Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, FRI. Sep. 28 & 29, 2006 - We Can!

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and we MUST

Our mission:

Carefully choose whom you vest your rights to

Hold those accountable, who misuse, abuse and break your trust

Talk to 1 person and give them the facts, help them realize the powers of their vote

Good Luck to all of us, Good Luck America coast to coast



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1. Litigating the 2006 Elections: The Top Three Issues Dominating Battles In

FindLaw - Legal News & Commentary

And Out of Court, And the Reasons for the Election Lawsuit Explosion

By DANIEL TOKAJI
----
Wednesday, Sep. 27, 2006

There's no better way to spark debate than creating a ranked list. Taking a page from U.S. News & World Report's playbook, the current issue of Mother Jones ranks the 11 worst places to vote in the United States. While anything but scientific, the list provides a window through which to look at some of the big problems that are making news this election season. It's also a great starting point for considering the role of courts in overseeing the mechanics of democracy.

In this column, I'll summarize post-2000 election controversies, and then offer my list of the top three election law issues that are being debated - both in and out of court - this year.

The Election Litigation Explosion

Election-related lawsuits have been on the rise since the disputed 2000 election. That election famously ended with the Bush v. Gore opinion, which held the State of Florida's court-ordered recount process unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, and sealed President George W. Bush's victory over then-Vice President Al Gore.

Since then, we've seen litigation on such varied issues as voting machines, provisional ballots, absentee voting, registration lists, voter identification laws, and long lines at the polling places, just to mention a few. While the reasons for the increase in election-related lawsuits are complex, it undoubtedly has much to do with the greater attention that partisans on both sides are devoting to the nuts and bolts of elections. There's simply a lot more attention being focus on election administration than was the case six years ago - which is probably the result of both major parties' realization that every vote really does count, at least when the margin is narrow enough. Civil rights groups have also gotten into the act, challenging practices such as punch-card ballots and barriers to registration, on both constitutional and statutory grounds.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060927_tokaji.html

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2. Why the House's Recent Voter Identification Bill Is Fatally Flawed

FindLaw - Legal News & Commentary

By KRISTEN CLARKE-AVERY
----
Friday, Sep. 29, 2006

Earlier this month, the House passed H.R. 4844 -- the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006. The bill would require all voters to present difficult-to-obtain, costly government-issued photo identification in all federal elections, commencing in November 2008. It also would require that, by 2010, all voters present identification that could only have been obtained upon proof of citizenship.

This law, if passed by the Senate, would dramatically revamp the way that we vote in the U.S. by essentially requiring that every voter prove their citizenship as a prerequisite to participating in the political process. But is there a need for such drastic action?

I will argue that the answer is no. The bill's mandatory voter ID requirements are both ill-considered, as matter of policy, and vulnerable on a number of constitutional grounds. In particular, the federal law - like similar state voter identification laws that have been passed -- likely violates the Constitution's Equal Protection guarantee and its poll tax prohibition. At base, too, such laws impermissibly burden the fundamental right to vote.

No Empirical Evidence Suggests That Vote Fraud is a Systemic Problem

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060929_clarke-avery.html

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3. FL: Voter registration slow, disappointing

Sun-Herald

Pair concerned with youth apathy


NORTH PORT -- Kathy Williamson and Jennifer Cohen are worried.

The elections office volunteers are spending a few hours each day at Wal-Mart trying to sign up new voters.

Cohen said many people tell them they do not intend to vote.

"Especially young people, new voters," Cohen said. "They simply feel their vote doesn't count.

"I had one group of young men tell me, 'Nobody cares what we think,'" she added.

But even older people are not bothering. Williamson said many express anger over the current state of politics and government. "There are many unhappy about things like Iraq," she said.

The two are alarmed that many people are expressly rejecting the right to vote. "Veterans . . . seem to be disillusioned, too, but they are saying to us, 'We are registered voters,'" Cohen said.

According to the Sarasota County Office of Elections, during the Sept. 5 primary, only about 29 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, including about 34 percent of Republicans, 30 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of independents.

"What struck me was how people from other countries reacted," Cohen said. "I registered one Hispanic family and one Asian family, and they seemed genuinely interested in being able to vote. There was another man who was not a U.S. citizen and he regretted he could not vote."

http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/092806/np2.htm?date=092806&story=np2.htm

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4. MA: Letter: Young adult voter registration

The Sudbury Town Crier

Thursday, September 28, 2006

To the editor:
The recent appearance of student anti-war protestors at Town Center and the appearance of student voters at the polls at the state primary has motivated me to pass the word that students who want to vote in Sudbury on Nov. 7 should get their voter registrations in order now.

http://www2.townonline.com/sudbury/opinion/view.bg?articleid=582776

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5. CA: Land Use In the Courts

Monterey County Weekly

Will County now ignore the Padilla decision?
Sep 28, 2006
By Jessica Lyons
A week after a federal court ruled that a citizens initiative petition didn’t need to be translated into Spanish, Monterey County Supervisors sat in closed session Tuesday, Sept. 26, discussing three similar lawsuits with county attorneys

The meeting followed a 9th Circuit Court ruling in the Padilla v. Lever case, which had claimed that a recall petition against an Orange County school board member violated the Voting Rights Act because it wasn’t translated.

Earlier this year, County Supervisors had used Padilla as justification to keep two key land-use measures off the June ballot.

One of the lawsuits discussed in the Sept. 26 closed session meeting was Rangel and Buell v. County of Monterey, et al., the case which set off the firestorm of legal action about the land-use measures.

