Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, Thursday 3/23/06

CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN FORMER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE IN TX CONSIDERING CHALLENGE TO STATE PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS!

Inexplicable Tallies from Electronic Voting Machines in Tarrant County, Elsewhere in State Require Full Recount and/or Contest, According to Campaign Manager

'Serious mistakes were made,' Understates Candidate, Former Texas Justice Steve Smith

by Brad

3/22/2006

A Conservative Republican former Texas Supreme Court Justice, who ran against a Republican opponent backed by Gov. Rick Perry, is considering a challenge to the tremendously flawed Primary Elections held...

A Conservative Republican former Texas Supreme Court Justice, who ran against a Republican opponent backed by Gov. Rick Perry, is considering a challenge to the tremendously flawed Primary Elections held in the state two weeks ago on new Electronic Voting Machines.

The campaign for Steve Smith announced last week in a Press Release received only last night by The BRAD BLOG (and posted in full below) has filed a "Public Information Act request with the Tarrant County Elections Administrator seeking to review public documents relating to the Republican Party primary election in Tarrant County" on March 7th.

As discussed in their press release, but elaborated upon to The BRAD BLOG in an interview this afternoon with Smith's campaign manager, David Rogers, the results reported from all across the state seem to make little or no sense.

For example, though his was a statewide race, Smith's home county is Tarrant where in 2004, according to Rogers, Smith "outperformed the statewide results by 13%, but this year, according to the results, he underperformed the statewide results by 23%."

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002592.htm


Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418211

Email from Tarrant County, TX: 'Democracy is Dead Here'

by Brad

3/22/2006

We'll have another fairly enormous story shortly concerning the problems, as reported previously , in Tarrant County, TX where some 100,000 votes were incorrectly added to the results of the...

We'll have another fairly enormous story shortly concerning the problems, as reported previously, in Tarrant County, TX where some 100,000 votes were incorrectly added to the results of the March 7th primary by ES&S and Hart InterCivic electronic voting machines in use there. For a bit more background on that, see our report on the Hart InterCivic whistleblower who also worked in Tarrant County. He tried, to no avail, to alert the Sec. of State of problems with both Hart and Tarrant as far back as July 2004. His alarming letters, included in the article, were ignored by both the TX Sec. of State and Attorney General.

But until the promised big story out of Tarrant...We received the following email last week after posting the aforementioned report. The writer, Jerry Lobdill, identifies himself as "a retired physicist and system engineer who has specified, designed, tested, and evaluated computing systems for the US Navy for 30 years." He was a supporter of Doreen Geiger who ran in Tarrant County for Democratic Party County Chair. Read Lobdill's note for details of how the Democratic Party seems to have rolled over in Tarrant County on this issue, chosing not to challenge the questionable results from the Hart InterCivic and ES&S machines.

All of which leads the Lobdill to conclude in his note: "Democracy is dead here."

That is, of course, particularly troubling considering the TX Sec. of State halted a recount in Tom Green County yesterday when the printed results differed from the reported results from Election Night by as much as 20%.

Lobdill's email follows in full...

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002591.htm

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418211

Ballot recount stopped

Problems with voting machines delay results

By PAUL A. ANTHONY, panthony@sastandardtimes.com or 659-8237
March 22, 2006

A recount of ballots cast during the March 7 primary election ground to a halt Tuesday - midway through its second day - after workers could not resolve discrepancies that affected more than 1,400 ballots.

Tom Green County Republican Party Chairman Dennis McKerley suspended the recount of the County Court-at-Law No. 2 race about 1:30 p.m. after seeking advice from the Texas Secretary of State's Office, which suggested shutting down the recount until what appear to be problems with electronic voting machines could be fixed.

''When a couple numbers didn't come out right, we tried the double-checks and kept checking,'' said McKerley, who as GOP chairman is running the recount. ''We're having trouble with the electronic equipment.''

About 3,000 early votes and 9,500 total votes were cast in the Republican primary race, which featured incumbent Judge Penny Roberts and two challengers - Assistant County Attorney Julie Hughes and former prosecutor Dan Edwards.

http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4560939,00.html

this is wonderful news for voters here in Tarrant county. But hopefully it will be good news for all voters in Texas, if this challenge does anything it will shine light on E-voting in Texas.

Summit County Ohio Threatens Legal Action Against ES&S

Electronic Voting Machine Vendor is accused of doing the work of three men, 'Larry, Curly, and Moe'

After 30% Failure Rate of Memory Cards Revealed, Still More Problems Surface...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Summit County has recently had problems with failed memory cards as related by BRAD BLOG on March 9 and March 10. The problems in Summit County concerned a 30% failure rate found in pre-election testing for those cards. That problem alerted folks in North Carolina to test those same cards on their own ES&S machines where they discovered last week that more than 1000 of them failed to work!

Now that those problems have been in the media (Yes, even the MSM has reported the problems) the vendor has decided to not be cooperative with Summit County, OH.

The ES&S on-site project manager was not allowed by the company to attend a board of elections meeting to explain why there were problems with memory cards. Board members have also complained that ES&S staffers installing the system have suddenly become cold and getting any information is "like pulling teeth".

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002590.htm

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418110

Cheatham County Election Commissioners asked to resign

Administrator Sandra Smith takes retirement

03/22/06

By Gary Burton
The Ashland City Times

NASHVILLE - The Cheatham County Election Commission is being asked to resign or show just cause to the state why the five members should not be removed from their positions.

An investigation by the Tennessee Election Commission concluded Tuesday with Brook Thompson, state coordinator of elections, informing state election commissioners with the results of the probe.
Commissioners discovered several problems with local voting including:

• Workers were told to make the number of voter applications and ballots match - even if the numbers were off.

• Poll workers were instructed by the election administrator to cast fraudulent ballots if the applications and voting booth activations did not match, and

• The election administrator had possession of both keys to ballot boxes during an election.

“I’ve lost confidence in the Cheatham County Election Commission,” Thompson said. “This is not a fun thing to do.”

Investigators were tipped-off about irregularities in the November 2004 election by a former election office worker.

snip

http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060322/MTCN0101/303220111/1292/MTCN01

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418230

Common Sense in Maryland

March 23, 2006

Diebold, the electronic voting machine maker, suffered another sharp setback recently, when Maryland's House of Delegates voted 137-to-0 to drop its machines and switch to paper ballots. The vote came in the same week that Texas held elections marred by electronic voting troubles. Maryland's State Senate should join the House in voting to discontinue the use of the Diebold machines, and other states should follow Maryland's lead.

Maryland was one of the first states to embrace Diebold. But Maryland voters and elected officials have grown increasingly disenchanted as evidence has mounted that the machines cannot be trusted. In 2004, security experts from RABA Technologies told the state legislature that they had been able to hack into the machines in a way that would make it possible to steal an election. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, informed the State Board of Elections in 2004 that voters had complained to her that machines had mysteriously omitted the Senate race.

The Maryland House's bill calls for replacing the Diebold machines with optical scanning machines for this fall's elections. Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr., once a Diebold supporter, has said he'll sign the bill if the State Senate agrees. Optical scanning machines would be a vast improvement. Voters using them fill out paper ballots, which are scanned electronically. Those ballots are a permanent record that can (and should) be used to double-check the machine results. Although time is short, Maryland should be able to get optical scanning machines operating by the fall. Even though the Board of Elections has been resisting the proposal, that should not stop the General Assembly and the governor from fighting for machines that voters will trust.

The Maryland House voted days after Texas held an election with the sort of disturbing electronic voting glitches that have by now become common. In Tarrant County, as many as 100,000 extra votes appeared on the machines — election officials insisted that they knew which ones to eliminate to make the results correct. In a hotly contested Congressional race in another part of the state, results were delayed by programming errors in the machines used in two crucial counties. Many states have passed laws requiring paper records for electronic voting. What is happening in Maryland is important, because not a single member of the House stood behind the once popular Diebold machines. It is just the latest indication that common sense is starting to prevail in the battle over electronic voting.

snip


Posted by DUer madinmaryland

Common Sense in Maryland

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23thu3.html


Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418263

Chi-Town E-Voting Meltdown

414 Memory Cartridges Missing In Chicago and Cook County

by John Gideon

3/23/2006

It was only early last month that the state of Illinois certified the Sequoia voting system that was used in the Illinois primary in Chicago and suburban Cook County this week. In that 6 week period over 23,000 election judges had to be trained to set-up and use the voting machines and they had to learn a completely new set of procedures for opening and closing the polls.

The county and city failed to do that training or failed to do enough of it for those who were trained at all. According to this morning's Chicago Tribune:

snip

This clear lack of training and the introduction of new, un-reliable voting machines has caused what amounts to a disaster in vote counting. Three days after the voters went to the polls votes are still being tallied. In fact, memory cartridges were still being located as of Wednesday afternoon:

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002595.htm

Election Updates

Ballot chain of custody questions in Cook County primary

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

To continue our collection of stories relating to the Illinois primary yesterday, this morning there are a number of new stories that we'll keep following.

One of the more interesting stories concerns questions about the chain of custody of ballots in Cook County, questions being raised by candidates in a close race in Cook County, reported by Chicago's NBC5.

Not surprisingly, given that Cook County was implementing new voting technologies and new procedures to use those technologies, it seems that the election night counting process was slower than usual, despite what seems to be a relatively low voter turnout rate.

snip

http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/2006/03/ballot-chain-of-custody-questions-in.html

i call bullshit on this whole mess. we must refuse to accept this. does anyone have jimmy carter's phone number?

Computer Security Expert Douglas Jones Inteviewed on Iowa Radio

By Warren Stewart

March 22, 2006

Computer security expert and University of Iowa computer science professor Douglas Jones was featured in an hour-long radio talk show on WSUI this morning. He was on a panel discussing verified voting issues in Iowa, together with Robert Klauber and other representatives of Iowans for Voting Integrity.

The program will be available from the WSUI on-line archive.

The show was timely, as debate in the Iowa House on the SF 351, a bill that would require a voter verified paper record of every vote is pending this afternoon, along with the seriously divisive issue of required presentation of photo ID to vote, to which the bill has been linked by house leadership. The politics will certainly be interesting as they play out.

The assistant Secretary of State phoned in to state his office's official position, in support of SF 351 but opposing a bill introduced by rep. Libby Jacobs calling for mandatory photo-ID. The recent California report on the AccuBasic interpreter as continuing evidence of the weakness of the federal voting system standards was one of the topics discussed.

snip/link to audio

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1104&Itemid=113

Carter, Baker discuss proposed election reforms

'Centrist consensus' includes photo IDs, paper receipts

By MARK BIXLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 03/22/06

Former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III called for U.S. election reforms Wednesday that include uniform photo identification cards and a paper trail on electronic voting machines.

As leaders of a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, Carter and Baker discussed some of the commission's 87 recommendations for Congress and state legislators at a forum that began late Wednesday morning at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Baker said the commission strove to reach a "centrist consensus" in favor of advocating entrenched partisan views.

