a message dated 12/14/05 1:23:23 AM,
Even "funnier" is that HAVA requires ( for those willing to take the new toys) the vendor decisions be made, the billions be spent, the contracts be signed, the "training" to have been complete – for the machines to be in place across the US for the 2006 federal elections . But these "voluntary guidelines" will not be in full force for "volunteerism" until end of 2007. Now THAT’s funny.
After one year, of course "it would not be cost-efficient" to scrap all the new manipulatable junk, so they’ll just have to voluntarily change the "guidelines" to match the junk.
And worse -the powers of incumbency writ large! An incumbent – especially all those who’ve gotten there by their bully-gang, pay to play behaviors – seem to get a charge out of demonstrating that they don’t have to and won’t "volunteer" for anything they don’t want to.
And better yet, incumbents can oh so legislatively change the guidelines to suit themselves…ala declarations of war to Ohio House Bill 3…
Even "funnier" they can even lie about his or her "volunteerism"… and have NO ONE even be able to even get hold of the info to prove it out loud….ala the lineage of FEC … J. Kenneth Blackwell….. et al….. "FUNNY"!!!!???
What’s REALLY funny is the complete "woossey" quietude of all the non-current members of the gang that’s in power!
They seem to think they’ll be VOTED (!) into positions of power in 2006 – just because the others’ gang behavior is starting to be revealed.
Some may even call these EAC guideline "help" – like when I asked Sen. Barbara Boxer ( the one who stood with Stephanie Tubbs Jones last Jan. 6 against certifying the election) at the Cleveland City Club a few weeks ago – about actually fixing HAVA, slowing it down for reconsideration and assuring security per the GAO Report BEFORE any elections are held on the machines – Well her answer was – fixing EAC guidelines!
I think many other non-gang in power Reps also continue to "think" along these lines.
VOTED-IN on these machines? – I wonder how many first-borns they’ll have to sell…..to the "officials" with greatest and last access to the vote count… Hel-lo…! Just yesterday BBV demonstrated how easy it is to make election results be "just the way one likes them…" on a Diebold machine…
And fixing voluntary guidelines for 12/2007????
Now THAT thought process is so ridiculous that it’s funny…..