Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Wednesday April 12

[stillcool]

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

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Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
If you can:
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[stillcool]

1. Indiana:More problems surface for upcoming election

The problem is with the software controlling the machines. They may not count all votes.

David MacAnally/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis, April 11 - When you vote May second the Marion County Clerk Doris Sadler says she hopes the machines can count your ballot.
"My confidence in this building is extremely low. This is the ninth set of errors we have dealt with in the last two weeks. I am concerned about what might pop up in the next week.
Sadler is talking about ES and S, the giant voting system company working on Marion County's election.

ES and S says its doing everything it can to solve the flaws. It's got a team in town which is working to fix the faulty software. It's got to be ready to go next Tuesday, April 18th. That's when a statewide test will be conducted.

Sadler says that, should the county fail next Tuesday's test, they may have to count ballots by hand. Another option is to let voters use the single touch screen machine at each poll reserved for the handicapped which could mean long lines.

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=4759081&nav=9Tai

Election officials see trouble ahead
New ballot errors raise fears about May 2 voting
By Brendan O'Shaughnessy

A new round of mistakes in Marion County's primary ballots led voting officials to admit deep doubts Tuesday that the May 2 election could come off without problems.
With the primary approaching and absentee voting already begun, the Marion County Election Board held its second emergency meeting in a week about the ongoing errors.
Board members chastised representatives of the company that is providing the computer files used to print the ballots.
Election Systems & Software, the Nebraska company that provides the ballot files, discovered an error Monday that would make it impossible for counting machines to read the nonpartisan school board ballots. The company provides ballots for 27 Indiana counties, including Johnson, Marion and Hancock.

ES&S delivered the first batch of ballots March 27, more than a week after the deadline to mail absentee ballots to voters. Sadler said proofreading by election officials found they were rife with mistakes.
Subsequent batches have turned up new mistakes, causing election officials to question whether the company could correct the problems in time. Sadler said the name of one Lawrence candidate for state representative was left off the ballot.
Ed Treacy, the chairman of the Marion County Democratic Party, attended the meeting. He said the Election Board was blaming ES&S as a way to deflect attention from a Republican clerk's inability to hold elections.
"What I'm concerned about is whether we'll have any election at all," Treacy said. "This is an absolute travesty of incompetence. This company has failed time and again."

Call Star reporter Brendan O'Shaughnessy at [phone].

Copyright 2006 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060412/NEWS02/604120475

[kpete]

6. Election officials see trouble ahead

April 12, 2006
Election officials see trouble ahead
New ballot errors raise fears about May 2 voting

By Brendan O'Shaughnessy
[e-mail]
A new round of mistakes in Marion County's primary ballots led voting officials to admit deep doubts Tuesday that the May 2 election could come off without problems.

With the primary approaching and absentee voting already begun, the Marion County Election Board held its second emergency meeting in a week about the ongoing errors.
Board members chastised representatives of the company that is providing the computer files used to print the ballots.
Election Systems & Software, the Nebraska company that provides the ballot files, discovered an error Monday that would make it impossible for counting machines to read the nonpartisan school board ballots. The company provides ballots for 27 Indiana counties, including Johnson, Marion and Hancock.
"This is the ninth round of fixes in this election," said Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler. "How can I be sure the partisan ballots, which are the bulk of the election, won't be affected?"

more at:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060412/NEWS02/604120475/1006/NEWS01

[stillcool]

2. West Virginia Delays May Force Some Counties to Use Paper Ballots

CHARLESTON (AP) - Several counties may be forced to start early voting next week using paper ballots because of delays in programming the state's new touch-screen voting machines.
Election Systems & Software has the contract to program ballots into machines in all 55 counties. The company is hoping to have all the machines programmed in time, said Secretary of State Betty Ireland.

http://www.oweb.com/state/story/0412202006_sta1.asp

[kpete]

3. A Remarkable Turn in the Paper Trail Debate

A Remarkable Turn in the Paper Trail Debate

Black Box Voting has long been one of the most vocal critics of electronic voting technology. Led by Bev Harris, the organization has been sharply critical of the lack of security and transparency that it believes to exist with the present generation of electronic voting equipment. It has also sought to expose and publicize problems with paper-based technology, most recently through the Harri Hursti study of Diebold's optical-scan system.

Now, in this opinion piece, Black Box Voting has announced its opposition to the latest version of the Holt Bill (HB 550), which would mandate a "voter verified paper audit trail" or VVPAT. This would essentially require that electronic voting machines produce a contemporaneous paper record ("CPR") that voters could view before casting their votes. The idea behind it is that, in theory, the paper record could be used in the event of an audit or manual recount. Here are some excerpts from Harris' piece:

Election reform groups are split on whether they support H.B. 550. Black Box Voting normally does not weigh in on legislation, this time we will. Citizens need to be informed of the dangers as well as the benefits when being urged to support legislation.

Like an antibiotic that's too weak, we believe that H.B. 550 will create a more resistant strain of election infection.

Like a placebo, people may think the election system is getting well when in fact, the medicine is only a sugar pill that makes everyone think it's better. For a minute.

.... Black Box Voting believes that H.B. 550 is unwise. It will not be effective to improve citizen oversight or election integrity. It is dangerous, because the weakness of the antibiotic will create a more resistant strain of election manipulation....

more at:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2006/04/remarkable-turn-in-paper-trail-debate.html

[kpete]

4. Who Trusts the Vernon City Clerk with the Uncounted Ballots?

Who Trusts the Vernon City Clerk with the Uncounted Ballots?
The LA Times reports:


The election in Vernon had a Keystone Kops feel to it almost from the beginning, and certainly on election day with the decision not to count the votes.

It was, among other things, the first contested City Council election in 25 years. The race included a cast of old-guard council members and three new arrivals who managed to keep the election in the courts until election day.

Vernon is unique — some call it peculiar to the extreme — in that it has 86 registered voters even though about 44,000 people work in the city's five square miles of low-slung industrial and commercial buildings.

This year, three entrenched incumbents were challenged by three candidates who set up residence in the tiny city and filed to run for office. Within days, the building where they were living was red-tagged as unsafe and dangerous and their electricity was cut off.

But after a series of court challenges, the three prevailed and their names were on the Tuesday ballot.

After the polls closed, City Clerk Bruce Malkenhorst Jr. carried a red metal box containing ballots into the council chambers and said it would be kept locked until pending litigation over the election was completed.
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/005388.html

[kpete]

14. Voting Coercion Charges Fly in Calif.

Voting Coercion Charges Fly in Calif. City By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

VERNON, Calif. - It took a judge's order to force the first local election in 25 years in this industrial city, and it was a contest filled with allegations of intimidation, harassment and undercover surveillance.

And it wasn't over when the polls closed, either.

On Tuesday night, a clerk promptly carried a metal ballot box into the City Council chamber and announced he would not count the votes.

The bizarre, and some say illegal, decision was just the latest eyebrow-raising political turn in Vernon, a city on the edge of Los Angeles where the mayor and council members have served for decades without opposition and most of the voters hold municipal jobs while living in city-owned houses.

The political order was upset earlier this year when three new residents filed as candidates for three of the City Council's five seats.

more at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060412/ap_on_el_st_lo/disputed_election

[kpete]

5. `Shadow campaigns' put millions into races

`Shadow campaigns' put millions into races
BY MIKE DORNING
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON - The Democratic and Republican organizations charged with getting candidates elected to Congress this fall are preparing to wall off parts of their staff and form separate entities, allowing them to pour tens of millions of dollars into individual campaigns, a move that otherwise would be illegal.

The tactic, which both parties also used in the 2004 election, takes advantage of a provision in campaign finance law that allows operationally independent groups, unlike the parties themselves, to spend unlimited amounts on behalf of specific candidates.

But critics say the entities are independent in name only. Their office space is usually no more than a short walk from party headquarters, they get all their cash from the party and are usually run by senior operatives intimately familiar with the party's strategy, priority and tactics. One operative likened them to "shadow campaigns."

"It's the type of distinction that's built on legal technicalities," said Anthony Corrado, a government professor at Maine's Colby College who specializes in campaign finance. "You're basically just taking a piece of the organization and putting up a legal drywall to separate them for four or five months."

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/14323939.htm

[kpete]

7. Proposal would gut Clean Elections

Proposal would gut Clean Elections
House committee approves overhaul of campaign finance

Robbie Sherwood
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 12, 2006 12:00 AM

Voters could end the state's strict limits on money flowing into Arizona political campaigns under a new legislative proposal that soon could be headed to the November ballot.

Under the proposed overhaul of campaign-finance laws, voters would also be asked to gut the Clean Elections system for publicly financed elections.

Clean Elections is a voter-approved system in which candidates qualify for public campaign funds by collecting a set number of $5 qualifying contributions. advertisement

The plan would expand by up to 32 times the amount of money lobbyists and other private donors can give to legislative and statewide candidates. The measure would also relax penalties for candidates who violate campaign-finance laws.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 1013, which was welded to another bill as a strike-everything amendment, passed the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday by a vote of 7-3. The new measure could get a full House vote later this week.

"The bottom line is using public resources to finance political campaigns is a bad idea," said Rep. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, a one-time Clean Elections candidate who wrote the proposal.

more at:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0412clean-elections0412.html

[kpete]

8. After 40 years, Dems take State House seat (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Flaherty wins Habay's seat in special election
To fill unexpired term of convicted lawmaker through end of year
Wednesday, April 12, 2006

By Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Democrat Shawn Flaherty, who narrowly won a special election last night for the state House seat in the 30th District, doesn't care if people think his reason for winning is corny.

