Election Reform and Related News: Saturday, April 12, 2008

[livvy]

Election Reform and Related News
Saturday, April 12, 2008



Please be sure to check out Vickiss's excellent thread from Friday for more very recent news.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=500404&mesg_id=500404

Everyone is welcome to participate. Feel free to:

:bluebox: Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

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

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

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

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

Recommendations for the Greatest Page are always welcomed. It's the best way to share the news with members who don't frequent this forum. It's the link below.

[livvy]

1. States n/t

[livvy]

2. Official Says Florida Should Manually Recount All Close Votes

Official says Florida should manually recount all close votes

Posted on Sat, Apr. 12, 2008

By GARY FINEOUT
[e-mail]

TALLAHASSEE -- Nearly eight years after the chaotic 2000 presidential election, the state's top elections official wants to make sure all ballots are counted by hand the next time there's a close contest.

George W. Bush captured the presidency by a 537-vote margin, but only after the U.S. Supreme Court halted a recount of ballots in Florida that had been ordered by the state's highest court. In the wake of that contested election, as much of the state moved to touch-screen voting, the state changed its recount rules.

But now that Florida is switching over to paper ballots, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said there should be a manual recount of every vote in a close race.

''You want to make sure those ballots say either you won or lost the contest,'' said Browning, a former elections supervisor from Pasco County. ``It's the next logical step. If you have given voters the ability to cast ballots in all 67 counties on paper, then you need to have some ability to recount those ballots. People have got to have confidence in their system.''

more...

http://www.miamiherald.com/516/story/493542.html

[livvy]

3. OH: County Discusses Vote Couning Options

4/12/2008 12:31:00 PM
County discusses vote counting options

Miami County might employ a high-tech way of conducting elections - touch-screen voting machines - but this week employed the old-fashioned way of counting ballots by hand. It was all in an effort to assure voter confidence and election integrity.

While the votes were first tabulated on the night of the March 4 presidential primary election, handfuls of Miami County Board of Elections officials and poll workers counted ballots by hand Tuesday and Wednesday.

They were conducting a voluntary audit for election accuracy requested of 12 Ohio counties by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

The audit is expected to end no later than sometime today.

more...

http://www.tcnewsnet.com/main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=5&ArticleID=147322&TM=50441.66

[livvy]

4. FL: Optical-Scan Voting Gets Positive Reviews

Last modified 4/11/2008 - 4:41 pm
Originally created 041208

Optical-scan voting gets positive reviews


By KEVIN TURNER, My Nassau Sun


FERNANDINA BEACH - Although some grumbled that new voting machines optically scanning paper ballots were a step backward from touch-screen machines, Nassau County's first election with the new devices went without a hitch, officials said.

The inaugural election for the new machines, manufactured by Election Systems & Software, was Tuesday's election in Fernandina Beach.

"I liked the touch screen," Dottie Hass said after she voted at the Atlantic Avenue Recreation Center Tuesday. "I really don't know what happens to the paper after it zooms in there. I don't trust it as much."

The first touch-screen machines in Florida were put into use in Callahan in September 2001, following the state's role in the presidential election debacle of 2000.



http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/041208/nen_267576220.shtml

[livvy]

5. Researchers Tell Voting Firms, Time For a Truce

Researchers tell voting firms, time for a truce
Published: 2008-04-10

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Hackers finding flaws, vendors reacting with threats: The relationships between security researchers and voting machine makers resemble the early days of the PC industry and that's not good, e-voting experts said at the RSA Security Conference on Thursday.

Computer scientists and academic security researchers have managed to find numerous and serious holes in the security of electronic voting systems in the past decade, despite the assurances of voting system makers that their machines are secure. It's no surprise then that rather than fostering a partnership between the hackers and the vendors -- as Microsoft managed to do over the past decade -- voting machine makers continue to be hostile to those that find vulnerabilities. That lack of a relationship has to change, a panel of five electronic voting experts told attendees.

"There is so much distrust between the academic community and the vendor community, that no one is working together," said Alec Yasinsac, associate professor of computer science at Florida State University. "I think it is essential for the vendor community to step up and engage the academic community."

A major issue with most electronic voting machines is that there is no way to do a software-independent audit of the election results. In the 2006 midterm elections, many states took extra security precautions after researchers found that Diebold's election systems contained a serious flaw. Another election system failure may have resulted in a loss for the Democratic challenger in a contest for one of Florida's seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, when the configuration of the electronic ballot likely resulted in a large number of people in a Democratic-leaning county failing to vote.

more...

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/720

[livvy]

8. Blog: What's Really The Problem Here?aka The 'new' GEMS problem or The Butler County, OH...

Thursday, April 10, 2008
What's Really The Problem Here? (aka "The 'new' GEMS problem" or "The Butler County, OH 'lost votes' in March primary problem"
A topic of high conversation among activists the past few days has been called "the (Diebold) GEMS database problem;" and " the missing (but found) votes in Butler County, OH problem."
The issue at hand was first widely reported by Gregory Korte in the Cincinnati Enquirer on April 8, 2008 and again on 4/9: http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/NEWS01/804090352;
and was noted by election integrity advocates via John Gideon's VotersUnite! site with the Daily Voting News: http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp

Both began:


A recently discovered computer glitch caused at least 105 votes in West Chester to go missing after the March 4 primary election, Butler County election officials said. Two computer cards containing votes from touch-screen voting machines were not uploaded on election night – even though the computer reported that all cards had been read. Those votes have since been counted and were included in final, official results approved last week.


