OPEN THREAD Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, Tuesday 04/15/08

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, Tuesday 04/15/08

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More voting machines

Last Update: 7:59 am



The Pennsylvania Primary is just over a week away and elections workers in our area are making sure they can handle a larger-than-usual crowd.

In York County, more than 50 extra electronic voting booths have been added. They're also adding several dozen more people to help out.

Directors say the number of registered voters did go up thanks to the tight Prace and they're hoping that translates into more interest in the local races as well.

Election directors in Dauphin, Lancaster, Perry, and Cumberland Counties all say they're adding one to two dozen voting booths to handle the extra voters.

In Adams County, election officials say they've added an extra polling place in Carroll Valley to make next Tuesday's vote run smoother.

http://www.whptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=f3d3d0da-9431-4fc8-8d54-ab76e3a56f9e

Lawmakers OK $100,000 to store voting machines

April 14, 2008
GOSHEN — Orange County legislators have approved spending $100,000 to store up to 200 new electronic voting machines.
Lawmakers unanimously approved the request after chopping it from $300,000 and leaving open the question of where the optical-scan machines will be kept.

All New York counties must replace their decades-old, lever-operated machines and deploy electronic models no later than the September 2009 primaries.

The imminent arrival of the first shipment of machines has forced county officials to scramble for a climate-controlled storage space.

They wanted to buy and renovate a state-owned building on the Middletown Psychiatric Center campus, but lawmakers opposed spending $300,000 before getting the property.
Three sites, including that one, are now under consideration.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080414/NEWS/80413011

NEWS | Election 2008 | April 14
N.J. voting technology in question after discrepancies in February vote
By Josephine Wolff
Senior Writer
Published: Monday, April 14th, 2008
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) were declared winners of the New Jersey presidential primaries, but the ongoing investigation of the discrepancies recorded by several of the state’s electronic voting machines shows that some of the votes may not add up.
Last Tuesday, a court subpoenaed electronic voting machines used for the primary elections in six New Jersey counties, including Mercer County, questioning the accuracy and security of the machines. Later that day, Sequoia Voting Systems, the company that manufactures the machines, filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, claiming that the subpoenas sought to test their machines under “unknown circumstances and protocols,” which could “unfairly undermine both the reputation of Sequoia’s products and public confidence in election results.”

Two University computer science professors, Andrew Appel ’81 and Ed Felten, have served as expert witnesses in the case, testifying on the security and reliability of Direct Recording Electronic voting machines (DREs), which do not generate any voter-verified paper ballots. Both professors said they had serious doubts about the DREs and cited their own research suggesting that the machines are easy to hack.

snip
One machine, for example, recorded that its Republican ballot was activated 60 times and its Democratic ballot was activated 362 times. Yet the same report shows that 61 votes had been cast on the machine for Republican candidates and only 361 for Democrats.

Similar discrepancies were later discovered on at least eight other machines in Union County and several more throughout the state.
“What’s alarming here is not the size of the discrepancy but its nature,” Felten said on his blog freedom-to-tinker.com. “This is a single voting machine, disagreeing with itself about how many Republicans voted on it.”

Felten described the scenario with an analogy. “Imagine your pocket calculator couldn’t make up its mind whether 1+13+40+3+4 was 60 or 61. You’d be pretty alarmed, and you wouldn’t trust your calculator until you were very sure it was fixed. Or you’d get a new calculator,” he said.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/04/14/20852/

Jaco wins large contract for optical scan voting machines
BY JAMES BERNSTEIN | james.bernstein@newsday.com
4:41 PM EDT, April 8, 2008

Jaco Electronics Corp., a relatively small components distributor, said Tuesday it won its largest-ever single award -- a contract to manufacture approximately 4,500 optical scan voting machines for use in New York State.

Hauppauge-based Jaco said in an announcement before markets opened that it will add 40 to 50 people to its 120-member Long Island workforce as a result of the contract. Jaco employes a total of 220.

An industry source said the contract is worth between $18 million and $20 million.

The company's stock, which has declined in recent years, soared on the news. In trading Tuesday, it was up 76 cents or 70 percent to $1.85.

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzjaco0409,0,3720354.story

The amended version is up for a vote in the House this Tuesday. It is an
emergency bill for the November 08 election. There should be an April 8th update

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.05036:

Blogs / Discoblog
What’s Easier to Rig—the U.S. Presidential Elections or a Slot Machine?

Steve Freeman, a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, compared the vulnerabilities of the two in his book, with some pretty alarming results. Among the problems he found:

–Unpredictable voting machine software is kept secret, while gambling software must be kept on file with the state.

–State inspectors randomly inspect gambling machines to ensure their software and computer chips haven’t been tinkered with. Voting machines don’t need to be checked, and no one knows what’s in them anyways.

–Slot machine manufacturers are subjected to background checks, while no one knows whether voting machine programmers have been convicted of, say, fraud (video).

–Gambling equipment is tested and certified by third parties, while voting machines are certified by companies of the manufacturer’s choosing (and payroll).

–In case of dispute, gamblers have access to round-the-clock investigators who can analyze machines. Disgruntled voters can (sometimes) file a complaint that may or may not be investigated.

So on the surface, the black box doesn’t seem to be any better than hanging chads. Yet how much longer are we going to have to be inefficient Luddites? In the two years since Freeman’s book was published, there have been some changes to the system. Voter-verified paper records—which allow a voter to review the machine’s accuracy, and remain with the machine to become the official record of the vote—are now required in 30 states (although manual audits in randomly selected precincts are only mandated in 17).

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/04/14/whats-easier-to-rig%E2%80%94the-us-presidential-elections-or-a-slot-machine/

The Myth of Verified Voting: How GOP strategists & J. Abramoff transformed America's elections and the reform movement itself
BY Nancy Tobi


For the published version of this article and more about elections in 21st century America, read the newly released Loser Take All, edited by Mark Crispin Miller.


The Myth of Verified Voting: How GOP strategists and Jack Abramoff transformed America’s elections and the election reform movement itself

K Street Lobbyists and Election Reform

In 1995, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Republican strategist Grover Norquist launched the “K Street Project.” (i) Named for the Capital Hill street housing many lobbying firms, the Project gave lobbyists direct access to Washington lawmakers through weekly policy and strategy meetings. The most infamous K Street lobbyist was Jack Abramoff, who worked for the firm Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff, now in prison, took money from his American Indian tribe clients, and laundered it to Congressional Representatives in return for legislative and policy favors aligned with the Project’s political agenda.

But this was not just any money laundering enterprise. Abramoff’s dry cleaner was converting money to election fraud.

In 2002, the New Hampshire GOP received three $5,000 checks, just in time to pay $15,600 to a telemarketing company that jammed the phone lines of the Democratic Party’s get-out-the-vote campaign in the morning hours of the election.

http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/5668

GOP Objections Mean Uncertainty for Paper Ballot Bill
By Molly K. Hooper, CQ Staff

Republican opposition may mean defeat or at least a strategic retreat Tuesday for a bill offering federal help to localities that don’t trust their electronic voting machines.

The bill (HR 5036) would authorize reimbursement for states and counties that convert to paper ballot voting machines before the November elections or need help paying for manual audits afterward.

Democrats put the bill on the part of Tuesday’s calendar used for non-controversial measures. It was scheduled to be brought up under suspension of the rules, which means a two-thirds vote would be required for passage.

Numerous GOP House members oppose the bill because of its high price tag, said Vernon J. Ehlers of Michigan, ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee.

The Congressional Budget Office released its estimate of the bill’s cost — as much as $685 million — after the committee’s markup.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002704095

GOP Objections Derail Paper Ballot Bill for Now
By Molly K. Hooper, CQ Staff
Republican opposition on Tuesday led to the defeat, at least for now, of a bill offering federal help to localities that don’t trust their electronic voting machines.

The bill (HR 5036) would authorize reimbursement for states and counties that convert to paper ballot voting machines before the November elections or need help paying for manual audits afterward.

Democrats put the bill on the part of Tuesday’s calendar used for non-controversial measures. It was brought up under suspension of the rules, which required a two-thirds vote for passage. But the final tally, 239-178, fell far short of the margin needed.

Numerous GOP House members opposed the bill because of its high price tag, said Vernon J. Ehlers of Michigan, ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002704095#

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Public can view testing of voting machines
By Bill Lindelof - blindelof@sacbee.com
Last Updated 9:04 am PDT Tuesday, April 15, 2008


To prepare for the June 3 statewide primary election, the Sacramento County Voter Registration and Elections Department will begin testing voting machines -- and citizens are invited to observe the tests.

The testing for "logic and accuracy" begins April 21 and will run continuously until complete.

"Interested parties can observe our testing of each machine for accuracy in the tabulation of votes," Registrar of Voters Jill LaVine said in a news release.

To view the procedure, contact department spokesman Brad Buyse at (916) 875-6365 for the testing schedule
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/863169.html

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