Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, FRIDAY June 16, 2006

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News

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Arkansas News Bureau

Friday, Jun 16, 2006

By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK - An independent review of voting problems around the state during the May 23 primary is under way and should be complete by mid-July, Secretary of State Charlie Daniels said Thursday.

Daniels also released the names of most of the members of a bipartisan panel that will review the study findings.

The review, conducted by InfoSENTRY Services, Inc., a Raleigh, N.C.-based information technology services firm, is looking at the preparation, set-up and execution of balloting for the primary election.

Daniels said the study is focusing on Election Systems and Software Co., of Omaha, Neb., which received a $15 million contract to install new electronic voting machines in the state to comply with federal law.

"ES&S let Arkansas down," Daniels said. "They let our election officials down, and they let me down. I am disappointed and frustrated over their poor performance in this state and what I considered to be their shockingly cavalier attitude toward managing this project for the first five months of the implementation."

Since ES&S replaced its management team in the state after primary and brought in about 100 technicians, things have improved, Daniels said, adding that there were few problems reported during Tuesday's runoff election.

"Since that change, communications between ES&S and our counties have improved dramatically," Daniels said. "I expect that improvement to continue as we work toward November."

Daniels said ES&S also is developing a plan to make sure there are no problems in the Nov. 7 general election and that electronic voting machines are available and working in all 75 counties.

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2006/06/16/News/336623.html

The Mercury News

Posted on Fri, Jun. 16, 2006

Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Election fraud may have occurred when three people moved into Vernon and filed as candidates earlier this year for the five-seat City Council, Vernon's city clerk testified Thursday.

The candidacies of Donald Huff, David Johnson and Alexander Lopez forced the first local election in 25 years in Vernon, a tiny industrial city south of downtown Los Angeles. Since the April 11 election, however, City Clerk Bruce Malkenhorst Jr. has refused to count the ballots until three court challenges are settled.

Malkenhorst, testifying in a non-jury trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court on the city's challenge of the candidates' residency status, said he suspected election fraud because the trio had moved into a city building in early January, then filed candidacy papers several days later.

Vernon's population is less than 100.

"You don't have to see the corpse to smell it," Malkenhorst said. "A group of people had parachuted out of nowhere on Jan. 13. These people were never seen before. My concern was for a free and fair election."

In court papers, city officials charged the new residents were part of a group linked to a corrupt politician from the nearby city of South Gate who was trying to engineer a coup. They also questioned the residency of five other people who moved into the building in January, signed the candidates' nomination papers and registered as voters.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/14830721.htm

San Francisco Chronicle

Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, June 16, 2006

An argument erupted Thursday in the too-close-to-call Oakland mayor's race as campaign foes debated whether votes for write-in candidates -- those cast even for Bugs Bunny or Uncle Fred -- should be tallied as part of the final vote count.

Richard Winnie, the Alameda County counsel, appeared to side with supporters of former U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums' campaign, saying write-ins should be cast out.

But City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente's campaign said it was normal practice for the county to count all discernable votes -- and the county should factor in votes for write-ins when computing the percentage of total votes cast.

The debate could be moot as it doesn't appear that tossing out the write-ins that had been counted so far -- 117 as of Thursday -- would help Dellums avoid a runoff with De La Fuente.

The latest vote count has Dellums holding a strong lead, but still below the simple majority needed to win the election outright.

Posted at 4:48 p.m. Thursday on the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Web site, the tally -- not including write-ins -- shows Dellums with 39,923 votes, or 49.75 percent of the ballots counted. De La Fuente had 26,718 votes, or 33.29 percent.

City Councilwoman Nancy Nadel had 13.20 percent, and the three other candidates gathered the rest.

Dellums was 143 votes short of holding a simple majority.

Election workers will resume counting damaged and provisional ballots today, said Guy Ashley, spokesman for Acting Registrar Dave Macdonald. Macdonald said the count is expected to continue into next week.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/16/BAGV1JFC261.DTL&type=politics

SC joining the growing list of folks unhappy with voting machines, not on principle, but just that the machines are crappy. VotersUnite



Glitches creep up in vote machines
System problems snarl final tallies in Horry elections
By Travis Tritten
The Sun News

The polls closed at 7 p.m., but by 1 a.m. final results were still nowhere in sight.

As the wait for Horry County's primary election tallies turned from minutes into hours, it was clear Tuesday night the county's new voting machines had hit a snag - several snags, in fact.

About 25 to 30 touch-screen voting machines in 12 precincts locked up, had dead batteries or were improperly shut down, according to Horry County spokeswoman Kelly Brosky.

snip...

Link: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/local/14822189.htm

Press of Atlantic City

By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6712
Published: Friday, June 16, 2006
Updated: Friday, June 16, 2006

OCEAN CITY — Some members of City Council thought taxpayers would be willing to pay for political campaigns on the island to get rid of influence peddling among developers, Realtors and the rich.

They were prepared to make Ocean City the first town in New Jersey to adopt public financing for political campaigns. The issue was timely, coming on the heels of a mayoral race in May that saw nearly $250,000 in campaign spending.

There was just one problem.

“It's not legal,” city Solicitor Jerry Corcoran said. “Dedicated trust funds have to be approved by the state.”

The council has considered the idea of public financing for local campaigns for two years. The council even invited national experts on the subject to address them on more than one occasion.

“You never asked what I thought,” Corcoran told council.

Because state budget law does not provide a line item in town budgets for public campaign financing, the city can't dedicate money in its budget for that purpose, Corcoran said. Of course, no town in New Jersey has ever had public financing for elections. So this would be something new.

Council deadlocked Thursday 3-3 to introduce the measure. Councilmen Jody Alessandrine, Roy Wagner and Larry Carnuccio voted to approve it over the solicitor's objections. Councilman Frank McCall, who would have represented the deciding vote, was absent.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6439139p-6294856c.html

BLOGGED BY Brad ON 6/16/2006 8:04AM

PBS' News Hour with Jim Leher covered electronic voting as it occurred in last week's California primary. Suffice to say, while the report was "balanced" strongly towards a pro e-voting position, there were a number of points worth noting, and which underscore the points I've been making re: the illegalities in the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco.

1) Virtually every shot of a Diebold touch-screen voting machine shown in use on Election Day last week in the story, clearly reveals the (nearly-inexplicable) opaque plastic door designed into these systems as being closed over the view window of the so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail" printer. Begging the question of how many voters actually bothered to verify their so-called "paper trail" when using these machines.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2968

A little run-down of some of what's ahead. VotersUnite



Officials prepare for midterm elections
WILL LESTER
Associated Press

The Election Assistance Commission is sending out a "Quick Start Management Guide for New Voting Systems" to 6,700 local election officials around the country. The guide is necessary as about a third of voters will be using new machines this year and many longtime poll workers have retired because the punch-card and lever voting machines have been replaced.

"Chicago experienced significant problems during the elections in March because of new equipment, new Illinois laws and new federal requirements," said DeGregorio, who added the city should be ready for November.

snip...

Connie Schmidt, a retired election commissioner from Kansas, said the election system is undergoing dramatic changes and - "there's no dry run, no practice, no dress rehearsal."

Link: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/politics/14827713.htm

thenorthwestern.com

Posted June 15, 2006

by Alex Hummel
of The Northwestern

Touch-screen voting machines or not, the Winnebago County Board’s indecision is certainly touching a nerve.

On Wednesday, coming off a mid-May county board defeat of a resolution to buy 49 high-tech digital touch-screen voting machines, the Winnebago County Board voted 28-6 to reconsider measure on June 20. They stopped short of actually casting a second vote on a controversial topic.

At its regular meeting on June 20, the 38-member board will reconsider the defeated resolution to spend a federally-reimbursable $288,000 and buy 50 Diebold Elections Systems touch-screen voting machines to comply with the Help America Vote Act.

HAVA contains a provision calling for touch-screen technology, or something like it, to improve access to the U.S. election system for physically disabled, visually-impaired and blind Americans. But what technology is the right technology to incorporate into local polling places is stirring debate in Winnebago County and, apparently, on a scale like none other in Wisconsin, State Elections Board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy said Wednesday.

http://www.thenorthwestern.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060615/OSH0101/60614065/1128/OSHnews

Timesunion

First published: Thursday, June 15, 2006
Ilene Clinton is alive and well and sorry for the inconvenience.

She had the opportunity to get away with her grandchildren, and she took it. Those of us who learned she had filed an appeal with the state Education Department, seeking at least a partial revote of the Troy school board election, would have to wait.
Clinton came home Tuesday night to find her answering machine full, and a note from at least one reporter (see photo, above) in her mailbox.
It was no surprise that Clinton would appeal the election results. She had said she would do so after the voting machine in her home area, near the Brunswick border, recorded only two votes for her.
A subsequent test by the Board of Elections, which owns the 50-year-old machine, showed that it broke after two votes were recorded for Clinton. After that, the register would move halfway between 2 and 3 votes when one person voted for her, and then snap back to 2 the next time someone pulled the lever for her.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=491770&category=RENSSELAER&BCCode=&newsdate=6/16/2006

Talahassee Democrat

Originally published June 16, 2006
Touch screens will help disabled voters
By Jeff Burlew
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

Stacia Woolverton, a visually impaired Tallahassee receptionist, never votes in elections.

She can't read paper ballots that have been used in Leon County for years, and she doesn't want to tell poll workers what her vote is. But this fall, Woolverton will have a new option. On Thursday, the Supervisor of Elections Office received 125 Diebold touch-screen machines that include hand-held devices and headphones, allowing the visually impaired to vote independently.

"I'm pretty excited about it," Woolverton said. "I think I'll try it."

The county now is compliant with the federal Help America Vote Act, which requires the machines in all voting locations. After the county missed a Jan. 1 deadline to get them, the state pulled a $564,421 grant. The state, county and voting-machine companies went through months of legal wrangling before the county got the machines it needed.

The grant money the county lost is included in the new state budget, so the county should get it back. The machines cost a little more than $600,000, said Ion Sancho, the supervisor of elections.

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060616/NEWS01/606160337/1010

Charlston Daily Mail

Southern West Virginians need to acknowledge the distinction
Friday June 16, 2006

FOR 18 years, Glen Dale "Hound Dog" Adkins was the county clerk of Logan County. That made him the county's chief elections officer,

the man in charge of democracy there.

Last July, a federal grand jury indicted him. The original indictment charged him with buying votes in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002. Adkins reached

an agreement in November to plead guilty to one felony count of selling his vote, and he resigned his elected post in January.

"I can see where I made some bad judgment calls," he told U.S. District Judge David Faber.

Faber sentenced Adkins to six months of home

confinement and five years of probation. He must also pay a $20,000 fine.

His case appears to have come to its conclusion. But before it fades into the mists of history, it must be

noted that "bad judgment calls" is a wholly inadequate description of what Adkins did.

http://www.dailymail.com/news/Opinion/200606162/

Daily Press

06/16/2006
Associated Press
Former Mayor Ben Cooper, accused of vote rigging and corruption, gave up his seat on the Town Council, a move some hope will help the coal town move ahead in the wake of an election fraud scandal.
Cooper's attorney, Patti Church, made the announcement Thursday. She insisted Cooper's resignation, effective July 4, was neither a presumption of guilt nor a reaction to the council trying to force him out.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-sou--voterfraud0616jun16,0,2560777.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia

Yardley News

By: CHRIS EDWARDS
06/16/2006

(scroll down towards bottom within "The eagles have landed at Core Creek Park" article)

While the county already has purchased 303 new Danaher full-face electronic voting machines from Mt. Holly, NJ's Electec, Inc., officials are exploring the possibility of buying approximately 400 reconditioned or "second-hand" machines from the vendor.
The 303 new machines will be delivered in July, in time to intensify election official and voter training for the Nov. 7 general elections.
Although Bucks used lever machines during its May 16 primary election, county chief operating officer/managing director David M. Sanko insisted there "is no indication that ($950,000 of federal funding for the new machines)" is lost.
According to Sanko, five handicapped voters needed assistance at the polls during the primary. Because the 2002 Help Americans Vote Act has specific mandates for handicap voter access, there is speculation the county could lose that $950,000 portion of the funding designated to offset handicap needs.
The Danaher machines will be fully compliant with HAVA.
If second-hand machines are purchased, Sanko said, they will be fully warranted and voters "should not be able to tell the difference."

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16799347&BRD=1683&PAG=461&dept_id=40799&rfi=6

StarNewsOnline

Associated Press



Barnwell, S.C. | Election officials in Barnwell County used paper ballots for a couple of hours during Tuesday's primaries after an error occurred in preparing the electronic voting machines.

Precincts in the rural county opened without delay, but voters arriving during the first couple of hours were asked to choose candidates by marking an optical scan ballot, State Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said.

"These sorts of human errors are going to happen" with more than 2,000 precincts and 13,000 poll workers statewide, Whitmire said.

The error occurred locally with county election officials, but Whitmire said he didn't have any specifics on what happened.

A telephone message left for Harriett McKnight, chairwoman of the Barnwell County Election Commission, was not returned.

The problem was found before polls opened at 7 a.m, and the electronic machines were being used about two hours later, Whitmire said.

The State Election Commission had received reports of short delays with polls opening, but the agency wasn't able to immediately confirm where they may have occurred.

"Where there may have been a handful of precincts throughout the state that experienced some short delay, at this point, I can't put a number on it," Whitmire said.

About a half-dozen voters at VFW Post 641 in Columbia were told early Tuesday to return later in the day because the host building wasn't open in time for poll workers to enter and computer problems hampered the setup, said poll manager Larry Vanderbilt.

Commercialappeal.com

Error turns 'loser' into the apparent winner in Senate race

By Associated Press
June 16, 2006

FORREST CITY, Ark. -- Clerks made a 100-vote error when transcribing information from a St. Francis County precinct in Tuesday's runoff, shortchanging a state Senate candidate who now is the apparent winner of the race, an election commissioner said Thursday.
Unofficial results had shown Arnell Willis defeating Jack Crumbly by 28 votes in the race that covers portions of Crittenden, Lee, Phillips and St. Francis counties. If the change is certified as it stands now, Crumbly would win by 72 votes.

St. Francis County Election Commission Chairman Frederick Freeman said Thursday that, in one of his precincts, clerks gave Crumbly only 74 votes from a paper ballot tabulator when he should have had 174.
The county delayed certification of ballots until Monday to give candidates time to conduct their own reviews of the Democratic Party primary. Willis says he will sue.

Freeman said other races from the Ward 1 precinct had between 244 and 256 votes cast. The combined total reported in the state Senate District 16 race Tuesday night was 158 votes.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/politics/article/0,1426,MCA_1496_4778341,00.html

St Petersburg Times

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
Published June 16, 2006
TALLAHASSEE - The voting systems expert who has played an integral role in developing Florida's voter database has resigned, less than three months before a statewide primary election.

Sanford "Sandy" Brill, 55, chief of the State Department's Bureau of Departmental Applications, submitted his resignation letter on Monday, effective June 26.

In the letter, Brill said he will pursue a new career "that will enable me to more effectively support my family."

In an interview, Brill said his mission of making the database operational was largely finished, and the maintenance and support of the system is now the agency's priority.

"It's time for me to pursue other interests," Brill said.

Florida launched the database, called the Florida Voter Registration System, on Jan. 1 to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act. It is the state's most ambitious effort yet to compile a statewide voter file, and some election supervisors have complained about recurring problems.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho, who has clashed repeatedly with state elections officials, said Brill's departure is worrisome.

"The timing of it seems a little odd. We are concerned," Sancho said.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/16/State/Voter_database_expert.shtml

The Journal Register

Published: June 16, 2006 09:37 am

To comply with lawsuit, counties must quickly make adjustments

By Holly Weber/weberh@gnnewspaper.com
ALBION — Better late than never.

Voting systems in the state will soon undergo a makeover to comply with the Help America Vote Act, but New York is hardly ahead of the curve.

“New York State is the last in the country to implement HAVA,” John Jennings of NTS Data Services said.

Congress passed HAVA to update voting equipment and registration processes in the wake of irregularities in the 2000 national elections.

The law requires states to make sure all counties implement the changes, which include the replacement of lever voting machines and creation of a statewide voter registration database.

Because of the state’s non-compliance with HAVA, the Department of Justice filed suit against the state Board of Elections and the state itself. After revising a plan, New York was given extended deadlines to comply with the law. In order to get Orleans County up-to-date, a new computer system for voter registration must be implemented.

snip

The new registration database would allow election officials to search for a voter by registration number, first or last name, address or other demographic information. Once the name comes up, the official can see where the voter is registered, where they live, when they registered and automatically place them in a voting district based on address. Because it’s statewide, the system can tell if someone is registered in different locations.

http://www.journal-register.com/local/local_story_167093708.html

Dallas Morning News

Letters from Rockwall, Garland
08:23 AM CDT on Friday, June 16, 2006

If you see anyone – an election judge or clerk, a citizen or candidate – doing something wrong at your voting place tomorrow, know what to do. Political propaganda in your polling place or voting booth is illegal. If someone passes out political propaganda to you within 100 feet of an election place, it is illegal. Candidate signs must be posted 100 feet from the polling place, and if the candidate sign does not have the state's official candidate endorsement insignia, it is illegal.
If the election judge or clerk reveals the number of votes received for or against a candidate or issue, or names of persons who have or have not voted, it is illegal. If you are asked for more than two pieces of identification, your rights are possibly being violated. For more information, go to Texas Statutes and Election Codes at www.capitol.state.tx.us/ statutes/el.toc.htm.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/DN-east_letters_16edi.ART.East.Edition1.280f42c.html

Infoworld

June 16, 2006

Filed under: Security
We here in the U.S. luuuv Norman Rockwell illustrations, don't we? The one of that little kid sitting next to the cop at the diner? Or how about the illustration celebrating the Freedom of Speech, where a plain looking joe stands up to speak at town meeting. They're so all-American in their grittiness and optimism. Why, that guy standing up in front of his fellow citizens would never get caught speeding down the highway with his wife's severed head next to him on the front seat, just as the elected official he's speaking his mind to wouldn't even contemplate using a bootable CD or USB drive to introduce viral code onto a vulnerable electronic voting kiosk, changing the vote tally and, maybe, swaying a hotly contested election.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a Norman Rockwell illustration -- this is the real world. And that's why the U.S. Election Assistance Committee's latest "quick start" guide to election workers on managing electronic voting systems is so disappointing. The guide, which was just released, is well-meaning: get poll workers comfortable working with e-voting kiosks and make sure they handle and manage the systems properly.

However, with little federal guidance or oversight of elections and, thus, election security, the guide kind of sounds like something out of one of those Saturday Evening Post illustrations, despite ample evidence that voting machine irregularities have disrupted ballot counts on numerous occasions.

http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/006793.html

6/16/2006 5:33:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Justice Department, 202-514-2007

WASHINGTON, June 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Justice Department announced today the filing and successful resolution of a lawsuit against Cochise County, Ariz., alleging violations of the voting rights of language minority citizens under the Voting Rights Act and violations of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

"By quickly agreeing to implement a comprehensive and effective remedial plan, Cochise County officials have demonstrated a genuine commitment to addressing past problems and protecting the voting rights of all American citizens," said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

The Department filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona alleging that Cochise County failed to meet its legal responsibilities under Section 203 to provide materials and assistance to Spanish-speaking voters at the polls and failed to provide all of the information required by HAVA. A consent decree resolving the lawsuit was simultaneously filed today, which still must be approved by a panel of three federal judges. The decree requires the County to implement procedures that will ensure compliance with federal law and permit the Justice Department to monitor future elections.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=67702