The commission's most controversial recommendations called for photo IDs and paper receipts at electronic voting machines. The IDs make sense, both men said, as long as state officials make aggressive efforts to find would-be voters who lack photo IDs and provide them cards for free.

snip

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/0322cartervoting.html

VoterAction.org Sues CA Sec. of State, Humboldt Registrar, Others

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Tuesday was a landmark day for the election integrity movement. Attorney Lowell Finley and VoterAction.org filed a lawsuit in San Francisco naming as defendants CA Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, Humboldt Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, and 17 other CA registrars. The case alleges that McPherson did not follow proper procedures in certifying Diebold voting machines for use in CA; that Diebold's equipment is not compliant with the law; and that voters' constitutional rights are being violated. GuvWurld readers will recognize some of these points as familiar.

The case was filed Tuesday morning though word had started to leak out Monday afternoon via BradBlog.com. See Brad's Tuesday coverage for more details, where he links to the actual court filing (.pdf) and posts an excellent response from Debra Bowen, State Senator from Redondo Beach and challenger to McPherson for the Secretary's office. GuvWurld correspondent Dan Ashby, speaking on behalf of the California Election Protection Network, also gave a great interview (.mp3) Tuesday morning to Will Durst and former SF Mayor Willie Brown on their Will and Willie radio show for Air America.

Around this same time, I was at the Humboldt County Courthouse for the Board of Supervisors meeting at which we knew that Crnich would be presenting a proposal for the county to buy Vote-PAD rather than Diebold touch screen machines in order to satisfy the disability requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). I did not learn until later in the day that Crnich was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Crnich's proposal did not seem to arouse any enthusiasm from the Board though it received a modicum of acceptance. She was told that they would need more specific financials in order to give final approval and so the item was rescheduled for next Tuesday's agenda. Board Chairman John Woolley did at least two unfortunate things in this process. First, he did not call for public comment immediately and in direct response to Crnich's proposal. Instead, he allowed a motion to be made, seconded and discussed by the Board before calling for public comment.

snip

http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2006/03/voteractionorg-sues-ca-sec-of-state.html

Carter promotes requirement of voter ID
GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
Associated Press

ATLANTA - Requiring voters to show a free photo identification is just one of several changes the U.S. electoral system needs to catch up with most of the rest of the world, former President Carter said Wednesday.

He said Mexicans, Palestinians and Venezuelans all had fairer and more doubt-free elections than Americans recently.

"We've got a long way to go," he said. "It's disgraceful and embarrassing." Carter made the observation as he filmed a TV and radio program on the recommendations made last year by a commission he co-chaired to restore public confidence in elections.

The former president said requiring voters to show a free photo identification at the polls was just as "practical" as the many identification needs of daily life.

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/14161189.htm

Group says county system is flawed
By Leslie Wolf Branscomb
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 22, 2006

The county's electronic voting system was challenged yesterday in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco on behalf of California voters.

The suit was filed by Voter Action, a nonprofit watchdog group that monitors elections. It seeks to void a Feb. 17 decision by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certifying touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems for use in California.

Last summer McPherson suspended the use of the machines after numerous problems, including breakdowns and paper jams, surfaced in a test run.

San Diego County had problems with the system in March 2004, when malfunctions caused some polling places to open late.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060322-9999-7m22voting.html

:hi:

(Yeah! This is that reporter at the Chron! :woohoo: :woohoo: )

SAN FRANCISCO
Voter group sues to ban touch-screen system
It's called vulnerable to hackers seeking to change results

John Wildermuth, Chronicle Political Writer

Wednesday, March 22, 2006


A group of California voters is challenging Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's approval of a controversial touch-screen voting system the group claims is vulnerable to hackers looking to change election results.

The suit, put together by the voting rights group Voter Action, asks a San Francisco Superior Court to nullify February's conditional certification of Diebold Election System's AccuVote-TSx electronic voting system and ban the purchase or use of the system for the November statewide election.

"We can't have trustworthy elections with Diebold's voting machines,'' said Lowell Finley, co-director of Voter Action who is an attorney in the case. "They are insecure and easily hacked."

The suit also names the 18 California counties, including Alameda and Marin, that used any Diebold system in the last election.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/22/BAGP6HS52Q1.DTL

THERE ARE lots of ways to boost voting. Let people vote by mail, as 41 percent of the turnout did last November. Hold elections over several days, not just one, as some cities allow. Sign up voters in hospitals, motor vehicle offices and shopping malls.

But when touch-screen voting comes up, watch out for the instant rebellion. Opponents fear political tampering with a new technology that, even under best circumstances, isn't completely foolproof.

This suspicion is a burden that electronic voting doesn't need. It's why a court challenge brought by critics of Diebold Election Systems, a major supplier of touch-screen machines, should be considered in San Francisco Superior Court.

The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, believes the machines are reliable. He conducted his own inquiry and invited in Diebold critics. The results: Hackers could still change election results, but the chances were remote and could be stopped by extra precautions, he said.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/23/EDGU9GJFT41.DTL&hw=Diebold&sn=004&sc=479

analogy. I hope you don't mind or at least, that you won't sue.

:hi:

Pulling the plug on electronic voting

Roman Gokhman

San Joaquin News Service

A Manteca man and about 20 other California residents are suing the state and the 19 counties that plan on using Diebold’s touch-screen voting machines in the next election.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, names as defendants Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and registrars of voters in 19 counties. San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Deborah Hench is included as a defendant.

Joseph Holder of Manteca is the primary plaintiff in the lawsuit that seeks an injunction to stop the use of the AccuVote-TSX machines in the next election. McPherson certified the machines for use in the next election last month.

Lowell Finley is the plaintiffs’ attorney and the co-director of Voter Action, an organization with expertise on election law. “The lawsuit challenges that certification as being illegal,” Finley said, explaining his client’s protest of the process that OK’d use of the machines.

http://tracypress.com/local/2006-03-22-voting.php

Suit out to veto voting system
S.J. group wants no touchscreens
Greg Kane
Record Staff Writer
Published Wednesday, Mar 22, 2006

Critics of the controversial touchscreen voting system San Joaquin County plans to use in the June primary filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block the equipment's use in the November's election.

Lawyers filed the complaint in San Francisco County Superior Court on behalf of nearly two dozen California voters, including United Farm Workers of America co-founder Dolores Huerta and Manteca resident Joseph Holder. The suit asks California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to rescind his certification of the Diebold TSx system for November's election because of the equipment's alleged security flaws and unreadable software code.

San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Deborah Hench is among the 19 state elections officials named along with McPherson as defendants in the complaint. The county agreed to purchase 1,625 of the ATM-like TSx machines for $5.7million in 2003 but has used them only once because of certification issues.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060322/NEWS01/603220331/1001/NEWS01

Posted on Wed, Mar. 22, 2006
Santa Clara County electronic voting system to leave paper record
Bay City News Service

When Santa Clara County voters head to the polls for the June 6 primary election, they will be able to review their voting record on a print-out before casting their final ballots, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters announced Tuesday.

Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified the Sequoia Electronic Voting System with a VeriVote paper audit trail on Monday. The system will be used in Santa Clara County for the June 6 election, the Registrar of Voters confirmed.

The same touch screen machines used since 2003 will greet voters as they arrive to cast their ballots but this time around it will also include new VeriVote printers capable of producing an accessible voter verified paper audit trail called AVVPAT.

With this additional feature, voters will be able to review their selections on a paper copy to make sure their choices are recorded correctly.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/14161020.htm

Santa Cruz County won't hold all-mail election
By GENEVIEVE BOOKWALTER
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

If you want to mail your vote in June, do it the old-fashioned way — by absentee ballot.

A state bill to support an all-mail election for Santa Cruz County died in Sacramento earlier this month. As a result, voters should request an absentee ballot or visit their polling place on June 6 to vote for county supervisor, school district superintendent, or the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

Supervisors supported the bill last month, but it "died one of those quiet deaths," said Gail Pellerin, county clerk.

The all-mail ballot idea came as the state and nation grappled with the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act, which passed in the wake of the Florida "hanging chad" recount in the controversial 2000 presidential election.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/March/22/local/stories/08local.htm

McPherson visits county day after voting system approved
By C. JEROME CROW-DN Staff Writer




California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, center, visited the Tehama County Elections office Tuesday. Pictured with McPherson is county clerk Mary Alice George, left, and Tehama County Supervisor Ron Warner, right.


RED BLUFF - Tehama County is 53rd in 58. California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is pushing through with his goal to visit all 58 counties before the end of March.

"When I took office, I made it a goal to visit all the county election offices and to say hello to everyone that helps me with my job," McPherson said. On Tuesday, he visited the Tehama County Elections office and presented Tehama County Clerk Mary Alice George and the election office an award for their efforts.

"The situation wasn't so rosy when I took office," said McPherson. "But we worked hard to get our house in order and to do things correctly and not quickly."

McPherson's visit comes just a day after his office approved the use of the new Sequoia voting system - a move that came as welcome news to George. The announcement was made earlier at the board of supervisors meeting.


http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/news/ci_3627867

Coalition seeks voting maching investigation
By Jeff Burlew
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

The Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition is asking Attorney General Charlie Crist to investigate the three voting-equipment companies certified to do business in Florida.

All of the companies, Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems and Software and Sequoia Voting Systems, have refused to sell equipment to Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho, who is trying to buy machines that can be used by the disabled. The federal Help America Vote Act requires the machines in all voting locations.

Sandy Wayland, president of the coalition, said she believes it's no accident that none of the companies are selling to Sancho, who last year tested Diebold equipment and found it to have security flaws.

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060322/BREAKINGNEWS/603220359

Ballot Counting Likely To Continue For Days

Officials Vow To Test Machines Before November Elections
Dorothy Tucker
Reporting

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(CBS) CHICAGO After what some are calling a chaotic Election Day at area polling places, results are just starting to trickle in for the race for Cook County Board president.

CBS 2’s Dorothy Tucker reports the ballot counting is not over, even though John Stroger has been declared the winner in the race for the Democratic nominee for Cook County Board president.

At the Chicago Board of elections, 40 judges packed a small room to tally ballots from 365 precincts. Every paper ballot had to feed into a machine where it was electronically counted.

The election judges starting tallying ballots at about 1 p.m. As of 6 p.m., they had 330 precincts to go.

http://cbs2chicago.com/politics/local_story_081190934.html

Vote Count Incomplete, Process Questioned
Campaign Officials Concerned About Security Of System

POSTED: 12:27 am CST March 22, 2006
UPDATED: 9:54 am CST March 22, 2006

Questions arose late Tuesday night regarding the whereabouts of ballots in the Cook County president's race.

David Axelrod, spokesman for Forrest Claypool, told NBC5's Don Lemon that he was told that election officials had sealed ballots from some 200 polling places that will be counted on Wednesday Axelrod said, further, that he was told there were unspecified other locations where there were "loose" ballots.

"It's not clear in whose custody (those ballots) are in or who's protecting the integrity of those ballots," Axelrod said. "This is a great concern."