In late February, Sabas Rangel, Maria Buell and Rosario Madrigal filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the General Plan Initiative, which had been signed by 16,000 voters, violated the Voting Rights Act because petition materials weren’t circulated in Spanish. The three later filed a second, similar lawsuit against opponents of the Butterfly Villages development (part of the bigger Rancho San Juan plan).

http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/issues/Issue.09-28-2006/news/Article.news_feature_2

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6. NY: New York not ready with new voting machines

Press & Sun-Bulletin

Opinion

Thursday September 28, 2006

By Anne Taft
New York voters have been waiting and waiting to learn when and how their state will comply with the requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The inexplicable state delays in completing even an early step -- selecting new machines -- has caused confusion and anxiety.

County boards of elections have been on hold, understanding the magnitude of the coming changes yet unable to move forward in a timely fashion. All of this is particularly unfortunate when public media are filled with election horror stories and public confidence in our election systems is shaky. The U.S. Justice Department's suit against New York has not helped public relations, though it does seem to have prodded the state Board of Elections to move more expeditiously.

It is widely known that the lever machines will be replaced by 2007 with fully handicapped-accessible features, a voter verifiable paper trail, and the familiar full-face ballot. The new machines will be either direct recording electronic ones (DREs) or precinct-counted paper-based optical scan systems.

Less well known is that any DRE has had to be custom- designed to meet New York's full-face ballot requirement and thus has not been tested "on the ground." Optical scans, supported by the New York State League of Women Voters, already have an established and good track record. Certification and testing by the state Board of Elections are at last under way, and results are expected by early December.

Questions that deserve answers from the state Board of Elections include:

* How will we know that the systems selected are safe, accurate, reliable, and re-countable?

* How many voters can use a given machine in one day? Will that mean a one-to-one replacement with lever machines, or will it require more?

* What is the life-span of the hardware and software? Will the federal HAVA funds cover the acquisition costs? (This, of course, assumes that the Justice Department suit will be settled without loss of those funds.)

* Can the vendors produce the required number of voting systems in time for adequate preparation prior to the 2007 elections?

Our local boards of elections have provided opportunities for voters to see sample machines and, importantly, to learn about the many variables involved in selecting the optimum system for their counties.

http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060928/OPINION/609280329/1005/OPINION

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7. CA: Voting system under scrutiny

SVGTribune

San Gabriel, CA, 9/29/2006
By Troy Anderson Staff Writer

As Los Angeles County officials roll out a new $25 million voting system today, an election watchdog group and others are questioning the software, and its maker's ties to an international gambling firm.

Under a deal the county signed earlier this summer, the InkaVote Plus system by Election Systems & Software includes ballot counters and software at 4,900 precincts throughout the region.

The system uses technology developed by Unisyn Voting Solutions, a subsidiary of Carlsbad-based International Lottery & Totalizator Systems Inc.

Berjaya Lottery Management, a Hong Kong-based firm that operates gambling establishments and casinos, owns 71percent of the outstanding voting stock of International Lottery, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents.

But Bev Harris, director of Black Box Voting, a nonpartisan election watchdog group, said she is concerned the new system will only be used in Los Angeles County and the public cannot assess the reliability of its software.

"That makes it very difficult for anyone to know anything about it," Harris said. "The bottom line is citizens have to be able to know about their voting systems."

State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who is running for secretary of state, said she is concerned about foreign ownership of election companies.

http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_4408777

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8. MySpace Set To Tackle Voter Registration

Playfuls.com

11:13 AM, September 28th 2006

MySpace is set to include U.S. voter registration information on its Web site as part of a deal signed this week with the campaign Declare Yourself.
A news release from the popular social networking site reported that MySpace Tuesday officially signed a deal with Declare Yourself, a non-partisan youth voting campaign, to offer the campaign's information and tools connected to U.S. voter registration on its site.

"MySpace's reach offers us an extraordinary opportunity to give millions of Americans, especially first-time voters, easy access to the political process," MySpace chief executive officer Chris DeWolfe said. "By partnering with Declare Yourself, we are continuing to empower our online community to make a positive impact on off-line communities across the country."

The release said the Web site will run a related promotion until October that will offer users advertisements and links related to the Declare Yourself movement.


© 2006 UPI

http://www.playfuls.com/news_0002535_MySpace_Set_To_Tackle_Voter_Registration.html

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9. U.S. soldiers' overseas votes ripe for fraud!

San Jose Mercury News

Posted on Thu, Sep. 28, 2006

By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News

Just weeks before the November election, the Pentagon is struggling to fix its system for handling the votes of soldiers overseas.

Yet experts in computer security and election technology say the Pentagon's current attempt to keep those ballots from being rejected in large numbers, as they have been in past elections, has created a system that is ripe for fraud.

During the next six weeks, thousands of service members are expected to fax or e-mail ballots over international communications networks that are susceptible to interception and tampering, putting those votes at risk.

``I can't for the life of me figure out how the Defense Department decided this is the right thing to do,'' said Doug Jones, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Iowa.

Critics of the Pentagon's system identified what they described as other troubling flaws:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/15627858.htm

also:
Download: Dept. of Defense internal review of voting system (PDF)
Chart: How Bay Area handles overseas ballots
Election 2006: Complete coverage

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10. OpEd: Why We Should Get Behind LAVA, the Emergency Paper Ballot Act

September 28, 2006 at 06:25:39

by Dan Ashby

I'm surprised at the reluctance of some to endorse LAVA

(the "Let America Vote Act," aka "the Emergency Paper Ballot Act." Officially, it's the "Confidence in Voting Act of 2006," an amendment to HAVA.)

To review:

There will be massive breakdowns in DRE equipment.

That will disenfranchise voters unless there is a paper alternative in the polls.

Objection: Those paper ballots will be counted on scanners

Answer: They will be anyhow. Repeat: 95% of paper ballots will be counted on scanners, with or without a LAVA bill.

Would you rather the votes be counted on a permanent record that is available for recount -- or not cast at all?

THAT is the immediate question.

Objection: Isn't LAVA just another example of placebo voting like Holt paper trails?

Answer: NO it isn't -- for all the reasons that a paper ballot is different than a paper trail, (and the electronic ballot it may or may not represent).

We can educate from now on that op scans are not a suitable answer. But they are better than no vote at all. People will only get 1 chance to vote on Nov. 7 2006.

We KNOW there is going to massive deliberate disenfranchisement aimed at all classes of voters who oppose Unitary Executive government.

We need as many of their votes as possible.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dan_ashb_060928_why_we_should_get_be.htm

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11. NC: REPUBLICAN HOUSE PASSES '21ST CENTURY POLL TAX'

The Wilmington Journal
Originally posted 9/28/2006

BY JAMES WRIGHT
OF AFRO NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – To the chagrin of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would require government-issued identification to vote. The requirement does not take affect until elections in 2010, but has already drawn condemnation from CBC members and the civil rights community.

The bill, ‘’The Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006,’’ was passed Sept. 20 by the House, 228-196, along partisan lines.

Theodore Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called the legislation ‘un-American.’’

‘’It’s a modern day poll tax. Any bill that would require all eligible citizen voters to engage in a bureaucratic process to obtain a citizen ID that includes swearing poverty in order to vote is corrosive and undemocratic,’’ he said.

‘’The bill effectively transforms the vote from a right to a privilege by elevating the privileged over those citizens who will disproportionately become ensnared in this voting trap including African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, the elderly disabled and the poor.’’

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Sept. 20, joined other CBC members and members of Congress of Asian and Latino caucuses in voicing concerns about the bill.

http://wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=72828&sID=12

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12. BradBlog: California Sec. of State Candidate Lauds Emergency Paper Ballot

BLOGGED BY Brad ON 9/28/2006 8:30AM

'It's the Help America Vote Act, not the Help Diebold Profit Act,' Says Dem Nominee
State Senator Debra Bowen, Staunch Election Transparency Proponent, Issues Strong Statement on Congressional Initatives!

The Democratic nominee for Secretary of State in California issued a powerful statement in support of recent legislation filed by several Senators and Representatives in both the U.S. House and Senate calling for Emergency Paper Ballots at the polling place this November.

The 11th hour Congressional bills, filed on Tuesday and Wednesday, just days before both chambers adjourn for the Election Recess, will offer voters the right to vote on paper ballots this year and see those costs reimbursed by the Federal Government. The legislation, if passed, is estimated to cost approximately $10 million. It would amend the disastrous 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which has mandated some $3 billion to encourage States and Counties to "upgrade" to electronic voting systems.

Monumental failures in those systems, during primary elections across the country over the last several months, have sent thousands of voters away from the polls without being able to cast any vote at all. The situation could be far worse during the general election when voter turnout will be a great deal higher than it's been so far in the mid-year primaries.

"Remember, it's the 'Help America Vote Act,' not the 'Help Diebold Profit Act,'" said Bowen, in a stinging comment referring to one of America's largest manufacturers of inaccurate, untested, hackable elecronic voting machines. "It's why this low-tech option makes so much sense, especially in light of all of the problems electronic voting machines have had in primary elections this year, not just in California, but also in Texas, Illinois, and most recently Maryland."

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3543

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13. CO: Court rules against secretary of state

Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 09/28/2006 12:43:18 PM MDT

By Jon Sarche
The Associated Press

The Colorado Court of Appeals agreed today that secretary of state exceeded her authority when she imposed a campaign finance rule requiring labor unions and other groups to get each member's permission to make political contributions from dues.

But the three-judge panel kept the rule in place through Monday to give the state time to decide whether to ask the Colorado Supreme Court to review the ruling.

The state attorney general's office was discussing the ruling with Secretary of State Gigi Dennis and had not yet decided whether to appeal, spokeswoman Kristen Holtzman said.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4411246

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14. WAPO: Lawmaker Questions E-Voting Paper Trail

Washington Post

By DAVID HAMMER
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 28, 2006; 4:48 PM


WASHINGTON -- A House committee chairman and an election official on Thursday punched holes in the notion that paper records will solve the problems with new electronic voting machines.

About a month before voters put their trust in computerized ballots, Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Administration Committee, subtly mocked the "Got Paper?" catchphrase of activists calling for paper audits of those votes.

Ehlers pointed to a photo of a pollworker in the 2000 Florida recount, his one eye appearing massive as it peered through a magnifying glass at a punch-card ballot.

"You can see this man has 'got paper,'" Ehlers said. "Simply saying let's use paper does not mean the problems go away."

Keith Cunningham, former head of the Ohio Association of County Elections Officials, testified that a recount of Cuyahoga County's voter-verified paper audit trail showed massive failure of the printouts _ 10 percent of the receipt-like rolls were missing, blank or unreadable.

"I equate it to planting several hundred acres of wheat with a state-of-the-art machine and then going out and harvesting it by hand like the Amish do," Cunningham said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092800858.html

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15. BradBlog: CNN's Lou Dobbs: 'New Emergency Paper Ballot Legislation Could

Help Avoid An E-Voting Debacle'

BLOGGED BY John Gideon ON 9/28/2006 8:50AM

Media Gets on Board, Dems Get on Board…So Where are the Republicans in Congress?

Guest Blogged by John Gideon (Augmented by Brad Friedman)

Wednesday's Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN picks up on the Emergency Paper Ballot legislation now filed in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Additionally, the story was also covered on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday (video with RFK Jr. here) and the NY Times picked it up the day before.

The Media is beginning to get it, the Democrats in Congress (those who have sponsored it, anyway) are beginning to get it. So where are the Congressional Republicans? Do they not want American citizens to be able to vote this November? We're just asking.

Said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), one of the original sponsors of the Senate legislation to Kitty Pilgrim on CNN last night: "I really have lost a lot of faith in these machines and it's expensive. Why not just go back to the simple paper ballot, at least until we're really sure that we've resolved all the problems?"

Dodd, Feingold and Kerry have now joined here on the Senate bill (S. 3943) and Holt's bill has several Democratic co-sponsors in the House (HR 6187).

The BRAD BLOG proposed the idea of Emergency Paper Ballots early last week, but the legislative session will likely adjourn this week for the Election Recess. Action is needed now in order to mitigate the possiblity of millions of Americans being disenfranchised this November. Please call and/or write your Congress Members of both parties now.

The complete text-transcript of Wednesday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full…

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3545

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16. NY: Electronic Voting Under Scrutiny

CBS Evening NEws with Katie Couric

What Systems Are Used, And What Are The Possible Problems?

NEW YORK, Sept. 28, 2006

(CBS) Seventeen million more people voted in 2004 than voted in 2000, a 14 percent increase. With critical midterm elections just six weeks away, concerns are growing about the reliability of electronic voting machines. Some members of Congress are so worried that they are offering to buy states more paper ballots as a backup. That plan will be the subject of a congressional hearing.


How Many States Use Electronic Voting?
This November, for the first time, 90 percent of all votes in this country will be cast or counted electronically.

Dozens of states have adopted electronic voting technology to comply with federal legislation in 2002 intended to put an end to punch-card machines in the wake of the Bush-Gore "hanging chad" debacle.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/28/fyi/main2048647.shtml

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17. GA: Federal Judge blocks voter registration rules before election

AccessNoGA.com

The Associated Press - ATLANTA, Ga.
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the state from enforcing voting rules that prevent private groups from photocopying and sealing registration forms they collect during voter drives.

U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp wrote in his ruling that a group of voter and civil rights groups has a reasonable chance to prove that the rules infringe on their First Amendment right to free speech.

"As the Supreme Court has explained, the loss of First Amendment freedoms, even for a short period of time, constitute an irreparable injury," he wrote in the 19-page injunction.

http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=80961

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18. Intermission with Non Sequitur

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/

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19. Today, everyone believes that election fraud took place...

...unless they're some sort of reanimated Disney character.

Doing this, through reasoning by sign, demonstrates that there is nothing to low for them to do to take and keep power.

Jefferson et al weep!!!

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20. AL: AG King issues information to clarify felon voting

09/28/06

Attorney General Troy King today responded to a request by members of the Cherokee County Board of Registrars that his office issue information to clarify the eligibility of certain felons to vote in Alabama. In a March 18, 2005, Attorney General’s opinion to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, “this office explained that not all felons are disqualified from voting in Alabama. Instead, under the Alabama Constitution, only individuals convicted of felonies involving moral turpitude are disqualified from voting. “ If a felon was convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, that felon is not eligible to vote unless and until the felon has acquired either a pardon that restores voting rights or a certificate of eligibility to register to vote. Felons convicted of crimes of moral turpitude who wish to have their voting rights restored by one of these two options should contact the State Board of Pardons Paroles to see if they meet the requirements and to apply for such restoration of voting rights.

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpID=726&NewsID=751001&CategoryID=3451&show=localnews&om=0

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21. BradBlog: AP Story on Congressional E-Voting Hearing Slants Hard Against P

Paper Balloting

BLOGGED BY Brad ON 9/28/2006 3:20PM

Story on Today's House Hearing Covered by 'Ohio Regional' Reporter Said to Have Left Proceedings Not Long After House Hearing Began…
An AP reporter, who left early druring this morning's hearing in the U.S. House Adminstrative Committee on Electronic Voting security issues, has filed what would appear to be a remarkably skewed account of the session in an article today headlined, "Lawmaker questions e-voting paper trail."

The reporter, David Hammer, AP's "Ohio Regional Reporter" in DC, who — according to two different BRAD BLOG sources — left very early in today's proceedings, covered the hearings from a clearly "anti-paper" angle, as you'll see in his report.

That, despite the first witness of the morning, Dr. Ed Felten of Princeton University, who demonstrated both his team's viral vote-flipping hack of a Diebold Touch-Screen voting system to the reportedly packed hearing room, and then the inability to discover the election stealing malicious code via a machine "recount."

(DISCLOSURE: The machine was supplied to Princeton University by VelvetRevolution.us, a non-partisan election ingegrity organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG.)

Hammer goes on to report almost exclusively on those who testified in today's hearings against the use of paper "trails" and/or "records" with Electronic Voting Systems…

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3547

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22. MA: Experts warn Congress of e-voting woes; paper-trail mandate fails

Computer World
Security

They're concerned about problem-plagued voting in November
Marc Songini

September 28, 2006 (Computerworld) -- With hotly contested nationwide elections just weeks away, several computer experts today questioned the reliability and security of e-voting systems during a congressional committee hearing.

Access doors of thousands of Diebold AccuVote-TS touch-screen systems can all be opened with the same key -- a type commonly used for office furniture, jukeboxes and hotel minibars, Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten told the committee. That door protects the removable memory card that stores votes.

"Though some claim that election procedures will prevent the kinds of problems we identified, the rigid procedures described in vendor manuals are often ignored in practice," said Felten, co-author of a study that was highly critical of Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s AccuVote TS.

Also today, the Committee on House Administration took no action on legislation proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) aimed at remedying e-voting vulnerabilities. The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550), introduced last February, now has more than 200 bipartisan co-sponsors.

