Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, FRI. 2/9/07 Bills in 110th Congress

[rumpel]

The following is a list of legislation introduced affecting voting as of today:



Federal Election Integrity Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.101.IH

Presidential Funding Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)S.436.IS

Presidential Funding Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.776.IH

Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.811.IH

Federal Election Integrity Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.481.IH

Citizen Legislature and Political Freedom Act (Introduced in House)H.R.484.IH

Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)S.453.IS

Ex-Offenders Voting Rights Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.818.IH

Federal Election Administration Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.421.IH

Federal Election Administration Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)S.478.IS

Leadership PAC Disclosure Act (Introduced in House)H.R.347.IH

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to limitations on the amounts of contributions and expenditures that may be made in connection with campaigns... (Introduced in House)H.J.RES.5.IH

To modify the application of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to Indian tribes. (Introduced in Senate)S.90.IS

First Amendment Restoration Act (Introduced in House)H.R.71.IH

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to limiting the number of terms that a Member of Congress may serve. (Introduced in Senate)S.J.RES.2.IS

Leadership PAC Reform Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.486.IH

E-Poll Book Improvement Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.756.IH

Proposing an amendment the Constitution of the United States regarding presidential election voting rights for residents of all United States territories and commonwealths. (Introduced in House)H.J.RES.2.IH

Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.281.IH

527 Reform Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.420.IH

Every Vote Counts Amendment (Introduced in House)H.J.RES.4.IH

To require disclosure and payment of noncommercial air travel in the Senate. (Introduced in Senate)S.44.IS

District of Columbia Voting Rights Restoration Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.492.IH

Fair Voter Education Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.302.IH

To prohibit the spouse of a Member of Congress previously employed as a lobbyist from lobbying the Member after the Member is elected. (Introduced in Senate)S.105.IS

District of Columbia Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.328.IH
Political Convention Reform Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.72.IH

Sunlight Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.170.IH

Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act (Introduced in Senate)S.223.IS

Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.543.IH

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judgeship and Reorganization Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.221.IH

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States establishing English as the official language of the United States. (Introduced in House)H.J.RES.17.IH

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to establish English as the official language of the United States. (Introduced in House)H.J.RES.19.IH

To prohibit authorized committees and leadership PACs from employing the spouse or immediate family members of any candidate or Federal office holder connected to the committee. (Introduced in Senate)S.89.IS

Religious Freedom Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)S.178.IS

Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)S.230.IS

Voter Bounty Registration Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.301.IH

Accountability and Transparency in Ethics Act (Introduced in House)H.R.97.IH

To provide greater transparency in the legislative process. (Placed on Calendar in Senate)S.1.PCS

Presidential Succession Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.540.IH

National Language Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)H.R.769.IH

Lobbying, Ethics, and Earmarks Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)S.192.IS

To provide greater transparency in the legislative process. (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by Senate)S.1.ES

To provide greater transparency in the legislative process. (Public Print)S.1.PP

To establish the Office of Public Integrity as an independent office within the legislative branch of the Government, to reduce the duties of the Committee on Standards of Official... (Introduced in House)H.R.422.IH


To look up a particular Bill go to the following link and type in the Bill # into the queery:
http://thomas.loc.gov/

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

3. If you have information from an election reform activist organization outside of DU feel free to post (local or national)

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.

5. Election related sources
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

6. If you want to know how to post "News Banners" or other images, go here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/faq.html#im ...

[rumpel]

1. On DU: The Chair of the C.H.A.,accepting comments on Holts bill

thanks to FogerRox

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467290

[rumpel]

2. Son of Holt Bill: TechnoElection

thanks to kster

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467258

[rumpel]

3. Bluejersey dot net.....My review of Holts new & improved HR550, I mean HR 811

thanks to FogerRox

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467249

[FogerRox]

8. Great compilation of legislation rumpel, KNR

And 2 of my efforts made the ER news today,

WOOT WOOT for me, er, ah, I mean rumpel.

[EFerrari]

12. Ditto and woot woot for both of you.

K&R

[rumpel]

16. thanks. See the "English" bills? n/t

[rumpel]

4. Paper trail needed for electronic ballots, Nelson to sponser bill in Senate

thanks to L. Coyote

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467203

[rumpel]

5. New Holt Bill Fraud on the Public, Part TWO, Blackwell's and Harris's Revenge

thanks to Land Shark

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x466910

[rumpel]

6. New "Holt Bill": Fraudulent and Deceptive Use of term "Ballot"

thanks to Land Shark

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=466821&mesg_id=466821

[rumpel]

7. If we can't trust electronic voting, why should we trust electronic registration? Just asking...

thanks to cyberpj

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467244

[rumpel]

9. Comments by Kathy Dopp on HR 811

via -email

Holt's New HR811 is a big improvement over his former HR550 because it
takes the audit away from the US EAC and goes about as far as possible
in federal legislation to eliminate DRE voting machines, but it still
has a few critical flaws that need to be fixed. Here is my personal
opinion after reading HR811 and then reading it again after reading
some of the comments of other election activists.

Critical changes are needed to Holt HR811

1. Section 327 is a LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MANUAL AUDITS TO BE BYPASSED.
HR811 permits states to avoid any manual audits when conducting state
"recounts". Many state "recounts" involve no manual counts of
voter-verified paper ballots, or involve fewer manual counts than
HR811 requires or, like Utah, involve limited manual counts but never
compare the manual counts with the electronic tallies used to count
votes on the central tabulator. This exemption permits states to
avoid independent audits altogether by redefining when they'll do
"recounts". Independent audits should "always" be required, no matter
whether election officials do "recounts" or not.

2. NO RECOGNITION OF CITIZEN RIGHT TO OVERSIGHT. HR811 provisions do
not require timely citizen or candidate access to election records
necessary to verify electoral integrity, voter roll accuracy, or
manual audits. Some states, like Utah, prohibit access to all
election records, even records that the National Voting Rights Act
requires to be publicly available; and other states only release
election records long after election results are made official.
Candidates have nothing to judge the integrity of their election
outcomes with, when access to election records is lacking.

3. EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENTS ARE UNDER-FUNDED: $300 million is not
enough to fund the purchase of precinct-based op-scan machines and
ballot printers for voters with disabilities and non-English-language
voters, for all precincts who currently have voting machines which
lack paper ballots. (although the amount may be enough to purchase new
machines for jurisdictions with paperless DREs like MD, GA, FL,..) If
there are approximately 185,000 U.S. polling places, and even if only
approximately one-third of them are defined as remedial and it costs
$10,000 per polling location for a ballot printer and op-scan device,
then it would cost approximately $650 million to replace all the
electronic ballot voting systems which currently do not cast votes on
archival quality paper ballots, are not fully auditable, and violate
voter anonymity. It also seems to require text conversion technology
in every polling place for voters with disabilities to independently
verify their ballots. At up to $7000 per machine for 185,000 polling
places, you do the math.

4. INSUFFICIENT AUDIT AMOUNTS: Fans of audit solutions recognize that
Holt's audit amounts (10% audits for races with margins under 1%, 5%
audits for races with margins between 1% and less than 2%, and 3%
audits for races with margins 2% or greater) are inadequate. These
numbers were pulled out of thin air, often giving under 50% chance for
detecting even one vote corrupt vote count (count with error) in cases
where just enough vote counts are corrupt to alter outcomes in U.S.
House races. (I would need to know the number of precincts in all US
House districts to do a thorough mathematical analysis of this.)

5. UNDER-QUALIFIED COMPOSITION OF STATE AUDIT BOARDS: HR811 proposes a
composition for state audit board members that does not allow
much-needed mathematicians, computer scientists, election activists,
and gaming experts to be on the election audit boards, and does not
allow smaller party members of the Green, Libertarian, Constitution,
or other small parties to be on the state audit boards. The
mathematics of election audits is quite different than in other
industries and can be quite complex due to the variations in the
margins between candidates, size variation in the numbers of ballots
in each vote count, and other factors.

6. EXCEPTION ALLOWS LOSS OF SECRET SECURE BALLOTS for the Military
voters, who are "allowed" to vote via email.

7. LOOPHOLE ALLOWS MACHINE COUNTS TO SUPERCEDE VOTER VERIFIED PAPER
when fuzzily described circumstances arise. Legislation should instead
say that: "In the event of any inconsistencies or irregularities
between any electronic records and the voter-verifiable paper records,
the paper records shall be the true and correct record of the votes
cast, except in the case where evidence exists that indicates that the
paper record has been tampered with or damaged, in which case, if an
outcome is in question, then a court will decide."

8. LOOPHOLE ALLOWS INTERNET CONNECTIONS for central tabulators and
ballot definition software. This is unnecessary since portable media
can be used to transfer vote counts from the central tabulator or to
the ballot programming devices.

9. NEGLECTS TO OUTLAW ELECTRONIC POLL BOOKS. Having paper ballots for
voters in case of power failure or electronic failure does little good
if there are electronic poll books. Voters can be disenfranchised, and
have been disenfranchised in both MD and CO due to the use of
electronic poll books.

10. LOOPHOLE ALLOWS MANUAL AUDITS TO BE GAMED: Vote miscounts could
be hidden and have a higher chance to escape detection in two or more
large-size counts of absentee, mail-in, overseas, or military ballots.
Must change "and" to "or" in Holt's language, or simply require that
all mail-in ballots are to be counted in batches of the same size as a
median-sized precinct.

To read it for yourself, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas
and select "bill" and type in HR811

It has many good points too.

P.S. This letter to Congress is in its final form. Please send copies
to your own representatives by fax would be best.

http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/Letter2Congress.pdf

Best Regards,

--
----
Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org
National Election Data Archive
Dedicated to Accurately Counting Elections
Subscribe to announcements by emailing [email protected]
Please donate or volunteer.

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote
Thomas Jefferson in 1816

[rumpel]

10. Comments by OVC

via e-mail

Dear Friends of Open Voting:

Many people have written to me wanting more information about my reasoning behind the opposition to the Holt bill. We have been discussing it on the OVC Discussion list and I have been working on a more detailed response.

Bev Harris beat me to it. Ordinarily, I don't re-distribute things like this to our OVC announcements list, but in this case, I have little to add at this time to her 14 points. So, I have simply cut and pasted that into this message. I consider this bill, HR 811, to be unworthy of futher action except to kill it.

OVC is working on state-level and county-level legislation. We may also have substantial input on a new federal bill. Stay tuned!

*** from Bev Harris
Tips for action: You can find your local congressperson, along with contact info, by going to http://www.congress.org and entering your zip code. Educate your local news reporter on this. And send to your lists.

Further action suggestions will follow.

There is a reason you are receiving e-mails to urge your congressperson to "hurry" and pass the Holt Bill. They hope it won't be read.

You should know this -- the following groups have come out against the new Holt Bill:

- Black Box Voting has publicly come out against the Bill
- Open Voting Consortium has publicly come out against the Bill
- Brad Friedman (BradBlog) has publicly come out against the Bill
- Jon Bonifaz (VoterAction.org / Demos) has publicly come out against the Bill
- Paul Lehto has publicly come out against the Bill
- Democracy for New Hampshire has publicly come out against the Bill

Decline to support:
- John Gideon (VotersUnite, VoteTrustUSA) has publicly refused to support the bill

and there will be more.

HERE'S WHY

1. DECEPTIVE LANGUAGE. Calls a paper TRAIL a paper BALLOT.

2. BILLION DOLLAR UNFUNDED MANDATE: Requires text conversion technology in every polling place. At $7000 per machine for 185,000 polling places, you do the math. See this article for documentation on the billion-dollar boondoggle:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/46649.html

The bill is not talking about scanner wands, folks. Or if it is, they'd better specify that, and soon! Except that apparently, it's too late to make changes.

Note that only two vendors currently manufacture the needed technology, and one (Populex) has as head of its advisory board Frank Carlucci, the former chairman of the Carlyle Group, former CIA director, who was Donald Rumsfeld's roommate in college. Every polling place in America. Is this really what you want? Isn't it time to read the fine print on this???

3. MAKES THE SCANDAL RIDDEN EAC A PERMANENT FIXTURE AND INCREASES ITS POWER. Alan Dechert, from the Open Voting Consortium says it best: "Holt contemplates the invasion of these United States by the Federal government. If passed, it would BREAK the voting system in the states while establishing a dictatorship to handle things: the Election Assistance Commission ("EAC" or just "the Commission") with its four commissioners appointed by the president of the United States." Bradblog on latest EAC scandal: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4119

4. ALLOWS LOSS OF SECRET BALLOTS for the Military

5. NO RECOGNITION OF CITIZEN RIGHT TO OVERSIGHT. Audit provisions do not allow either citizens or candidates access to any records for meaningful audits.

6. CONFLICTING REQUIREMENTS -- ie, must have text converters by 2008 and must study how to best do the conversions by 2010.

7. LANGUAGE ON DISCLOSED SOURCE CODE CONTAINS AN ERROR in that it doesn't deal with COTS - meaning, any electronics component with a chip on it would be required to disclose source code. There are literally hundreds of commercial off the shelf components in the system -- printers, video drivers, motherboard components -- that contain firmware, and these are manufactured all over the world. The bill would require Hitachi, Seagate, Fuji, Western Digital to open up their code for their commercial products if used in voting machines. Effectively eliminates the use of electronics while at the same time mandating electronics.

8. MUSH LANGUAGE. (Example: "The manufacturer shall provide the appropriate election official with the information necessary for the official to provide the information...")

9. UNREADABLE: People complain about their legislators not reading the bills -- well the way this is written, it guarantees they won't read it. No Appendix, so sections of the bill require the reader to actually go find a different bill and look up sections in it in order to make sense of the current bill. (example: "Section 301(a)(1) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 15481(a)(1)) is amended (A) in subparagraph (A)(i), by striking "counted" and inserting "counted, in accordance with paragraphs (2) and (3)");

10. AUDIT PROTOCOLS NO ONE AGREES WITH, even fans of audit solutions

11. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING INTERNET CONNECTIONS for central tabulators and ballot definition software

12. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MANUAL AUDITS TO BE BYPASSED states with computer-only recount protocols

13. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MACHINE COUNT TO SUPERCEDE VOTER VERIFIED PAPER when fuzzily described circumstances arise. Los Angeles Registrar Conny McCormack already has tried to co-opt this (Feinstein senate hearing yesterday) into meaning when there is a printer jam damaging the paper, the machine count will trump.

14. SUPPORTS DREs (Touch-screens and other on-screen voting techniques that are NOT recommended by NIST)

This is a devastating development. So many people worked so very hard on this bill, but in the end it isn't about who worked hard. It's about getting it right. We can't afford another set of HAVA problems.

And if it's got this many problems now, just wait until the lobbyists carve it up.

We're going to have to roll up our sleeves to get what CITIZENS want. More action-oriented, solution-focused information to follow. Black Box Voting is working right now with many other group leaders to brainstorm the best way to deal with this.

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting

[rumpel]

11. Scripps: A push for paper trails in voting machines

By JEROME L. SHERMAN
Friday, February 09, 2007

Congressional Democrats hope to move quickly on legislation that would make obsolete many touch-screen voting machines.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., this week introduced a bill that requires machines to have paper trails that allow voters to verify their choices. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., plans to bring a similar bill before the Senate.

Both lawmakers want to put the new standard in place before the 2008 presidential election.

"I think we should try. Whether we can get there or not remains to be seen," said Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.. "There needs to be some national standard."

Momentum for such a move has been building nationwide. In Florida, home of the infamous "hanging chads" of the 2000 election that prompted widespread changes in voting technology, Gov. Charlie Christ announced last week that the state would dispose of expensive touch-screen machines in favor of paper ballots read by optical scanners. The Virginia Senate also passed a bill that would gradually replace touch-screen units with the scanners.

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/19377

[rumpel]

13. OPEd: Submission to Feinstein Hearings On Election Rules

February 9, 2007 at 06:39:22

by andi novick

Dear Mr. Ambrogi and Ms. Price,

I understand the public has 5 days from the Hearings held today (February 7, 2007) to submit comment which will be accepted by the committee. Please advise if I am incorrect about that.

I listened to the Hearing this morning and while I greatly appreciate that someone is finally paying attention to what will one day be seen as the greatest crime in the history of this country, I was deeply dismayed by many of the comments from those you'd called to testify.

No one expressed the fundamental understanding that these are the people's elections. No one had asked the people what they want (although in a Zogby poll taken this past summer, when offered a choice between "Citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes" or "Citizens do not have the right to view and obtain information about how elections officials count votes," 92% of those polled agreed with the first statement). I recognize that in a representative form of government like ours is supposed to be our elected officials make decisions on behalf of the people. But this is a unique situation in which, as you said, people don't know who was really elected. Moreover no one asked us what we wanted when HAVA determined for us that we would lose our historical right as citizens to oversee our elections. There is somewhat of a conflict of interest here which only fuels the distrust. Our might have been elected officials didn't ask when they went ahead and passed legislation which impacts their re-election, but when we were asked, 92% of us said in essence we don't want electronic voting displacing our right to oversight and transparency.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_andi_nov_070208_submission_to_feinst.htm

[rumpel]

14. PR: NewswireES&S Unveils Next Generation of Voting Solutions

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today election officials
from across the nation got a glimpse into the election of the future,
thanks to Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S). The nation's leading
provider of voting solutions unveiled its new intElect(TM) brand of
products at the opening of the National Association of Secretaries of
State/National Association of State Elections Directors joint winter
conference.
"Together, ES&S and election officials have been working to comply with
the mandate of the Help America Vote Act," said Aldo Tesi, President and
CEO of ES&S. "Now we can turn our focus to fulfilling the true vision of
HAVA: more efficient, more accessible, more secure elections. Under the
intElect brand of next generation voting solutions, ES&S is proud to
present new intelligent and interactive products that will accomplish this
goal."
Under the banner of the intElect brand, ES&S is introducing its next-
generation suite of voting solutions. Products immediately available
include:
-- ES&S' total automated precinct solution, a complete election
automation package that includes the intElect PS100(TM) hardware, the
intElect ElectionWork(TM) integrated software suite, and the intElect
Electronic PollBook(TM).
- intElect ElectionWorks is an integrated software suite from ES&S
that features a number of tools to automate elections. Included in
ElectionWorks is the intElect Electronic PollBook, which replaces
traditional paper-based poll books with the very latest automated
voter check-in application.
- intElect ElectionWorks software solutions can be delivered through
the intElect PS100 -- an automated election powerhouse. The
intElect PS100 is hardware built specifically for enhancing the
security and efficiency of conducting elections, particularly in
the precinct.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-09-2007/0004524317&EDATE

[rumpel]

15. HI: Like An Alley Cat, Hawaii's Controversial Chief Elections Officer Has 9 Lives

Hawaii Reporter

The Question - Is March 1st the 9th?
By Malia Zimmerman, 2/8/2007 9:05:41 PM
State Chief Elections Officer Dwayne Yoshina’s 4-year term expired on January 31, 2006, but he never disclosed that fact to State Elections Commissioners whose job it is to decide whether to re-appoint him. They found out third hand in the final days of January.

At the Thursday, February 8, 2007, Election Commission meeting, the majority of the six members present were peeved. Yoshina, an extremely controversial figure in the local political community, walked in with an undated letter and announced his intention to seek another term. He’s been the chief elections officer since 1996.

Yoshina said of himself: “…Under my supervision, the state developed, implemented and maintained an election system, which is secure, open and honest for the voters of the state of Hawaii.”

Even though commissioners hadn’t opened the meeting to public testimony, two county employees who work with Yoshina – the City Clerk on Oahu and County Clerk on Maui – jumped into volunteer their testimony in his support. Yoshina claimed he did not ask them to testify on his behalf and was “humbled.” Their written testimony was remarkably similar to Yoshina’s. One called him “visionary.”

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?8011a85e-ae71-48b3-af4f-5f6817038881

[rumpel]

17. FL: Committee hears appeal for voting-system accountability

02/09/07

A newly formed citizens oversight committee on voting systems heard an appeal Wednesday for more accountability in the voting process.

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections was instrumental in the passage of a charter amendment in last November's election, which mandates a so-called "paper trail" for electronic voting.

Ironically, the passage of that amendment came on the same night there were more than 18,000 undervotes -- votes for neither candidate -- in Sarasota County in the District 13 Congressional race between Rep. Vernon Buchanan, a Republican, and Christine Jennings, a Democrat.

The amendment requires the county use voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory audits for any discrepancies between machine and hand counts by Jan. 1, 2008.

To better understand the language and intent of the amendment, the committee Wednesday asked SAFE Chair Kindra Muntz to speak.

"The intent is to have a ballot, a hard-copy ballot, a permanent record," Muntz said. "It's not the touch-screen that's the issue. It's the direct recording electronic feature of the touchscreen machines used in Sarasota County that's of concern."


http://www.venicegondolier.com/Newsstory.cfm?pubdate=020907&story=tp3vn4.htm&folder=NewsArchive3

[rumpel]

18. CO: Voters Get False Letter From Election Commission

CBS Channel 4 Denver

Feb 8, 2007 9:01 pm US/Mountain

Some Who Voted In Denver Got 'Inactive Voter' Letters

Jodi Brooks
Reporting

(CBS4) DENVER The Denver Election Commission mailed out letters this week to registered voters who did not vote in last November's election.

Some people who did vote got the letter saying they did not.

"Every general election we go through the list and we send out something to people who are eligible to vote, but did not vote," said Alton Dillard, the Denver Election Commission communications director.

In the November election, voters waited in line for hours to cast their ballot.

"The voter's vote counts," said Dillard. That's the one thing we need to make clear in all this. If you showed up and voted in November your vote counted."

About 117,000 people were notified of their "inactive" voter status. The election commission says about 100 people have called to say the letter is a mistake.

http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_039231902.html

[rumpel]

19. CA: Nevada County Touch Screen Voting Presentation (by 2/13 Public Comments)

Yuba Net

By: Nevada County Elections Office
Published: Feb 9, 2007 at 08:38
Email this article

Printer friendly page

The County's Voting System Selection Committee recently reviewed proposals from the two California certified vendors, Diebold Election Systems, Inc, and Hart Intercivic, that responded to Nevada County's Voting System RFP. The Committee will make a recommendation to the County Clerk/Registrar of Voters regarding vendor selection as the next step in the process.

However, there is one final opportunity for the public to vote on the Diebold and Hart touch screen voting units and experience the use of this equipment in a mock election.

When: Tuesday, February 13, 2006
Time: 12 noon to 2 p.m.
Where: Eric Rood Administrative Center, Lobby, 950 Maidu Ave, Nevada City

The Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) unit or "Touch Screen" provides voters with disabilities the opportunity to vote privately and independently, in compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_50951.shtml

[rumpel]

20. BradBlog: Banned Voting Machine Test Lab Given More Time to Fix Problems

by Friendly Director of U.S. Election Assistance Commission

BLOGGED BY Michael Richardson ON 2/9/2007 12:34PM

EAC Exec. Dir. Tom Wilkey Lends CIBER 'Test' Lab a Hand, As 'Confidential' Secrets about Their Failures Continue to Ooze Out...
Guest Blogged By Michael Richardson

The BRAD BLOG has learned that Thomas Wilkey, Executive Director (bio ) of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), has now extended the deadline for CIBER, Inc. to qualify for interim accreditation to test the nation’s voting machines, despite previously reported disastrous testing conditions over several years discovered at the lab.

Wilkey previously kept problems at the CIBER test lab hidden behind a wall of secrecy including the non-accreditation of the controversial “independent testing authority” (ITA) laboratory as discovered and revealed by The New York Times late last month.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4134

[freedomfries]

21. K & R

good thread! thanks rumpel!

[livvy]

22. Wow...nice job! K&R

:kick:
Thanks!

[Kurovski]

23. Kick to the top.

:thumbsup: rumpel!