The 4/9 Enquirer piece stated:

"Quite frankly, if it's off by five votes or 105 votes, I want to know what's causing it. Especially if it's a close election," McGary said, "If we cannot produce accurate and reliable numbers, then it throws the entire process in question, and that's not something we want to have happen."

Butler County has reported the error to the Ohio Secretary of State's office and to Premier. The Secretary of State's office is watching the investigation, said spokesman Jeff Ortega. It's unknown how widespread the problem could be.

more...

http://citizensboe.blogspot.com/2008/04/whats-really-problem-here-aka-new-gems.html

[livvy]

6. U.Va. Scholar Traces Voting Technology Controversy to the 1890s

U.Va. Scholar Traces Voting Technology Controversy to the 1890s

Feb. 8, 2007 — For more than a century, voting machines have helped shape American political history.

The chaos of the 2000 presidential election in Florida demonstrated the crucial role that voting machines played in shaping the outcome of that election. But Bryan Pfaffenberger believes there is value in understanding that the interaction between technology and culture has been going on for more than a century.

Pfaffenberger, a historian of science and an associate professor at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science, is studying the history of mechanical-lever voting machines. His research focuses on the machines' introduction in New York State in 1892 to 1925, when the technology was employed throughout the state.

"There's an almost exact parallel between the debate we're having today concerning electronic voting machines and the equally divisive, but completely forgotten, debate that greeted first-generation voting machine technology in the 1920s," Pfaffenberger says.

more...

http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=4141

[livvy]

7. Joyner Testifies on Voting Irregularities Before Congress

Joyner Testifies on Voting Irregularities Before Congress
RaShawn Mitchner
4/11/08
Metro
PrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 2 next > Radio personality Tom Joyner was in Washington, D.C. Wednesday to testify about voting irregularities before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on House Administration.

Joyner's testimony came from his experience with 1-866-MYVOTE1, a hotline that allows voters to voice their concerns and make inquiries about poll locations and voter registration. The MYVOTE hotline, launched in November 2007, is a partnership between "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" and the NAACP National Voter Fund. Joyner, whose radio show reaches about 8 million listeners in 115 markets, said nearly 10,000 people made calls to the hotline on Feb. 5, Super Tuesday.

"They were calling to tell us that they were having problems voting," Joyner said. "That the voter ID machines were not working. That, in some cases, there weren't enough voting machines. In other cases, they called to complain about poll workers who didn't know how to fix problems when they were happening."

Pennsylvania-based InfoVoter Technologies tracks calls for the hotline. As of last Friday, the company had fielded 4,616 calls nationally. Of those calls, 33.6 percent were related to registration, and 22 percent were related to poll access.

more...

http://media.www.thehilltoponline.com/media/storage/paper590/news/2008/04/11/Metro/Joyner.Testifies.On.Voting.Irregularities.Before.Congress-3319974.shtml

[babylonsister]

9. Recommundo! nt

[livvy]

12. Merci, Grazie, Danke,Miigwech! n/t

[livvy]

10. Tobi: The Myth of Verified Voting: How GOP strategists & J. Abramoff Transformed America's Elections

April 11, 2008

The Myth of Verified Voting: How GOP strategists & J. Abramoff transformed America's elections & the reform movement

By Nancy Tobi


BY Nancy Tobi

For the published version of this article and more about elections in 21st century America, read the newly released Loser Take All, edited by Mark Crispin Miller.

The Myth of Verified Voting: How GOP strategists and Jack Abramoff transformed America's elections and the election reform movement itself

K Street Lobbyists and Election Reform

In 1995, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Republican strategist Grover Norquist launched the "K Street Project." (i) Named for the Capital Hill street housing many lobbying firms, the Project gave lobbyists direct access to Washington lawmakers through weekly policy and strategy meetings. The most infamous K Street lobbyist was Jack Abramoff, who worked for the firm Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff, now in prison, took money from his American Indian tribe clients, and laundered it to Congressional Representatives in return for legislative and policy favors aligned with the Project's political agenda.

But this was not just any money laundering enterprise. Abramoff's dry cleaner was converting money to election fraud.

In 2002, the New Hampshire GOP received three $5,000 checks, just in time to pay $15,600 to a telemarketing company that jammed the phone lines of the Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote campaign in the morning hours of the election.

The three $5,000 checks? One each from two separate Abramoff tribal clients and the third from K Street loyalist Tom DeLay's ARMPAC.(ii)

More...



http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_080411_the_myth_of_verified.htm

[livvy]

11. Slim pickin's today, so that'll do it for me.

Have a great Saturday eve and Sunday, all!

[babylonsister]

13. Thanks for all of your efforts, livvy!

:hi: