Election Reform News Update, Tuesday, May 20, 2008

[Melissa G]

Due to a lack of of availability of Election Reform Daily News Editor Volunteers, the ER News Crew has agreed to go to posting every other day. We may occasionally post on the off days just 'cuz we see something hot. (Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays are the off days.)

John Gideon of Voter's Unite has agreed to let us repost their Daily Voting News. He had an excellent comment yesterday, so I am reposting it here...

From John...

41 voters in Atlanta Texas went to the polls to vote for, amongst other items, a candidate for City Council District 1. Little did those voters know that the city had leased the machines from Cass County and Hart Intercivic had done the ballot programming which contained an error. It turns out that the vendor had programmed the DREs used by the city so more than just citizens of District 1 could vote in that particular race. Rather than 41 votes there was a combined total of 198 votes cast. This is an accuracy issue that was not caused by the voter and is another clear violation of HAVA Section 301(a)(5).

Here is an excerpt from the article... and the rest of the Daily Voting News is below that in post 1...
mg

City discovers error
Monday, 19 May 2008
By MARTI ALEXANDER
Journal Editor

The City of Atlanta has discovered an error in the May 10 city council election for the District 1 city council position.

Candidates running for that position were incumbent John Birmingham, Chris Collins and Porter Hunter. Collins was declared the winner.

According to City Manager Mike Ahrens, the mistake was made by Hart InterCivics who programmed the machine for the election, however, did not program it so that only District 1 voters could vote in that particular election.

As it turns out, although only 41 residents of District 1 were signed in to vote, the number of combined votes received by the District 1 candidates was 198. Some 365 voters cast ballots in the city-wide election.

After learning of the error, Ahrens contacted the secretary of state’s office and was told the only way to “remedy” the matter was for one of the candidates who was not elected to file suit and have a district judge overturn the election. {:grr:}
more at...

http://atlantacitizensjournal.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=210&Itemid=2

[Melissa G]

1. Daily Voting News from Voter's Unite May 18, 19 in case you missed it.

NAtional: Voting Rights advocates say America is unprepared for massive turnout Nov. 4
http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20080519c

KS: Sebelius vetoes bill requiring a photo ID to vote
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/may/19/sebelius_vetoes_photo_id_vote/

MA: Plymouth County - Recount affirms: Abington approves another override
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/18/recount_affirms_abington_approves_another_override/

MD: Maryland Taxpayers Pay Big Money for Controversial E-Voting System
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23255

NC: Opinion - A costly way to pick a winner Runoff for state labor commissioner shows there's a better way of voting
http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/629271.html

NY: Nassau County - Nassau tests new voting machines
http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/longisland/ny-lijani195692966may19,0,6640698.story

NY: Westchester County - Westchester lawmakers approve funding for new voting machines
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/May08/19/WC_votingMachines-19May08.htm

OR: Opinion - Some things lost when voting by mail
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=101846&sid=5&fid=1

OR: Oregon's Post Office Primary
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/19/oregons_post_office_primary.html

PA: Requirement that voters identify themselves each time is a solution in search of a problem
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1210962310273350.xml&coll=1

TN: Opinion - Providing paper trail for ballots makes sense
http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080519/OPINION/805190301

TX: Texas attorney general's two-year effort fails to unravel large-scale voter-fraud schemes
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051808dnpolvotefraud.3c75dcb.html

TX: Cass County - City discovers error
http://atlantacitizensjournal.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=210&Itemid=2

Netherlands - Dutch government bans electronic voting The government of the Netherlands has banned electronic voting machines from future elections because of a risk of eavesdropping. The nation will return to paper voting.
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=003AE63C-17A4-0F78-31DDDC0DCFA62609

[Wilms]

2. Wow. I was about to post "City discovers error" and realised you put that story in the OP

Nice. And look at the number of voters. You, me and a couple of freepers could have hand-counted that for le$$ $.

[Melissa G]

4. Yep, When I was growing up in Texas, the state was 80% rural

20% urban. I hear now the numbers have pretty much flipped. We have lots of rural counties with low populations and very expensive voting machines that need to keep being programmed and maintained. HCPB probably seems very attractive some places with such low turnout, esp for the runoffs!

[Kurovski]

3. Kick to the top!

Thanks, MG! :hug: