Election Reform and Related News: Sat. Feb. 16, 2008

[livvy]

Election Reform and Related News
Saturday, February 16, 2008



:rofl:

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[livvy]

1. Many States Elect Not to Use Flawed E-Voting Technology

Many States Elect Not to Use Flawed E-Voting Technology
Eight years after the controversial 2000 presidential election, electronic voting systems still fail to deliver on their promise of accuracy and security

By Larry Greenemeier
February 12, 2008


With just nine months to go until Election Day, electronic voting machines remain as iffy and controversial as ever. The new technology was once widely viewed as an improvement over the antiquated paper ballots used in some states during the highly contentious 2000 presidential race that ushered George W. Bush into the White House (think: hanging chads). But it is still plagued by accuracy and security concerns.

In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—Congress's investigative arm—gave at best a lukewarm endorsement of electronic voting technology. Congress called upon the GAO to investigate the role that iVotronic direct-recording electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machines, made by Election Systems & Software, Inc., in Omaha, Neb., played in the highly controversial 2006 election for Florida's 13th Congressional District, in which Republican Vern Buchanan edged out Democrat Christine Jennings by a whisker-thin 369 vote margin.

During that election, more than 18,000 of the 143,532 ballots cast on the e-voting machines in Florida's Sarasota County did not register a vote for either candidate. The GAO checked for flaws in voting machines used there during the election. As part of the effort, investigators examined the firmware (software embedded in the devices) to make sure it matched that certified by the State of Florida. They also tested the devices to make sure they properly recorded and counted the ballots and whether they could provide accurate results even if miscalibrated.

The agency's conclusion: "Although the test results cannot be used to provide absolute assurance, we believe that these test results, combined with the other reviews that have been conducted by Florida, GAO, and others, have significantly reduced the possibility that the iVotronic DREs were the cause of the undervote."

more...

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=electronic-voting-election

[livvy]

2. CA: Defect in Paper Ballots Slowing Election Count

February 16, 2008


Defect in paper ballots slowing election count

Nicole C. Brambila
The Desert Sun

Super Tuesday might be over, but the election continues, officials say.

"It doesn't look like we'll be certified until March," said Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore.

County election officials have 28 days to finalize election results with the Secretary of State's office.

snip

The registrar's office had encountered problems with vote-by-mail ballots falling apart when opened. Of the 300,000 absentee ballots mailed in January, officials estimate about one in six were defective.

Election officials are duplicating defective ballots by hand. The registrar's office has not hired extra temporary workers to help with duplicating, Dunmore said.

more...



http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS0301/802160327/1026/news12

[Peace Patriot]

13. Dunmore is one of the really "bad actors" among corrupt CA county election officials-

FYI. She it was who joined former Diebold salesperson, Deborah Seiler, now San Diego County Registrar, in suing Secretary of State Debra Bowen, to stop modest improvements in the audits (hand-count to check machine totals) just before the primary. Nice waste of more taxpayers' money. They lost. Bowen's improvements stand. But it's typical of the attitude of corporate servants like Barbara Dunmore, who have resisted paper ballots and all transparency. This gang of "bad actor" election officials also includes (but is not limited to) San Bernardino County (joined the lawsuit against SoS Bowen), Los Angeles County (headed by Conny McCormack until Dec 07, now by her handpicked successor, Dean Logan, of the 94,000 rejected indy votes), and Steven Weir, head of the county election officials lobbying group, and Contra Costa County registrar.

You can hear all them whining and carrying on about Bowen's reforms in the following articles, and promising slow vote counts--days before the primary. In my opinion, they are fully capable of sabotage, to slow the vote count down, to be blamed on SoS Bowen's reforms.

(Seiler and Weir whining--with Riverside and San Bernardino referenced)
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_8157074?source=rss

(Conny McCormack whining, with Riverside and Dunmore referenced)
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_8153626?source=rss

(And Steve Weir whining and conniving, back in August - 8/12/07)
“This election, if it's a failure, it's on her (i.e., SoS Bowen),” said Steve Weir, president of the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials and Contra Costa County's registrar of voters.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070812-9999-1n12bowen.html

(A comprehensive look at Calif's election system)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4380748

Problems like deteriorating/ melting absentee ballots, and an independent voter ballot that disenfranchises almost 94,000 people, are the result of the corporate "culture of secrecy" that has infected our election system, shoddiness and carelessness about the public trust, money corruption, and a complete loss of a sense of public service, as opposed to serving corporate vendors. The voter is the sucker to be lied to and conned, sold defective goods, and robbed--of billions of dollars for completely unnecessary machines, which are dangerous, if not fatal, to democracy. Machine breakdowns, as we know, can be opportunities for election theft. And snafus like melting ballots, and confusing, unnecessary "buttons" on the ballots, can also be opportunities for fraud, as well as political gimmicks with which to push the corporate secrecy agenda.

The CA county registrars mentioned above are so devoted to their corporate vendors, and have so little regard for the voters or for their own responsibility to run transparent elections, they really need to be fired, as an essential step toward restoring accountability in these county election systems. SaveRVote, an election integrity group in Riverside, has called for a complete financial and election system audit in Riverside (Dunmore). All of these counties (and some others) need such audits--now.

[livvy]

3. NM Democrats Can't Say How Many Scrap Paper Ballots Were Cast

NM Democrats can't say how many scrap paper ballots were cast
By TIM KORTE Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 02/15/2008 03:10:34 PM MST


ALBUQUERQUE—You've waited patiently in line to vote, only to be told your name can't be found on registration rolls. Worse, they've run out of ballots at your polling station.
What to do?

Just scribble your name on a scrap of paper, list your preferred candidate and sign an affidavit declaring you're a registered Democrat in New Mexico.

They're called handwritten ballots, and they were used—apparently in limited numbers—for the Democratic Party's presidential caucus.

An Associated Press survey of Democratic Party chairs in most of New Mexico's 33 counties confirmed reports that scrap-paper ballots were used in the Feb. 5 caucus after some polling sites ran out of ballots.

more...


http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_8273847

[livvy]

4. With Improvements, E-Voting Could Be Good, Says Researcher

February 16, 2008 6:21 AM PST
With improvements, e-voting could be good, says researcher.
Posted by Robert Vamosi | Post a comment

Washington D.C. -- In a keynote address at this year's ShmooCon, an East-coast computer hacker conference, J. Alex Halderman said that electronic voting machines could be good for the electorate--with some modifications.

Halderman is a graduate student for Ed Felten, a professor of computer science at Princeton, who is best known for demonstrating that the electronic voting machines produced by Diebold and other companies are vulnerable to attack. Diebold has since changed the name of election equipment to Premier Election Solutions. Felten was to make the keynote address, but canceled at the last minute due to the flu. Halderman is no less qualified to speak to the convention of computer hackers; this past summer Halderman and others from Felten's team assisted California Secretary of State Debra Brown in her investigation of electronic voting machines.

At issue are direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. Halderman points out that DREs are, basically, computers, susceptible to viruses, bugs, and crashes. What troubles Halderman and his team is that "a conspiracy of one could launch an attack on all the voting machines in a county, or in a state." He said that while paper ballots could be rigged, paper-less electronic ballots were even easier to exploit.

With the Diebold machines Halderman studied, he found that the company provided potential attackers with an upgrade process that was easy to manipulate. By naming a malicious file a specific file name, the Diebold DREs simply ran the code, allowing a devious programmer to inject malicious code into one or more voting machines. Since the same PCMIA card can be used to load a specific ballot within a precinct or within a county or state, one tainted card could easily spread the infection.

more...

http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9873850-57.html

[livvy]

5. OH: State Mandates Availablility of Paper Ballots

State mandates availability of paper ballots
By BRIAN GADD
Staff Writer

With the Presidential Primary coming up March 4, local election boards will be providing optical scan paper ballots to voters who would rather go the paper route than go through the touch-screen process.

In Muskingum County, that translates to at least 100 each of Republican and Democrat ballots and 35 issue-only ballots at each of the county's 85 precincts, Board of Elections Director Martha Thomas said.


In all, Thomas said more than 14,000 paper ballots have been printed up to be available for the election. The number was determined based in part on the number of registered voters in each of the county's precincts.

In Perry County, Elections Director Janie DePinto is expecting to have 20 to 25 paper ballots in each precinct and at the most 35.
A mandate from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner had suggested basing the paper ballot counts on the number of people who voted in the last Presidential Primary.

more...

http://zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080216/NEWS03/802160302

[livvy]

6. DC: Councilwoman Blasts Board Over Voting Process

Councilwoman blasts board over voting process
Michael Neibauer, The Examiner
2008-02-16 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 189 of 13,019

Washington, D.C. -
D.C. election officials on Friday touted their success pulling off the presidential primary election despite myriad voter complaints of precincts running out of ballots, voting machines breaking down and lines running 100 people long.

Alice Miller, executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics, told a D.C. Council committee that voters "were never at a disadvantage in their ability to vote." When ballot supplies were exhausted or an optical scanner faltered, she said, the touch-screen machines at every precinct were available and used at record numbers, what Miller termed "yet another success."

But at-large Councilwoman Carol Schwartz, chairwoman of the government operations committee, said the elections board should have been better prepared with surplus ballots, given the hype leading up to the Potomac primary. And the design of the paper ballots was "as clumsy and awful as anything I've ever seen," Schwartz said, which led numerous optical scanners to jam.

She took Miller to task for claiming to have managed a successful election day when so many voters reported problems.

"When you start patting yourself on the back, I don't like that, especially when there remains problems, because that's your job," Schwartz said. "I wouldn't pat myself on the back unless we have a 100 percent success rate."

more...
http://www.examiner.com/a-1224474~Councilwoman_blasts_board_over_voting_process.html

[livvy]

7. Disallowed Delgates' Fate Crucial to Democrats

Disallowed delegates' fate crucial to Democrats
DNC has no firm strategy to end standoff

By Brian C. Mooney
Globe Staff / February 16, 2008
Because Barack Obama has pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in the delegate count, the fate of 366 disallowed delegates from Florida and Michigan could be critical to the dwindling number of scenarios for Clinton to win the nomination this summer.

more stories like this
Kindness, then sharp words, from Clinton
Today on the presidential campaign trail
Easy answers elude Mich., Fla. delegates
McCain campaign insists Huckabee can't possibly win enough delegates
Hispanic leaders wonder, with Clinton campaign manager out
There's lots of chatter but no firm plan to resolve the Democrats' standoff over the states whose delegations would constitute about one-12th of the convention in Denver. At this point, the outcast delegates exist only on paper, and in the calculations of Hillary Clinton's campaign brain trust, which has been clamoring to have them seated when the party convenes late in August to nominate its presidential candidate.

After the national party stripped both states of delegates because they jumped ahead in the primary calendar - in violation of party rules - candidates boycotted both contests.

Even so, in Florida, Clinton would have earned 105 pledged delegates, 38 more than Obama's 67. In Michigan, where she was the only candidate to keep her name on the ballot, the state party has allotted her 73 delegates, 18 more than a bloc of 55 "uncommitted."

Obama's staff has dismissed the Clinton campaign's arguments as self-serving and hypocritical, and there were sparks of tension this week when leading fund-raisers in Florida for each candidate clashed over the issue, the Miami Herald reported.

more...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/16/disallowed_delegates_fate_crucial_to_democrats/

[livvy]

8. AK: Security Safeguards in Place Prior to '08 Elections

Security safeguards in place prior to ’08 elections
SEAN PARNELL

February 15, 2008 at 8:25PM AKST

For Alaska Newspapers

A faded black and white photograph taken 60 years ago in South Texas shows some good ol’ boys posed around the front end of a car and a ballot box marked with the words, "Precinct 13."

Precinct 13 changed the course of history, according to author Robert Caro, who says that those in the picture were up to no good.

In 1948, Lyndon Johnson and former Texas Gov. Coke Stevenson were battling for a Texas U.S. Senate seat. Stevenson led by 157 votes in the days after the election.

However, six days after the election, a new vote count was announced from Precinct 13 containing 202 more names, of which 200 votes went to Johnson. Stevenson fought the tally through the Democratic Party and through the court system, but ultimately Johnson took the statewide election by 87 votes of almost 1 million cast.

more...

http://thetundradrums.com/news/story/1485

[livvy]

9. NY: Unofficial Tallies in City Understated Obama Vote

February 16, 2008
Unofficial Tallies in City Understated Obama Vote
By SAM ROBERTS

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/nyregion/16vote.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[livvy]

10. CO: Paving the Way

Paving the way
EDITORIAL
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

COLORADO SECRETARY of State Mike Coffman is expected to wrap up his review of voting machines by the end of this coming week, paving the way for him to recertify those which he determines are capable of handling this year’s elections.

Last December, Mr. Coffman ruled that most of the electronic voting machines were either too easily tampered with or did not count ballots accurately. This is an important issue because the legitimacy of elections could be at stake if tampering were to take place or if software glitches were to miscount votes.

To speed Mr. Coffman’s ability to recertify the machines which have been upgraded, the Legislature passed and Gov. Bill Ritter signed a bill that gives him more flexibility in handling appeals over the equipment. We appreciate the quick action of lawmakers and the governor in enacting House Bill 1155.

Following its passage, Mr. Coffman noted this week, “It’s important that the (county) clerks know, as soon as possible, what voting equipment they will be able to use ...” He added that “under this new law, we will have the answers to the clerks by the end of next week.”

more...

http://www.chieftain.com/editorial/1203152639/1

[livvy]

11. NY: Voting Machine Choice Went to Wire

Voting machine choice went to wire
By DEBORA GILBERT 02/16/2008

HUDSON-Columbia County Election Commissioner Don Kline (R) is relieved that the long process is finally over.

"It was a decision we had to make. The one we chose was about the only machine we were satisfied with," he said. Mr. Kline was referring to the Sequoia Imagecast voting system that he and his Democrat counterpart, David Cohen, selected February 8, the court-ordered deadline for counties to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act. The Imagecast machines can accommodate voters with various types of handicaps, and handicap-accessible machines must be available at all polling places by this fall.

"I looked at the specs and examined the machines. The Imagecast seemed to meet our criteria," said Mr. Cohen.

County officials have waited years for technical guidance and a list of voting machines certified by the state Board of Elections. But state officials were unable until earlier this month to reach any decisions despite many meetings with vendors and countless hours spent comparing costs, features and faults. It was only after a confusing week early this month during which three additional machines were added at the last minute to the list of choices, and local elections officials made rushed trips to get hands-on experience with the machines that the county commissioners finally came to a decision.

The decision made by Columbia County's two commissioners was similar to the choices made by their counterparts across the state, with a majority of counties choosing the Imagecast, an optical scanner system that will be in use at over 90% of the state's polling places this fall.

more...

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=248&dept_id=462341&newsid=19301556&PAG=461&rfi=9

[livvy]

12. I'll post more this afternoon. n/t

[livvy]

14. LA County 'Double Bubble' Disenfranchisement Happened Before

LA County 'Double Bubble' Disenfranchisement Happened Before, Registrar Conny McCormack Did Nothing About It

44% of Non-Partisan Cross-Over Ballots Went Uncounted in March '04, 42% Uncounted in June '06, Before Same Ballot Design Used Again for the February 2008 Super Tuesday Primary

As LA Times Gets Religion on Election Integrity Issues, But Doesn't Bother Apologizing For Their Failures to do so up to Now...

Posted By Brad Friedman On 16th February 2008 @ 17:00 In Election Irregularities, California, Election 2008, Los Angeles Times, Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, Los Angeles | 4 Comments



Given the potential disenfranchisement <1> of tens of thousands of voters, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of voters, from Super Tuesday's Los Angeles County Democratic Primary election, which the county's current acting Registrar incorrectly <2> claims to be "impossible" <3> to count accurately, we believe it's time to place some blame squarely where it belongs for the entire mess.

A Los Angeles Times editorial this week <4>, where, it seems, the paper may have finally found religion on the issue of Election Integrity, serves up a great starting point...

And to think we made fun of Florida.

As of today, we take back the jeers about hanging chads and the unkind comments about inept voters befuddled by butterfly ballots. Somehow it doesn't seem as funny when it happens at home --- voting irregularities in Los Angeles County will disqualify the ballots of thousands of people who went to the polls on Super Tuesday.

In 2000, Florida voters flubbed their choices for president because they were confronted with a ballot whose design was new to them. But that's not the case here. L.A. County officials have long used a ballot whose design was known to consistently disenfranchise unaffiliated voters. They simply did nothing about it.
...
Election officials are calling this a glitch, but the outcome was entirely foreseeable. In fact, it has happened before. In the March 2004 election, 44% of crossover ballots were unusable, and in June 2006, it was 42%. With numbers this high, the county registrar should have investigated this matter long before now.

<5>So it happened before. 44% of Non-Partisan cross-over ballots went uncounted in March '04 and 42% in June '06. And yet, the county went into '08's primary with no plans to change a thing.

more...

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=52241

[livvy]

15. E-Vote System Doubts Linger County's New Machines Are Barred in CA

02/17/2008
E-vote system doubts linger County’s new machines are barred in California
BY DAVID SINGLETON, STAFF WRITER


Lackawanna County’s decision to invest in Premier Election Solutions touch-screen voting machines for the April 22 primary and beyond stands as a rare vote of confidence in an increasingly embattled technology.


Many states that embraced electronic voting as a panacea to the ballot discrepancies that threw the 2000 presidential election into turmoil are suddenly sprinting in the opposite direction, citing potential accuracy and security concerns.

At the center of the stampede is Premier, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems, whose AccuVote-TSX machines — like those the county plans to purchase — have become a poster child for the real and imagined shortcomings of the industry.

“Other states are unloading these things and we are buying them. It’s unbelievable,” said Marybeth Kuznik, executive director of VotePA, an Irwin-based group that advocates paper-verifiable voting.

“I feel really sorry for you guys.”

The county is still negotiating the terms of its contract with Premier. But under the proposal outlined to the commissioners on Wednesday, the county would buy 600 new and reconditioned voting machines, with delivery to begin by March 1.

more...
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19304351&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=6

[livvy]

16. Wexler Can't Take A Pass On Elections Chief

Wexler can't take a pass on elections chief
By Randy Schultz

Editor of the Editorial Page

Sunday, February 17, 2008

This year, Robert Wexler is backing off a little from the race for supervisor of elections in Voting La-La Land, otherwise known as Palm Beach County.

Backing off? Not so fast.

Palm Beach County approaches this presidential election like a wounded plane approaching the runway - wings rocking and cabin smoking. After four years, Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson has yet to show that he can guarantee a smooth vote. The state has Dr. Anderson's office marked for special attention. The 2008 election will be the first on a new system, optical-scan, that will require lots of poll-worker training and voter education.

The person most responsible for Dr. Anderson being in office is Robert Wexler, the Democratic congressman from Delray Beach who made it his business to defeat Theresa "Butterfly Ballot" LePore in 2004. Rep. Wexler says post-2000 election shock among his equally partisan constituents wasn't the reason. He wanted a "verifiable paper trail," and Ms. LePore, who liked touch screens, "fought me tooth and nail."

Rep. Wexler also says that he tried to draft perhaps a dozen other Democrats, including former Congressman Harry Johnston, former court clerk Dorothy Wilken and current tax collector and former state representative Anne Gannon. Having settled for Dr. Anderson, however, Rep. Wexler took him to Washington, helped him raise money, and obviously benefited from the revenge factor against Ms. LePore.

more...

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/02/17/a1e_schultzcol_0217.html

[livvy]

17. CO: Vote Scanners Still Face Doubts

denver and the west
Vote scanners still face doubts
A state board says the Hart machines are too likely to count stray marks as votes, the same problem that got them decertified last year.
By John Ingold
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 02/17/2008 12:12:48 AM MST


The machine used to count paper ballots in a large majority of Colorado's counties must overcome a sizable hurdle if it is to be recertified for use in this year's elections.

According to new reports released Friday evening by the state's voting machine testing board, the ballot scanning machines from Hart InterCivic continue to suffer from the same problems that led them to be decertified last year.

The machines, known as optical scanners, too often read stray marks as votes, even if they are just the tiny dots from somebody resting a pen on the ballot before marking a box, according to the reports.

The machines, which are used in 47 of Colorado's 64 counties, were re-tested this year as part of a sped-up recertification process with a software upgrade that was supposed to fix the original problem.

more...

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_8283953

[livvy]

18. 28 'Super' Delecgates Courted in California

28 'super' delegates courted in California


By John Marelius
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 17, 2008



Aleita Huguenin's phone never seems to stop ringing.
“I've heard from Bill and I heard from Hillary,” Huguenin said. “They were very respectful and saying we don't want to push you too hard, we just want to make sure if you need any information.”

So why would the former California Teachers Association official from Sacramento warrant such personal attention from the former president and first lady?

Because Huguenin is one of the 28 so-called superdelegates from California who have not endorsed either Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York or Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic presidential
For Mary Ellen Early, the calls started coming in early January when her first choice, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, was still in the race.

“I started getting calls from people in the Clinton campaign saying, 'We have a lot of respect for Gov. Richardson, but if he drops out, would you consider supporting Hillary Clinton,' ” said the Sherman Oaks hospital worker who is now backing Obama.

more...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080217-9999-1n17delegate.html