He said that in his 30 years in politics he had never seen as much chaos as he sees in this election.

http://www.nbc5.com/news/8177235/detail.html

New machines slow counts

New machines slow counts
HARVEY: Officials say they believe process went too slow this year

BY TERRIE HENDERSON
Times Staff Writer

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:01 AM CST

HARVEY | Low voter turnout and results that barely trickled in Tuesday left Thornton Township Supervisor Frank Zuccarelli and his team disappointed that this year's primary did not run as smoothly as elections past.

Officials from the southeast suburbs stopped in at the Chicago Park Hotel in Harvey, where Zuccarelli and his supporters settled in for a long night.

Jill Manning, a volunteer with Zuccarelli, said problems with the new voting systems slowed the progress of calculating the results.

"I have a feeling we are not going to get results tonight," Manning said. "Some of the judges have closed everything up."

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2006/03/22/news/illiana/676a6f3761d3912086257139002217f8.txt

Voter turnout is low
Associated Press

CHICAGO - Election officials had forecast low turnout for Tuesday's primary election, even before a storm dumped more than 9 inches of snow on parts of central Illinois.

By evening, it seemed the predictions had been about accurate throughout the state, said Dan White, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections.

"We just know in talking with election authorities around the state that they have all reported a light turnout," White said after the polls closed. "They just told us that the turnout has been slow and light.

"Average turnout for an election like this is 30 percent. I doubt we will get that much."

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/politics/14157361.htm

High-tech voting hits snags

By John McCormick and James Janega
Tribune staff reporters

March 21, 2006, 7:39 PM CST

As election officials closed the polls Tuesday evening, reports of glitches from throughout the day continued as both voters and election officials learned how to deal with a new, high-tech voting system in Chicago and suburban Cook County.

The learning curve for the new system, which combines optical-scan paper ballots and electronic touch-screen machines, left some missing the old days -- even if they included the notorious punch-card ballot and its hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads.

"It was easier to worry about hanging chads," said Daniel Fore, an election judge in Oak Park's Barrie Center polling place.

Even as election officials continued to deal with missing ballots, power cords and ballots, they were bracing for the next test of the more than $50 million system: Counting and reporting results to eagerly awaiting politicians, voters and reporters.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/chi-060321voterproblems,1,1714706,print.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: IL Primaries Plagued by E-Voting 'Glitches'
And This is Before They've Even Started Counting the Results...

The second Primary Election night of the year, this time in Illinois. As predicted -- following on the heels of the various disasters two weeks ago in the primary in...

The second Primary Election night of the year, this time in Illinois. As predicted -- following on the heels of the various disasters two weeks ago in the primary in Texas (with much more news to come on that, by the way) -- the first reports out tonight begin to outline the latest raft of problems throughout the day on the newly deployed Electronic Voting Machines in the state.

Also as predicted, the problems are minimized as "glitches", and here in the first sentence no less. The word is used a total of three times throughout the Chicago Tribune's "High-tech voting hits snags" article quoted below.

These "glitches", mind you, are just those reported so far. And only the one that occurred on Election Day itself...the counting problems have yet to reveal themselves. But they soon will.

You've heard it here first, but based on the various disasters in just the first two Election Nights of 2006, it sure as hell looks like we're headed towards an E-meltdown with our Electoral System -- And at this rate, it's coming well before we make it to the Generals in November.

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002587.htm

Long hours, low pay for election judges

March 22, 2006

BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Perhaps no one is taken for granted in an election as much as an election judge -- those folks who hand out the ballots, police the polls, and count the votes at the end of the day.

This being Chicago, it's easy to assume they're all just payrollers, political hacks who've landed a cushy job to pick up a little cash and eat as many doughnuts as the precinct captain can supply.

While there are indeed loads of doughnuts, I am here to testify that election judges work long hours for little money and deserve a full measure of our thanks and respect.

I now know something about this because Tuesday, I joined their ranks and learned from the pros.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/marin/cst-edt-marin22.html

This Is An Advancement In Technology?

I have never been big on “technology” even though I’ve always been the first to jump on the newest computer inventions.

I was the first reporter at Chicago City Hall to use a computer, a Rockwell word processor that was linked by a telephone line to the news room in 1979, when Jane Byrne upset the Democratic Machine to unseat Michael A. Bilandic.

I’d sit there and watch as each line of text slowly appeared on the screen and magically appeared in the news rooms miles away. It took abut 25 minutes sometimes.

I brought the first laptop to the City Hall press room, if you don’t include the TRS-80s (Trash-80s we called them) that were beginning to be standard fare for reporters on the road who dropped in to cover Chicago politics at important junctures.

http://www.swnewsherald.com/online_content/2006/03/032206rh_voting.php

:rofl:

Company Cites Several Issues In Voting Problems

Steve Miller Reporting
CHICAGO (WBBM Newsradio 780) -- A day after the polls closed and officials are still counting ballots.

What was the problem? The maker of the voting machines says, basically, operator error.

It's a California-based company, Sequoia, that makes both the optical scanners and the touch-screen machines. And Sequoia spokeswoman Michelle Shafer doesn't come out directly and say the problem with the slow tabulation is due to human error.

"The equipment performed very well in the polling places. There are issues that are being looked at aside from equipment... procedures and processes that we all need to work together to improve."

Shafer says Sequoia never expected the first time around to be speedy.

http://wbbm780.com/pages/17765.php

County clerk defends Election Day procedure

By Chuck Goudie

March 22, 2006 - There was a lot of concern Wednesday about why the votes are still being counted 21 hours after the polls closed. What happened Tuesday and why are votes still being counted 21 hours after the polls closed?

The election authorities said Wednesday afternoon they knew there were going to be problems with the election equipment. It had never been tested in the heat of battle. But they didn't think it would be as bad as it turned out. Investigators now say the problems they saw were mechanical, not intentional.

Paper ballots were still being hand-counted the day after they were cast, because only half of Cook County's new voting machines, required under federal law, transmitted results on their maiden voyage.

"Some problems were a ripped sheet into an optical scanner. That is what would happen if you tried to put a ripped dollar bill in a vending machine," said Melissa Merz, Illinois Attorney General office.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4015994

(Sounds like an ad but read past mid article. EF)

New election equipment tallies big vote of support

By Steve Lord and Angela Fornelli
STAFF WRITERS

Wayne Fessler was not seeing what he wanted to see.

"Where's the American flag?" he said. "Where's the American flag?"

The 72-year-old Fessler was sitting in a polling booth in the 9th Precinct in Geneva, using the new eSlate system for the first time.

The flag he was looking for is a waving American flag that shows on the screen of the electronic voting machine when votes are cast and everything has been completed. He wasn't getting it.


http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/city/2_1_AU22_EQUIPMENT_S1.htm

Glitches gum up results

Election returns slowed by new equipment

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

By TAMMY BOULD

The Register-Mail
GALESBURG - Murphy's law took effect Tuesday at the Knox County Courthouse, causing a delay in tabulating primary election results.

For Knox County Clerk Scott Erickson, it started early Tuesday. He arrived at the Knox County Courthouse at 5 a.m., and around 7:30 a.m. learned two of the tires on his vehicle were flat. That was just the beginning.

When the ballots from the precincts started to arrive after the polls closed at 7 p.m., some did not include the memory cards from the new touch-screen voting machines.

It was a "breakdown in communications," Erickson said. "We thought they knew what to bring in and they thought they had what we needed."

http://www.register-mail.com/stories/032206/MAI_B9AQ4LRB.GID.shtml

Technician causes glitch in printed results
TAMMIE SLOUP, tammies@mywebtimes.com, (815) 431-4048

Vote totals posted on La Salle County's Web site and on the printouts brought down to the basement of the County Governmental Center Tuesday night were incorrect.

The problem was caused by a technician with the county's voting system's vendor, ES&S Elections, whom County Clerk Mary Jane Wilkinson dubbed "inexperienced."

When the vote results were being tabulated for one of the early precincts, only the early votes were being tallied for the printouts and for the Web site results.

http://mywebtimes.com/ottnews/archives/ottawa/sections.cgi?prcss=display&id=256964

Processing delayed in Tazewell

Once equipment turned in, ballots counted quickly


Wednesday, March 22, 2006

BY KAREN McDONALD

OF THE JOURNAL STAR
PEKIN - An hours-long backup of Tazewell County election judges waiting to turn in their new, electronic voting machines caused major delays in counting ballots Tuesday night.

It was 10:45 p.m. before all the judges had turned in their election equipment, including computers and supplies. After that, votes were easily counted by machine.

The delay was prompted in part because there were only 10 people to accept the equipment, making the process slower than in past years, County Clerk Christie Webb said.

"We need to make some changes. This is taking far too long. I guarantee next year we will have more (processing teams)," she said, adding there were virtually no problems with the equipment itself.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/032206/TRI_B9AM85PL.028.shtml

Counties drop appeal over voting machines

Ramsey, Washington, Anoka had fought state over equipment
BY EMILY GURNON
Pioneer Press

Three Twin Cities counties that fought with the state over what kind of voting equipment to buy for disabled voters have given up the battle.

Ramsey, Washington and Anoka counties, all of which have used Diebold systems for years, wanted to buy another type of Diebold machine for their disabled voters.

But the state said no, insisting that counties go with a different machine. The three counties applied for a waiver but got no answer from the state auditor's office — and now must prepare for this year's elections, officials said.

"We've just basically run out of time," said Rachel Smith, Anoka County elections supervisor. "We went with the safest route" and decided to purchase Automark machines made by Election Systems and Software, the only system certified by state elections officials for use.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/14155759.htm

Vance voting training may be delayed

By MATTHEW E. MILLIKEN, Daily Dispatch Writer

Delays in the delivery of key components in Vance County's new elections equipment mean that the training of poll workers might not start until a few days before balloting begins.

Vance Elections Director Faye Gill disclosed the delay Tuesday at a meeting of county voting officials.

Like 60 other North Carolina counties, Vance is replacing its old equipment with a set of new state-approved Model 100 ballot-scanning and counting devices from Election Systems & Software. The Omaha, Neb., concern is the only vendor certified to sell voting machines in North Carolina.

Although the county has the Model 100 tabulators, their memory chips have not yet been delivered. Gill said she was told that they might arrive by April 7, but that date is not certain.

http://www.hendersondispatch.com/articles/2006/03/22/news/news02.txt

Elections officials threaten legal action against supplier
Summit board members angered by lack of cooperation on voting machines
By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer

Members of the Summit County Board of Elections are threatening legal action against Election Systems & Software, the company installing the county's new optical-scan voting system, if the company doesn't cooperate more with the county.

Board members became incensed Tuesday when ES&S officials refused to attend the board's meeting and answer questions about problems the company had with computer memory cards for the optical-scan machines.

Hundreds of memory cards shipped to the county did not work.

The company eventually replaced them with good cards, but only after two additional shipments of cards also failed.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/living/community/14157502.htm

Cf: Wilms' #3

Voting machine delay could affect Bradford, Sullivan counties

If not enough of the machines arrive by then, some voters will have to use paper ballots, said Bradford County Elections Director Marie Zbyszinski.

The company that is supplying the voting machines to the two counties, Advanced Voting Solutions Inc., sent a letter on March 8 to Bradford County elections officials stating that the company could not guarantee that all 165 of the machines that Bradford County had ordered would arrive by the May 16 primary, Zbyszinski said.

Advanced Voting Solutions said it could not guarantee that subcontractors that supply component parts used to make the machines would be able to supply those components in time for the May 16 primary, she said.

But elections officials from both Bradford and Sullivan counties stressed that the May 16 primary will take place as scheduled, even if no touch-screen machines arrive by then.




http://www.thedailyreview.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16349057&BRD=2276&PAG=461&dept_id=465049&rfi=6

Card-scanner system is choice in Chesco
County officials faced a deadline to pick a new means of voting. It drew tempered enthusiasm.
By Nancy Petersen
Inquirer Staff Writer

After months of debate and what seemed to be an endless e-mail campaign by voter activists, Chester County officials have picked a new voting system that uses paper cards and electronic scanners.

The system, much like the one used for standardized tests, was approved by a unanimous vote of the county's Board of Elections to meet new federal standards for voting machines.

Voters will fill in circles next to each candidate's name, and then the ballot will be fed into a high-speed electronic scanner, which counts the results.

The system provides the paper trail sought by some local activists, who said a purely electronic system could not be made tamper-proof.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/montgomery_county/14155008.htm

Supes back assistive device for voters
by Rebecca S. Bender, 3/22/2006

The Vote-PAD system, an assistive device for voters with visual, hearing and physical impairments, got a nominal approval from the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning.

A more detailed analysis of the costs, implementation process and compliance issues will be brought back to the board next week.
Information from Vote Here, a vendor that offers a system for tracking absentee ballots, will also be gathered for the supervisors’ consideration.

Humboldt County Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich called the Voting-on-Paper Assistive Device, a plastic sleeve and audio tape combination, a “very low-tech solution to assisting disabled voters.” It uses standard ballots and is adaptable to any system the county adopts.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 sets out standards for election administration and provides funding for the replacement of outdated voting systems and procedural improvements. It also requires that every polling place — Humboldt County has 80 — provide a means for disabled voters to cast a ballot independently.

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=9366

Casey Newton
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 23, 2006 12:00 AM
Saying he would expand the role of the state's second-highest-ranking elected official, former Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza on Wednesday formally announced his candidacy for secretary of state.

Rimsza, who led Phoenix from 1994 to 2004, painted himself as a bold thinker and consensus-builder who would help the state cope with its changing economy and demographics.

"As secretary of state, it's my desire to embrace these changes and encourage all Arizonans to vote and to participate in the many decisions we must make together," the Republican told supporters at Cutter Aviation in Phoenix. "The secretary of state must be involved in protecting Arizona's future."

Rimsza said he would be "more activist" on issues of economic development than incumbent Jan Brewer and said he would work to increase voter turnout.

If successful, Rimsza would face the victor of the Democratic primary between Israel Torres and Bruce Wheeler. First, though, Rimsza will have to defeat a strong incumbent in Brewer.

Brewer, a former state senator and chairwoman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, won a rare pre-primary endorsement from the Arizona Republican party and also has the support of Sens. John McCain and John Kyl.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0323rimsza0323.html

opinion piece

When I read about Northampton County's decision to purchase $2 million worth of computerized voting machines, my immediate reaction was to contact County Council so that I could meet with its members and with County Executive John Stoffa to share my concerns.

You may wonder why a busy physician is making a fuss about the new computerized voting machines purchased by Northampton County. To me, taking away the guarantee that a citizen's vote will be counted, is what separates a democracy from a dictatorship. This is the line that my government is poised to cross.

Why should I think that my vote won't be counted? Allow me to provide some background. HAVA, or Help America Vote Act, was to bring clarity to elections and to provide better access for disabled persons after the election fiasco in 2000. It purportedly offers ease of use, but at the expense of security. The federal government has taken up the HAVA cause by providing incentives ($1.5 million for Northampton County) to purchase from a list of approved computerized voting machine vendors.

The computerized voting machine manufacturers claim their computerized voting machines never make mistakes, but all of the verifying tests for accuracy are internal! Lo and behold, the computer always agrees with itself! Just last week in Texas, 50,000 citizens voted, but 150,000 votes were recorded by the computerized voting machines. How do election officials sort that one out?

Moreover, in an ostensible effort to safeguard their own systems, the manufacturers refuse to share their source code, claiming proprietary rights. Translated, they safeguard their secrets, and you — the voter — are expected to trust them. You are trusting a ''black box'' to come up with the right vote. Why buy a computer to count a vote? Why complicate a simple process with a temperamental technology that is prone to ''crashing?''

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-brau3-23mar23,0,3808305.story?coll=all-newsopinionanotherview-hed

Thursday, March 23, 2006
Senator wants to fix military voting system

JOURNAL STAFF AND WIRE REPORT

WASHINGTON - Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., is one of 12 senators urging Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to update the military's voting system for personnel stationed abroad.

"Military absentee voting is still conducted the same way it was conducted during World War II and the Korean War," the bipartisan group of senators wrote in a letter to Rumsfeld earlier this month.

Under the current system, members of the military must contact local officials by regular mail and request a ballot, which is in turn mailed to them. The voter must then fill out the ballot by hand and mail back to his or her state.

The senators would like to see a system where military personnel, regardless of where they are stationed, could "request, receive, download and print" an absentee ballot. They could then return it to their home state in a more timely fashion.

(this is a free subscription site, requests registration) the above is the entire article (I hope it's ok, less than 4 para) if you do not wish to go to the link

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834893777&path=!localnews&s=1037645509099

PHOENIX Advocacy groups say they plan to sue Secretary of State Jan Brewer over the state's new voter identification requirements.

They claim Brewer's rigid application of the law could prevent some out-of-state Arizonans including military members or college students, from registering in their home state.
Brewer dismissed the legal threat as little more than politics and vowed not to back down from the challenge.

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4670742&nav=HMO6

Washington Times

By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 23, 2006

Motivating 71 million twenty-somethings to get out and vote was a field once dominated by such efforts as Rock the Vote and MTV's Choose or Lose campaign, which base their appeal on the cachet of Hollywood celebrities, high-profile Democrats and musicians.
A dozen new groups have entered the fray, winners of the first national competition to develop innovative, nonpartisan initiatives to register the 18- to 29-year-old set. Wooing the young has become an exacting but promising science.
"Generation Y is large, increasingly active and up for grabs politically," said Christopher Arterton of George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, which coordinated the contest and announced the winners yesterday.
"Parties should take note. In today's evenly divided electorate, whoever wins over young voters today will win close elections in the short run and likely be the party in power in the long run," Mr. Arterton said.
Young voters seem to be on a roll. More than 20 million voted in the 2004 election, up 11 percent from 2000 and the greatest increase since the age group won the right to vote 35 years ago. The competition winners -- who receive grants from $50,000 to 250,000 each from the Pew Charitable Trust -- have specific strategies in mind.
California-based Mobile Voter, for example, bases its entire outreach on creative text messaging for mobile phones, noting in its mission statement that American political parties have only made rudimentary use of the "native tongue of young people."
Alabama-based Redeem the Vote, meanwhile, plans to engage young Christians in the political process with Gospel tracts printed on voter registration forms and the music of faith-based rock bands advising participants, "Why should you bother to vote? Because it is your responsibility as a Christian to participate in your community."

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060322-112006-4653r.htm

http://www.interfax.ru/index.html?lang=e

Mar 23 2006 2:36PM

MINSK. March 23 (Interfax) - The Belarussian Central Election Commission has rejected a complaint by presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin and the non-governmental organization Belarussian Republican Voters Club on declaring the recent presidential elections invalid.

The complaint, which was sent to the CEC on March 20, cited results of monitoring violations of Belarussian election law both during the formation of election commissions, the collection of signatures for candidate registration and the actual election campaign.

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11484083

oops slipped into reply :blush:

Herald-Mail.com

Thursday March 23, 2006
Hearing delayed for man accused in voter registration cas

by PEPPER BALLARD pepperb@herald-mail.com
A Washington County District Court hearing for Roger Dean Weber, who was charged with misrepresenting his voter registration nearly a year after he ran for Hagerstown mayor under a false name, was delayed Wednesday until the first week of April because there wasn't enough time to try the case.
Frederick County District Judge Janice Rodnick Ambrose, sitting in Washington County District Court, made the decision to continue the case that had been scheduled for Wednesday morning because good cause was shown.

"There just simply isn't enough time to try a case with this many witnesses," she said.

http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=134060&format=html

Durham, N.C. -- A conference on the future of the Voting Rights Act will be held at Duke University April 7.

The conference, titled “W(h)ither the Voting Rights Act? Agreements and Contestations in the Debate over its Renewal,” is sponsored by Duke’s Center for the Study of Race Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences (REGSS).

Scholars say the upcoming debate on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) -– Section 5 is up for renewal and Section 2 may be amended in 2007 -– likely will be as contentious as past debates and raise fundamental questions about the utility and feasibility of the VRA. Section 5 requires jurisdictions covered under the VRA to pre-clear with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division any changes to their voting procedures or electoral districts. Section 2 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in one of the identified language minority groups.

The conference will explore the issues that will likely generate the most debate. A schedule of speakers, which includes nationally known scholars and litigators actively involved in voting rights, is available online.

The conference is free and open to the public. (Lawyers who wish to earn 6 hours of North Carolina continuing legal education credit will pay $75.) It will be held from 8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. in room 240 of the JohnHopeFranklinCenter, 2204 Erwin Road.

Registration is required before March 30.

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2006/03/voting.html

Electoral Dysfunction

One Florida official exposes a gaping flaw in the electoral system - and is ignored by everyone, including California

~ By ANDREW GUMBEL ~

03-23-06

on Sancho is a rare, if not unique, figure in America's blasted electoral landscape, a county election supervisor who actually cares about the reliability, transparency, and public accountability of his voting systems. Since his bailiwick is Leon County, the area in and around Florida's state capital, Tallahassee, he also has a unique vantage point on what arguably remains the most electorally dysfunctional state in the union, and he provides regular, withering commentary on the anti-democratic skullduggery of the other Bush administration, the state government led by George W.'s brother, Jeb.

For both these things, he is now being hung out to dry.

Specifically, Sancho is being cold-shouldered by the three voting machine manufacturers certified to sell equipment in the state of Florida - Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia - after he had the temerity to investigate and publish details of an alarming security flaw in one of their products. None is currently prepared to do business with him at all. The Florida state authorities, meanwhile, have told him that if he doesn't hurry up and buy an updated system from one of the three vendors he risks finding himself in violation of federal law and having his office taken over by the state.

It's a chilling scenario. A public official takes steps to defend the integrity of elections in his county, and he is promptly identified as a threat who needs to be removed. It would be bad enough if the Sancho affair were limited to Florida, but really it has implications all over the country. The more we find out about the expensive computerized systems being installed in county after county, and state after state, the more it becomes apparent that the processes to inspect and certify them are wholly inadequate and may well be opening the door to election-stealing on a scale this country has never seen before.

snip

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3474&IssueNum=146


Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418397