Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, Tuesday 01/29/08

[Melissa G]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, Tuesday 01/29/08


Esteemed DUer's, please consider taking a moment (or more)
to graciously participate by posting Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.


http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,3046430_1,00.jpg

If you can:
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.


2. Post stories using the Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:

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

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


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




Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).
Thank You!

[Melissa G]

1. States n/t

[Melissa G]

5. TX- email from the Lone Star Project. Martin Frost on Voter ID

Former Congressman, and current America Votes President, Martin Frost, has accurately portrayed the cynical motivations and dishonest claims behind the partisan Republican effort to enact voter photo ID laws. Please take a moment to read the column below by Congressman Frost from the widely read, daily political newspaper, The Politco.

- Matt Angle





Photo ID laws are snapshots of an ugly past

By: Martin Frost
January 29, 2008

Once upon a time, in the dark ages of American politics, white Southerners conspired to prevent blacks from voting by passing a series of restrictive voter registration laws, including poll taxes and literacy tests.

These practices were outlawed by Congress with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The figurative descendents of the people who tried to restrict black suffrage are here.

Their tack is to require a picture ID to be shown by anyone seeking to vote.

An Indiana law imposing such a requirement has been challenged, and its fate will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that was argued before the court on Jan. 9.

Challenging the adoption of this and other voter photo ID laws is the single-biggest civil rights issue facing the country today.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8150.html

[Melissa G]

8. FL- LATEST: Problems with voting machines; reaction mixed on tax amendment

LATEST: Problems with voting machines; reaction mixed on tax amendment


BY ROGER DROUIN


12:57 p.m. (Sarasota)

A total of six optical scan voting machines had to be replaced this morning because they were not working.

“They were all tested before and for various reasons they just went bad,” said Kathy Dent, Sarasota County supervisor of elections.

Some machines had problems with the memory card, while others had a faulty scanner.

Dent said backup machines are located downtown and in south Sarasota County, and crews are on standby to rush the new machines to precincts where problems are reported.

“They are replacing the scanners as soon as we get the call,” Dent said.
In the case of a machine failure, poll workers are collecting voters’ ballots and placing them in an “auxiliary” bin on the side of the scan machines.

Those ballots will be entered into the system via the scan machines at 7 p.m. tonight after the polls close.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080129/BREAKING/63466273

[Melissa G]

9. Neb- ES&S acquires company that makes voting machines for disabled

ES&S acquires company that makes voting machines for disabled


Associated Press - January 29, 2008 11:35 AM ET

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Voting machine maker Election Systems & Software will acquire another company that makes machines that help voters with disabilities mark their own ballots.

ES&S already sold the voting terminal for the disabled that Automark Technical Systems makes, so officials with both companies said combining operations made sense.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ES&S is based in Omaha. Automark is based in Chicago.

ATS President Gene Cummings says he believes ES&S will be able to expand sales of the voting machine for the disabled because it has a larger sales network.

http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=7789998&nav=menu605_2

[Melissa G]

10. FL- Voting updates from around Florida

Voting updates from around Florida

(lots more about glitches in article http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080129/NEWS01/80129038/1006)

Closed primary confuses some

TALLAHASSEE -- Confusion over the closed primary also upset some voters in Sarasota County, said Election Supervisor Kathy Dent, president of the state association of election officials.

"Florida's been a closed primary state since 1913, but we also have an influx of people coming from all over," she said. "They don't pick up on it."

Amid a heavy show of early day voters, Sarasota County reported problems with the scanning equipment on some voting machines.

snip

Turnout today at polls in the South Florida county was "phenomenal," Dent said. More than 16 percent of Sarasota voters had cast ballots before today, close to the total 20 percent turnout expected in a presidential primary year.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080129/NEWS01/80129038/1006

[Melissa G]

11. FL- FLORIDA VOTING PROBLEMS

FLORIDA VOTING PROBLEMS

From NBC's Kerry Sanders
In Broward County Fla., minor delays were reported this morning at a half dozen polling locations. Voters who provide a driver's license for identification have their license run through a machine that reads the magnetic stripe on the back. (The machine is called an EVID).

At least six of those EVID machines at different polling locations did not work this morning. Broward County election officials say they have now corrected the problem, and everyone who wanted to vote has voted, albeit they had to wait a little longer than expected.

Broward County is now infamous for the recounts and hanging chads of the 2000 presidential race.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/29/617612.aspx

[Melissa G]

12. FL Notable glitches mar otherwise smooth voting in Palm Beach County

Notable glitches mar otherwise smooth voting in Palm Beach County

By Ron Hayes

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

As polling stations opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday, most Palm Beach County voters found democracy to be a quick and painless freedom, marred only by occasional poll worker mishaps, wayward voting machines and some voters who apparently didn't read their mail.

Dozens of voters who normally vote in precincts at the county fairgrounds showed up to find the South Florida Fair in progress, but no voting.

"All those voters were sent certified letters January 8, with maps, advising them that because of the fair their precincts would be moved to Christ Fellowship Church" said Supervisor of Elections spokesperson Kathy Adams.

Fairgrounds precints that were moved to the church, which is situated in a former Target store at Southern Boulevard and State Road 7, included precincts 6110, 6112, 6114, 6116, 6158, 6161, 6164 and 6165.

"The only problems we've heard of come from people who didn't read their letters," Adams said.

However, Serena Eastland, who lives in Breakers West, said she arrived at the Royal Palm Beach Village Hall to vote at 8 a.m., but was told she had to go to the fairgrounds. Eastland said she thought that was odd, as she has lived in Breakers West for the past decade and always voted at the Royal Palm Beach Village Hall.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/29/0129pbcvoting.html

[Melissa G]

14. FL - Military presence at polling place seems odd

Military presence at polling place seems odd
By Paul Blythe | Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 12:52 PM


A-ten-hut!

What’s with the Jr. ROTC cadet at parade rest square in front of the polling place door at Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens?

A military presence, even if it is just a high school student in uniform, is something you usually don’t see associated with the voting process in the United States.

While ROTC cadets have been directing traffic at this polling place the last few years, this is the first election I’ve seen a cadet posted in front of the door leading to the voting machines.

Not that her presence — or the two-question ballot — seemed to slow down any voters. There were only about a half dozen voters in the polling place when I was there late this morning, but there were several leaving as I arrived and several others walking in as I left. In short, there was a constant, steady stream of balloting going on.

And there should have been, because the ballot wasn’t complicated — at least not if you knew going in how you planned to vote, which I did. Pick your president. Yes or no on the property tax amendment. Confirm the vote on the screen. Return the card to precinct worker at the door. Took about a minute.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/floridapolitics/entries/2008/01/29/military_presence_at_polling_p.html

[Melissa G]

15. NY- Elections board picks optical scan machine

Elections board picks optical scan machine
By Tim Ashmore
Journal Staff

ITHACA — The Tompkins County Board of Elections voted Monday to request Sequoia ImageCast voting machines for the September primary, following a decision last Thursday to give counties the choice of using any of three voting machines.

The state board decided late last week to approve optical scanning machines over Direct Recording Electronic voting machines that the federal government said need to be in polling places.


The vote put New York state one step closer to complying with the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which requires handicapped-accessible voting machines at every polling place.

Tompkins County election commissioners discussed the attributes of each of the three options for voting machines — the Sequoia ImageCast, ES&S AutoMark and Premier AutoMark — and ranked the machines from most desirable to least desirable. Sequoia is the first choice, followed by Premier and ES&S.
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080129/NEWS01/801290324/1002

[Melissa G]

16. FL- Vote machine transparency elusive as ever

Vote machine transparency elusive as ever

BY FRED GRIMM
[email protected]
The outsiders won.

After Tuesday's election, our notorious, expensive, untrustworthy, touch-screen voting gadgetry will be tossed onto the trash heap of capricious technology.

Ridding Florida of these machines was a triumph of political mavericks and computer geeks and incessant bloggers and disgruntled voters, worried that paperless votes, by the thousands, had simply vanished.

The revolutionaries took on the election industry and corporate lobbyists and a political establishment that sure as hell didn't want to hear that they had forced local election supervisors to invest tens of millions of dollars in high-tech rubbish. But votes kept disappearing.

http://www.miamiherald.com/418/story/397192.html

[Melissa G]

17. PA- No worries over voting machine challenge

No worries over voting machine challenge

Northampton County isn't concerned that an injunction request filed Friday in Commonwealth Court over its planned use of electronic voting machines will affect its plans for the April primary and beyond.

"We are not worried about it," said John Conklin, Northampton's director of administration.

"We're working diligently to pull off a successful election and restore confidence in the voting public," he said. "We feel we made an excellent decision on the voting machine purchase."

County Council approved the purchase on Dec. 17 and an order was placed a short time later for 300 machines from Sequoia Voting Systems
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-voting0128-cn,0,3790737.story

[Melissa G]

18. FL- ORLANDO voters told THERE IS NO DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY! Refused ballots.

Thanks to nashville_brook for the post and the DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4269492
Original message
ORLANDO voters told THERE IS NO DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY! Refused ballots.
(as if it even matters -- but here it is, anyway)

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-bk-polls012908,0,4785381.story


Area voters reporting problems at polls in Florida primary
One voter was told by poll workers there was no Democratic primary today

By Robert Perez | Sentinel Staff Writer 2:46 PM EST, January 29, 2008



On Florida Primary day, glitches at the polls are cropping up across Central Florida from Daytona Beach to Hunter's Creek, including one Orange County precinct where voters were told by workers early on there was no Democratic primary today.

Phil Marjason said poll workers at precinct 145 would not give him a Democratic ballot. "I thought it was plain wrong," he said. "We need to get Florida straightened out." Orange County Election Supervisor Bill Cowles confirmed that the clerk at the precinct made a mistake.

"I have learned that we did have a situation right at 7 a.m. this morning," Cowles wrote via e-mail to the Sentinel. "The clerk admits she made a mistake." But Orange County officials said their records show Marjason was given a Democratic ballot and it was cast. Marjason disagreed. "You sign a piece of paper then you walk over to the next table and they hand you a ballot," he said. "It probably shows that I signed for it, but they didn't give me a Democratic ballot."

Sheneka McDonald spent 10 minutes trying to convince poll workers at the same precinct that she should have a Democratic ballot. She questioned poll workers when she was handed a Republican ballot but was told, "this is the only ballot we have.
"I said, 'How can this be the only ballot,'" McDonald recalled. "That's when the guy chimed in from the back and said the Democratic primary was in March."

[Melissa G]

20. FL- Election chiefs warned about voting 'glitch'

Election chiefs warned about voting 'glitch'
Paige St. John
News Journal capital bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida county election supervisors were warned just last week about an "intermittent" glitch in their optical scan voting machines.

Records obtained by Gannett show Diebold Election Systems -- which has changed its name to Premier Election Solutions -- sent county election officials a "product advisory note" on Friday about its AccuVote optical scan systems. There are 32 Florida counties that use the Diebold voting machines.

The letter warns that no error message will appear when a ballot fails to pass through the machine. In those cases, the scanner will simply stop working, the stuck ballot left inside, uncounted.

That's different than other paper jams, which tell precinct workers whether the ballot was counted.

Sarasota County Election Supervisor Kathy Dent said she reported the problem to Diebold in November 2007 when some of her AccuVote machines behaved that way. "We were taken by surprise by it," Dent said.
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080129/NEWS01/80129028

[Melissa G]

2. National n/t

[Melissa G]

6. Simon & Freeman: The Future of Exit Polling. TUES 29th 8:00pm EST / 5:00pm PST. Election Defense Rad

Please Forward Widely





On Election Defense Radio this evening, Tues. Jan. 29, at 8:00 - 9:00 pm Eastern / 5:00 - 6:00 pm Pacific,

Jonathan Simon and Steven Freeman will be discussing exit polling as a tool to assess the validity of purported electronic election results.


To "tune in" via the Internet, go to http://www.toginet.com and click on either of the two Audio Players (Flash or Windows Media) you will see in the upper right corner.


Co-hosts Andi Novick and Dan Ashby will be asking the experts to explain what "raw" "weighted" and "adjusted" exit polls mean,

how "stratification" is used to draw demogragraphic portraits, and how "intrinsic yardsticks" such as presidential approval ratings and prior year election results

can tell us whether an exit polling sample is valid or biased in one direction or another.


Call in with your questions too, at 877- 864 - 4869


We'll also be asking why the 40-year tradition of exit polls with predictive accuracy to within 1% has seemingly gone awry of late,

but only in the U.S. and only since the mass transition to computerized voting.




Finally, and most importantly, we will ask, can citizens carry out independent exit polls (or develop alternative methods) to assess for ourselves the truthfulness

of "official" election results reported by proprietary voting machines that keep the raw vote data secret,

and "official" exit poll results reported by a big media consortium that keeps the raw polling data secret?


To "tune in" via the Internet, go to http://www.toginet.com and click on either of the two Audio Players (Flash or Windows Media) you will see in the upper right corner.


On related wavelengths:

§ Download last week's show on Citzen Exit Polls by going to the EDA Radio page ( http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/election_defense_radio ).


§ Read more about procedures for citizen-conducted election verification exit polls: http://www.electionintegrity.org/activists/Do_Your_Own_Exit_Poll.shtml

written by Election Integrity Director Steven Freeman and polling expert Ken Warren, president of The Warren Poll.




Election Defense Radio is streamed live on Tuesdays at http://toginet.com from 8 to 9 pm Eastern, 7 to 8 Central, and 5 to 6 Pacific.

Shows are replayed on Sundays 1 - 2 pm Eastern at the same location on your Internet dial (recorded, no call-ins)

Downloadable audio files of each show are available at the Toginet site and at EDA's web site the next day

[Melissa G]

13. Are states ready for the 2008 election?

Are states ready for the 2008 election?

All eyes will once again be on Florida, land of the infamous “hanging chads,” as the state holds its presidential primary today (Jan. 29). Florida — and all the states — are under intense scrutiny to prove they have fixed the voting machine malfunctions and other glitches of previous elections. Stateline.org asked two experts to answer this question.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


YES

Todd Rokita, Indiana secretary of state


States will be ready when voters cast their ballot for our next U.S. president. This will be no small feat given the uncertain landscape they are facing. With presidential primaries beginning in early January, major changes to our electoral system could still happen before November 2008.

For starters, Congress is reconsidering a 2002 law that encouraged states to update their outdated equipment by switching to electronic voting machines (a switch, it should be noted, that many states and counties have not yet fully paid for). The latest proposal would require all states to add cash-register-style paper receipts to these machines in 2008, so that voters can verify their selections before casting a ballot.

snip
NO

Dr. Robert A. Pastor, director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University, Washington, DC.

While there has been some progress in the five years since passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002, most states have not fully implemented, let alone embraced, the reforms needed to restore full confidence in the electoral system. So a number of problems are still likely to occur in this year’s primary and general elections.

Voter registration lists remain the biggest problem. Despite a Jan. 1, 2006, deadline, a few states have not yet complied with HAVA’s requirement that they submit integrated, interactive lists. Moreover, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has not undertaken a systematic evaluation of the quality of the lists. And about one third of the states have bottom-up databases that rely on counties and municipalities to retain their own registration lists and submit information to the state rather than the other way around. In contrast, top-down lists typically deliver information in real time. A few states have exchanged information with other states, but there is no systematic national interoperable database that would reduce duplication across the states, as the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform recommended.

HAVA funding has permitted states to replace outdated punchcard and lever voting machines. During the November 2006 general elections, just 12.7 percent of registered voters nationwide used the outdated equipment, compared with 45 percent in 2000. But new problems have been introduced with the computerized systems: technical breakdowns and the need for a paper trail that permits recounts. However, there has been no federal action to provide voter-verified paper-audit trails (VVPAT), and a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) that requires all voting machines to have VVPAT is stalled because of concerns that states would be hard-pressed to meet the bill’s deadline. Because of this, a few states, such as Colorado and Ohio, are even considering abandoning their electronic voting systems in favor of something paper-based, perhaps before November 2008.

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=274862

[Melissa G]

3. International n/t

[Melissa G]

7. Security of Voting Machine in German State Election Questioned

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,3046430_1,00.jpg
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Older citizens also have problems with voting machines, experts say
Elections | 29.01.2008
Security of Voting Machine in German State Election Questioned

Experts said that security regulations had not been observed thoroughly during this past weekend's neck-and-neck elections in the German state of Hesse. Computer programmers said the machines could have been manipulated.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) said in Berlin on Monday, Jan. 28, that tampering would have been possible on the voting machines used in eight different townships in Hesse on Sunday.



The CCC's Constanze Kurz said that people could have had unauthorized access to the computers. Furthermore, the club said the voting computers were stored in private apartments of party members in the township of Niedernhausen the night before the election.


"Storing voting computers in the homes of local politicians overnight is a nightmare scenario, even for Hesse's Interior Ministry," CCC's spokesman Dirk Engling told Focus newsmagazine. "We couldn't even have imagined such a thing," he added.

The club also said two of its experts had been left alone with computers for a substantial length of time at two different polling stations.



http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3094781,00.html

[rumpel]

19. Italy: Berlusconi plots as president calls for ‘pause’

Financial Times

By Guy Dinmore in Rome

Published: January 29 2008 20:23 | Last updated: January 29 2008 20:23

Italy was heading for a long period of political uncertainty after Giorgio Napolitano, the president, declared on Tuesday night he needed more time to break the impasse over the timing of elections and a new voting system.

The 82-year-old former communist, saying he needed a “pause to reflect”, commented on the complexity of the situation “for a country with a strong political fragmentation”.

Since the centre-left coalition led by prime minister Romano Prodi lost a vote of confidence last week, Mr Napolitano – in his constitutional role of a neutral referee – has held four days of talks with over a dozen delegations in an attempt to stand up a new administration to prepare for elections.

Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right opposition and former prime minister, on Tuesday reiterated to Mr Napolitano demands for elections in early April. Opinion polls point to a third term in office for Italy’s richest man, who narrowly lost to Mr Prodi in 2006.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7651fee0-cea6-11dc-877a-000077b07658.html

[Melissa G]

4. Editorial n/t

[Melissa G]

21. Bradblog: BuzzFlash Interview with 'Uncounted' Filmmaker, David Earnhardt

Bradblog commentary...

"BuzzFlash Interview with 'Uncounted' Filmmaker, David Earnhardt"
PLUS: Why Machine-Printed Ballots and So-Called 'Paper Trails' are ALWAYS a No-Go if You Wish to Have Verifiable Elections...
Our friends over at BuzzFlash are featuring an exclusive interview with David Earnhardt, filmmaker of Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, today.

Disclosure: Though we appear in the film, and Earnhardt advertises it here at The BRAD BLOG, we do not make money on the sale of the film. BuzzFlash, however, does, if you purchase it through BuzzFlash's sales link, which we recommend you do, in case you've yet to see this seminal film. Both they, and Earnhardt deserves the support.

We hope you'll read the interview, as well.

We've got a small, if friendly, nit to pick with both Earnhardt and BuzzFlash's Mark Karlin in regard to one section of the interview in which they discuss the notion of ballots being printed out by machine, as opposed to marked by hand by the voter.

Machine-printed ballots can never be verified, after an election, as actually reflecting the voter intent, and thus --- except for cases of disabled voters who wish to vote on such devices, as necessary, in order to vote privately and independently --- there is no legitimate reason to use such voting machines. Ever. That is, of course, if such machines even work at all. When they don't, voters can't even cast their vote.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5620