Among its various provisions, HR 550 would mandate that each machine produce a paper receipt that could be used in a recount. The bill also calls for e-voting vendors to offer greater transparency to their software. By not sending the bill to the floor for a vote, the committee missed any chance of ensuring that November's elections would produce auditable results, Holt said.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 was aimed at preventing the sort of notorious failures such as occurred in Florida in 2000 due to disputes over manually operated punch-card systems.

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=privacy&articleId=9003721&taxonomyId=84

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23. TX: Tarrant Democrats threaten to sue Secretary of State

Star-Telegram

Posted on Thu, Sep. 28, 2006


By AMAN BATHEJA
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
The Tarrant County Democratic Party is preparing a federal lawsuit against the Texas secretary of state’s office over what it says is an unconstitutional voting system in Texas.

At issue is the security of electronic voting machines used in several Texas counties, including Tarrant. Despite calls from some election experts and consumer advocates, the machines do not offer a backup paper record that could be used in case of a recount or election dispute.

Local party Chairman Art Brender asked Secretary of State Roger Williams several weeks ago to overrule a decision by his deputy and allow Tarrant County election officials to provide a backup paper system to its new electronic voting machines.

“I think it is essential that we provide the people of Tarrant County assurance that their vote will be counted,” Brender said.

Brender said that if he does not have a response by early next week — or if his request is rejected — he will file a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of one or more local voters alleging that the secretary of state’s office is in violation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which he said requires that a voting system produce a “permanent paper record.”

Brender said he would also seek to have the Texas voting system declared unconstitutional as a violation of the equal protection clause. In the case stemming from the 2000 presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court found it was unconstitutional for different jurisdictions to use different methods to recount votes.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15631968.htm

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24. TX: Texas secretary of state pushing e-voting - hard

ZDNet Government

In many states, the verdict is still out on electronic voting machines, but if Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams has his way, his state will vote digital in all coming elections, reports The Statesman.
Williams has taken his pro-electronic voting machine message on the Web and elsewhere to the tune $3.3 million in taxpayers dollars. Williams, a Weatherford car dealer, high-dollar fundraiser for President Bush and appointee of Gov. Rick Perry, is considered a likely candidate for statewide office in 2010.
The Help America Vote Act states that voters must be educated about the new machines. VOTEXAS, is Texas's answer to that act and includes radio spots and 15- and 30-second TV commercials.
"Like many other things in our lives today, voting has changed," Williams says in the spot. "It's now easier, faster and more secure. I'm Roger Williams, Texas secretary of state, reminding you to vote Texas," says Williams in the commercial.

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=2619

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25. BradBlog: DNC Voting Rights Institute Endorses 11th Hour Emergency Paper B

Ballot Legislation!

BLOGGED BY Brad ON 9/28/2006 5:05PM

Donna Brazile Posts Open Letter Encouraging Citizens to Pressure Lawmakers!
(While, So Far, All Republican Congress Members Remain Apparently Uninterested in Ensuring American Citizens Can Vote This November!)

In her role as Chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute (VRI), Donna Brazile has issued a statement to The BRAD BLOG moments ago in support of the Congressional Emergency Paper Ballot legislation now pending in the U.S. House and Senate.

Announcing that "We still have time to address the e-voting security crisis!," Brazile writes in her "Open Letter to Supporters of Democracy of America" in support of the House (HR 6187) and Senate (S. 3943) bills introduced this week calling for Emergency Paper Ballots at the polls this November, in the light of voting system failures across the country in primaries so far this year.

She calls on citizens to "pressure…lawmakers to support legislation that would help produce a fair and transparent election." (Full letter posted at the end of this article)

The "time to address" the crisis, at least on the Federal level, is quickly drawing to a close as Congress will likely adjourn tomorrow for the Election Recess. Citizens are asked to call their legislators (House switchboard: 202-225-3121, Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121) to demand they pass this bill immediately.

Maryland's Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich recently called for a similar state measure after his state turned away thousands from the polls, or handed them provisional ballots, when electronic voting machines failed to start up during their September 12th primary election.

Brazile's call to push for the Emergency Paper Ballot legislation this afternoon is notable. She has come under fire in the past from critics in the Election Integrity Advocacy movement for failing to take a firm enough stance, in her role at the DNC VRI, to alert Americans to the potential for fraud, inaccuracy and disenfranchisement via electronic voting systems.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3548

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26. MS: Candidate seeks to stop new filing deadline in legislative races

Sun Herald

Posted on Thu, Sep. 28, 2006

Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. - A candidate in a special legislative election has filed a petition in Hinds County Circuit Court trying to block a state Election Commission decision that reopened the qualifying deadline in his contest and four others around the state.

Jim Arnold of Kosciusko, a candidate for the state Senate District 14 seat, filed the petition Wednesday.

The seat is open because of the death of Sen. Robert "Bunky" Huggins, R-Greenwood. One other Senate seat and two House seats also will be filled Nov. 7.

Originally, candidates' qualifying deadline for the four special legislative elections was Sept. 8. But, the state Election Commission voted 2-1 last week to extend the deadline to Oct. 24.

Attorney General Jim Hood and Gov. Haley Barbour voted for the extension. Secretary of State Eric Clark voted against it.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/15632790.htm

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27. PA: Professor shows flaws in touch-screen voting

Post Gazette

Friday, September 29, 2006

By Jerome L. Sherman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

WASHINGTON -- You can try to vote for George Washington, but Benedict Arnold will win.

At least that's the scenario on a Diebold touch-screen voting machine toted around Capitol Hill yesterday by Edward W. Felten, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University.

He hoped to persuade lawmakers that a new generation of voting technology being deployed across the country still faces worrisome security flaws and should have paper trails that voters can check.

"There's really no limit to the amount of mischief that can be done," he said.

In a packed hearing room, the professor demonstrated how to implant a virus on a Diebold AccuVote-TS and distort the results of a mock election between America's most revered founding father and its most infamous traitor. He said he bought keys to open the unit on the Internet. The virus could, theoretically, infect portable memory cards and transfer itself to other machines, possibly upsetting thousands of votes.

A newer version of the Diebold machine is being used by 16 Pennsylvania counties, including Armstrong, Clarion, Somerset, Warren and Washington.

State officials had been aware of the AccuVote's flaws and have advised counties to take cautionary measures, according to Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor who tests voting machines for the state.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06272/726096-84.stm

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28. CO: Don't ignore the SoS

Colorado Daily


By RICHARD VALENTY Colorado Daily Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:10 PM MDT

Neither Ken Gordon nor Mike Coffman, 2006 candidates for the office of Colorado Secretary of State, tried to claim Thursday that this race is the “sexiest” contest on the ballot.

But the Secretary of State (SoS) is the state's chief election official, and American elections have received a lot of press in recent years.

The nation waited for weeks while election officials and finally the U.S. Supreme Court wrangled over the Florida presidential election results in 2000. Individuals still claim today that some 2004 presidential results in Ohio were questionable.

A group of Colorado citizens recently sued the state over the use of Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines, saying the DREs were not certified properly and are potentially subject to “hacking” or non-fraudulent mistakes.

Locally, the 2004 election in Boulder County took more than three days to process, and a county Election Review Committee examined the hardware, software and management procedures used. The Boulder County Clerk in 2004, Linda Salas, lost her primary election in 2006 - and the 2004 delays could have been a major factor in the loss of her job.

http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2006/09/28/news/c_u_and_boulder/news2.txt

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29. CA: County unveils voting system

Article Launched: 09/28/2006 09:39:00 PM PDT
presstelegram.com

By Mike Sprague, Staff writer

SANTA FE SPRINGS - The computer world is coming to voters for the first time in Los Angeles County.
It means fewer chances of "over voting" and a new way for the visually impaired to vote without assistance.

The $25 million InkaVote Plus system was unveiled by county election officials Thursday at the Registrar-Recorder's new 100,000-square-foot warehouse in Santa Fe Springs.

"This is the largest roll-out of new voting equipment ever in America," said Conny McCormack, registrar-recorder/county clerk. "We never had voting equipment that had intelligence at every one of the voting locations. We're going to have that for the first time."

Each of the 5,029 voting precincts in the county will receive a precinct ballot reader and an audio ballot booth. The ballot readers will alert voters if they mistakenly voted for two candidates for the same office, or if for some reason their ballot wasn't marked.

When voters turn in their paper ballots, they will submit the ballot into the ballot reader. If there is no problem, the ballot goes into the ballot box.

But if a problem is detected, the ballot will pop back out and a small piece of paper will tell the voter what the problem is. The voter can then go back and re-vote.

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_4414590

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30. TX: Voter fraud has new face in computer-age elections

by ROBERT STILES, Contributing Columnist
September 29, 2006

Voter fraud is nothing new in American politics. The first great act of such fraud occurred in 1856, when Democrat James Buchanan (arguably one of the worst presidents in history) was elected in part because immigrant voters were manipulated by urban machines, which granted them citizenship and even cash payments for casting their vote for Buchanan. The computer age, in addition to bringing about a revolution in the diffusion of information, the economy and daily life, also brought with it new dangers. One of these could mean an election literally being hacked.

After the debacle of the 2000 presidential election, entrepreneurs proposed a computer age solution-touch-screen voting machines to make voting easy. Congress swiftly authorized $3.9 billion to upgrade the way America chooses its leaders, with most of the money going towards installing these voting machines across America.

Legislation in 2002 aimed at phasing out lever and punch card machines. For this year's midterm elections, one-third of America's 180,000 precincts will be using this new technology for the first time, with 40 percent of voters expected to cast their votes on them.

The United States is one of only a few major democratic nations that permit private and partisan companies to secretly count votes using their own software. Today, 80 percent of all the ballots in America are tallied by just four companies; Election Systems & Software, Sequoia Voting Systems, Hart InterCivic and most famously, Diebold.

This last corporation has aroused an especially high degree of suspicion because of its close ties to the Republican Party and the questionable performance of its machines across the country. But so much power held by corporations could represent a dangerous degree of influence wielded by private interests in our democracy.

http://www.asurampage.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/29/451c2bca1bce8

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31. CA: E-voting is scaled back

halfmoonbayreview.ocm

By Marc Longpre--< [e-mail] >

Every year, candidates vying for seats in local government meet with supporters on election night to watch the results pour in. Then they celebrate or commiserate together.

This November, though, they might have to make it a breakfast meeting.

The San Mateo County Elections Office has announced a late change in the elections process for the upcoming election, one which will mean results will likely be unavailable until early Wednesday morning.

In August the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approved a $10.5 million purchase of a new electronic balloting system, including machines and back office software and support to help run the system. Warren Slocum, chief elections officer for the county, had intended to complete a full conversion from a paper ballot system for the coming election.

But the machines the county purchased, made by Hart InterCivic of Texas, weren't certified until late September. Meanwhile, concerns over a full-scale implementation of the system began to mount.

Last week, Slocum decided to scale back the process. Only one electronic voting device will be placed in each polling place in order to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The rest of the election will be tallied with paper ballots.

"As an election professional with 30-plus years of experience, my primary concern has been and will always be the integrity of the election," he said Monday in a press statement. "I believe this incremental implementation is the best course of action for the voters of San Mateo County, our poll workers and the election staff."

Slocum said the decision will mean slower results the night of Nov. 7. Under the county's former Optech Eagle system, which counted ballots at polling places, races were generally decided before midnight. This year Slocum suggests results could come as late as 4 a.m. Nov. 8.

http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2006/09/28/news/local_news/story04.txt

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32. SC: Update voter registration before Oct. 7

Zwire

September 29, 2006

COLUMBIA, SC — To help ensure the upcoming Nov. 7 General Election runs smoothly, the South Carolina Election Commission is asking registered voters to update their home address or other contact information with their county voter registration office before Oct. 7.
South Carolina Election Commission Executive Director Marci Andino said keeping your address and other contact information current is the best way voters can speed up the voting process for themselves — and other voters — on Election Day.
"Having accurate records means voters cast ballots at the appropriate precinct," Andino said. "Voters who update their information before Oct. 7 can greatly reduce the potential for delays and inconvenience on Election Day — and that could have a significant impact on waiting time for all voters."
Andino said registered voters can check their existing record by calling or visiting their county voter registration office. Contact information for each county's voter registration board can be found at www.scvotes.org/howtoregister. Or, voters can securely view their information on the South Carolina Election Commission's Web site: www.state.sc.us/scsec/.
Voters who need to update their information have the following options:
1) Download the form from the Voter Information section of http://www.scvotes.org/. The form should be printed, completed and mailed to the county voter registration office;

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17261047&BRD=2081&PAG=461&dept_id=385210&rfi=6

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33. NY: The Next Voting Debacle?

Spectrum

By Steven Cherry
Database problems may disqualify legitimate voters in upcoming U.S. elections

The Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, has garnered most of its notoriety because it required election officials throughout the United States to replace old paper-based voting machines with controversial new electronic equipment by 2004. But there are other provisions in the law that took effect only in January 2006, and these are quietly creating their own potential for disrupting elections this November—including the 468 House and Senate contests that will determine control of Congress.

The new HAVA rules concern the databases that contain the voter rolls—and in 49 of the 50 states, if you are not on the rolls, you can’t vote. Elections have often turned on the question of who gets to vote and who does not. This time around, voter eligibility will depend in large part on the contents of a number of databases, most of which have been in existence for less than a year and some of which have not been constructed in accord with the best practices of the database industry.

The new HAVA rules sound, at first, fairly innocuous. They require each of the 50 states to maintain a statewide database of registered voters, or create one if none exists. They also call for the states to verify a voter’s registration record either with the state’s driver’s license records or with information in a federal database of all legal residents of the United States, which is maintained by the Social Security Administration.

HAVA gives the states wide latitude in reacting to database mismatches. If a voter’s registration information and the data in the other databases differ, the act does not require that a state keep registrants off the rolls. But it also doesn’t forbid the states to do so. State officials have therefore set up their own rules, which have resulted in mass purges of registrants in California, Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, in New York City.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct06/4663

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34. Diebold: E-Voting Raises New Questions in Brazil (Fox News)

Friday, September 29, 2006
By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writer

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Elections in Brazil used to be a monumental challenge, with millions of paper ballots to count by hand, many of them delivered by canoe and horseback from remote Amazon villages. Fraud was widespread, and it often took a week or more to determine the winners.

Latin America's largest country eliminated many of these hassles by switching to electronic voting a decade ago, long before the United States and other countries started abandoning paper ballots. When 125 million Brazilians vote on Sunday, they will punch computer keyboards, part of a system Brazil credits for building faith in its democracy.

"The voting machine is so secure that I would say the only way to tamper with it is to smash it with a hammer,"Athayde Fontoura, general director of Brazil's Supreme Electoral Tribunal, said in an interview.

But some computer programmers who have closely examined Brazil's system say such confidence is misguided. Echoing a debate in the United States over the reliability of electronic voting, they say the tribunal needs to do more to ensure Brazil's citizens aren't disenfranchised.

snip

Brazil's machines are made by Diebold Procomp, the Brazilian subsidiary of Diebold Inc., of North Canton, Ohio, which also makes many of the voting machines now used in U.S. elections. And Diebold has said that voters should trust its equipment, more than any paper record, to deliver fraud-free elections.

"The more you introduce paper into a voting system the more you introduce the possibility of fraud,"said Michael Jacobsen, a Diebold spokesman."Electronic voting is the most accurate and secure voting that is out there."

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Sep29/0,4670,BrazilElectronicVoting,00.html

:rofl: Sorry could not resist -rumpel

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35. Wal-Mart chooses Iowa store to launch nationwide voter registration campai

Radio Iowa

by O. Kay Henderson

Wal-Mart has launched a drive to give all its employees voter registration materials. Beth Runyan, manager of the new West Des Moines Wal-Mart, led about 30 of her employees in cheers just after eight this morning, then explained the retailer had decided to hand out "non-partisan" voter registration materials prepared by the League of Women Voters.

Runyan told her employees it was part of Wal-Mart's effort to be a good neighbor. "We are not going to give any directions as far as party affiliations or anything like that. That is a personal decision," she says. "The most popular question isn't so much how, but it's why. 'Why is Wal-Mart doing this?' I explain that it's just like a benefit. However they use it is their own choice."

Wal-Mart's benefits, specificially its health care benefits, have been the subject of a nationwide "Wake Up Wal-Mart" campaign this fall. Several Democrats who're planning to run for president, including Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, appeared at rallies to criticize Wal-Mart for failing to provide health care insurance to all its employees. In response, the nation's largest retailer announced this voter registration drive.

David Tovar, director of media relations for Wal-Mart, flew in from corporate headquarters in Arkansas to oversee the Iowa campaign. "Iowa's an important state for Wal-Mart and it's also an important state for our democracy with the impact that it has on presidential elections," Tovar says.


http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=9F36ED8A-4DB9-46F3-9827F63502DAC8B6&dbtranslator=local.cfm

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36. MA: State rep recount begins

The Cape Codder

By Donna Tunney/ [e-mail]
Friday, September 29, 2006 - Updated: 12:57 PM EST

Town clerks on the Lower Cape have a busy weekend ahead.
With Don Howell’s recount petition filed with the Secretary of State’s Office, clerks in the seven 4th Barnstable District towns were pulling together the mechanisms to enable vote counting to get under way starting today, Sept. 29. The outcome will be known Monday afternoon.
Howell, a Harwich resident and two-term selectman, lost the Republican primary nomination Sept. 19 by a dozen votes to conservative challenger Aaron Maloy in the state representative race. The 12-vote difference falls within the half-of-1-percent threshold under which a recount may be called.

Maloy, an Orleans resident and employee of Outer Cape Health Services, garnered 874 votes to Howell’s 862. Andrew Buckley, of Chatham, received 831.
Howell’s recount petition was broadly worded to allow for all ballots to be reconsidered. It stated he requested a recount because votes were improperly credited to his opponents and not properly credited to him. The petition also specified that he sought a hand count. During the recount, protested ballots are voted on by a panel of registrars.
Howell said his attorney would be present at as many recounts as possible (see schedule). The Secretary of State directed all town clerks to complete their recounts by 5 p.m., Monday, Oct. 2.

http://www2.townonline.com/brewster/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=585648

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37. On DU: Bowen bill would reveal who's bankrolling initiatives. Ahhnold veto

thanks to nicknameless

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x451296

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38. Thank You Brad Friedman - Media Going Crazy Over Emergency Bill

thanks to WillYourVoteBeCounted

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x451192

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39. Did anyone watch the house hearing on e-voting on c-span today?

thanks to Daylin Byak

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x451212

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40. Tired of screwed up elections? Ron Rivest shows how to do it right!

thanks to meldroc

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x451241

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41. RawStory: Diebold Added Secret Patch to Georgia E-Voting Systems in 2002

thanks to wakeme2008

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2854350

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42. MO: County won’t pay for glitchy vote machines

Columbia Tribune

Clerk withholds $800,000 until fix is in.

By JACOB LUECKE of the Tribune’s staff
Published Friday, September 29, 2006
Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren said she will sit on hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to the county’s electronic voting machine vendor until she’s satisfied with all the equipment.

Noren said there are several, mostly minor, things that Omaha-based Election Systems & Software needs to straighten out before she pays the $800,000 the county still owes for the machines. So far, the county has paid the company about $400,000.

"If I’m spending this much money, it’s going to be just exactly the way I want it before I pay for it," she said.

To comply with the federal Help America Vote Act, the county purchased touch-screen voting machines, electronic ballot boxes and supporting software and equipment from Election Systems. The county rolled out the new machines for the first time in August for the primary election.

Their Boone County debut went smoothly. About 42 percent of voters here used the computerized machines, some choosing to wait in line to vote electronically rather than voting immediately with a paper ballot.

Although printer jams caused about 60 digital votes not to be recorded on a paper trail, Noren was impressed by how well everything functioned.

"I was more than pleased with how it went, considering the time frame," she said.

Noren sent back about 27 of the machines because they were deemed faulty during testing before the election. Mostly the computers worked, but their stands had problems that needed to be fixed.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2006/Sep/20060929News006.asp

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43. Another Stolen Election?

Sep 29, 2006

Here in Maryland, Sept. 12 was primary election day, and it brought good news for the Asian Pacific American community. Delegates Kumar Barve and Susan Lee won their respective democratic primaries, and seem likely to be returned to the Maryland House of Delegates in November. Even better, Kris Valderrama, daughter of former Delegate David Valderrama and a strong candidate in her own right, beat out a crowded field to qualify for one of the democratic slots in the race to represent her district in November. The heavy democratic advantage in her district makes her success a good possibility.

Maryland’s primary election also brought extremely bad news for Asian Pacific Americans and all Americans who value fair elections. As The Washington Post reported in a Sept. 17 article, “Major Problems at Polls Feared,” technological failures and human mistakes comparable to those seen in Ohio, Illinois and other states, resulted in long lines, delays in vote-counting, and concerns about the reliability of new voting machines and whether polling officials are adequately trained to use them.

Republicans minimize the issue of stolen elections as a few individuals stuffing ballot boxes with fraudulent names or voting twice. While this has happened throughout the history of electoral processes and should be stopped, the real problem is one that even the democrats have not spent enough time addressing.

http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=a2224c963e1745749d237916bc62098b

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44. WAPO: U.S. Muslims bring voter registration to mosques

By Ed Stoddard
Reuters
Friday, September 29, 2006; 2:39 PM


DALLAS (Reuters) - American Muslims are setting up voter registration booths in mosques across the United States, echoing a tactic employed by evangelical Christians to support conservative Republican candidates.

Their target: close contests where Muslim voters could make a difference.

"We have set up booths in 150 mosques across the country in the past two weeks," said Mukit Hossain, a political consultant to the Muslim American Society which is behind the drive.

The booths have a computer monitor with a link to a Web site http://www.masvip.org/ to enable Muslims to register on line during Friday prayers.

Hossain said about 10,000 were estimated to have been registered to date but he expected "tens of thousands" more to be signed up before crucial midterm elections on November 7 that will decide which party controls Congress during President George W. Bush's final two years in office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092900801.html