Mr. Flaherty, 46, a Fox Chapel attorney, said he won the election because warm, sunny weather helped bring more than 10,000 voters to the polls. For that, Mr. Flaherty credits his late father, former Pittsburgh Mayor and Allegheny County Commissioner Pete Flaherty, who he said always had a knack for scheduling birthday parties and other family activities on sunny days.

"Over 10,000 people voted today," Mr. Flaherty said after a victory speech to about 75 supporters at the Etna Volunteer Fire Co. social hall. "I think my Dad had something to do with that. He was smiling down on me today."

Pete Flaherty died one year ago next Tuesday.

Complete but unofficial results showed Mr. Flaherty defeated Republican Mike Dolan, 26, of O'Hara by a count of 5,545 to 5,437. It will be the first time in more than 40 years that the district, which includes Fox Chapel, Hampton and parts of Ross, Shaler and O'Hara, will be represented by a Democrat.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06102/681367-179.stm

[stillcool]

9. Illinois Republicans defend anonymous calls attacking Democrats

By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
04/11/2006

SPRINGFIELD, ILL.

An Illinois Republican leader insisted Tuesday that the party's anonymous, automated phone campaign assailing Democratic legislators was about policy, not politics, and so isn't covered by a law prohibiting anonymous political attacks.

Last week, a few Democratic House members said their constituents were getting prerecorded phone calls at home, in which a voice would allege that the legislator was cutting state pensions and veterans' funds. The recording would implore the listener to tell the legislator to oppose the budget practices of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat.

The calls didn't identify who they were from. After initial denials, Republican House officials last week acknowledged they were behind the phone campaign. They said the program, which cost "less than $10,000" in party funds, was designed to put pressure on Democrats to stop backing what Republicans see as dangerous budget maneuvers by the Blagojevich administration.

The problem, says Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office, is that Illinois campaign law requires that election campaign ads that target specific politicians must identify the source of the ads. The calls - whose targets included Metro East Reps. Dan Beiser, D-Alton, and Tom Holbrook, D-Belleville - didn't identify who was behind them.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/metroeast/story/FAC01F9B4CFCCF818625714E00140055?OpenDocument

[stillcool]

10. Chicago: Appellate primary victory is tight

500 votes separate Cunningham from rest
By Carlos Sadovi
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 12, 2006

The general counsel for Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a former judge, squeaked past her nearest opponent by just 500 votes in last month's Democratic Illinois Appellate Court primary, Chicago and Cook County election officials said Tuesday.

Trina Janes, Erickson's campaign manager, who called the election a "statistical dead heat," said they would decide in the next few days whether to challenge the outcome of the race. She said that if they were to challenge the outcome it would be to make sure that all votes were properly counted. There were voting-machine problems in last month's election. "I think the counting of votes in this election was unprecedented. There's a strong margin of error, and given everything that happened, it's about protecting the process and ensuring that every vote is counted," Janes said.

Burnham said that aside from a brief initial delay in vote tabulation due to problems with new voting machines, the outcome was not affected by the voting machine snafu. He said results are always sent to state election officials three weeks after an election, and three weeks fell on Tuesday.

If losing candidates get 95 percent of the winning candidate's total they have a right to ask for a discovery recount, which allows them to examine ballots from up to 25 percent of precincts within a jurisdiction, including Chicago and suburban Cook County, he said.
The candidates have five days after state election officials certify the election to challenge the outcome, Burnham said.

[e-mail]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/

[autorank]

11. Italy: Berlusconi Loses Both Houses & Election to Romano Prodi

Good news. Berlusconi lost both houses. I was wrong and, as I said, happy to be so. This is a major victory for the forces of reason. Berlusconi is a total nightmare.

Romano Prodi (R) and wife.

Prodi says vote outcome safe

http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-04-12_1128443.html

Prodi says vote outcome safe
Centre right continues to cite "irregularities"
(Updating the item: Prodi Says Election Result Safe) (ANSA) - Rome, April 12 - Romano Prodi, who has claimed victory in Italy's knife-edge general election, said on Wednesday that Premier Silvio Berlusconi would not be successful in contesting the outcome .

Addressing members of the foreign press in Rome, the centre-left leader said that "I have no fear of the figures being overturned. It is a completely straightforward victory". "We have a majority in both the House and the Senate and we will work and govern the country well," said the former premier, who has been congratulated by European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso, France and Luxembourg .

Berlusconi has challenged Prodi's wafer-thin majority and is demanding checks on spoilt and disputed voting slips and even a possible recount. He has also talked of "irregularities" but refused to give details .

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, however, said that the voting had been "orderly and regular, according to Italian democratic tradition" .

[kpete]

12. New Report: Voting Rights Act Protections Still Needed in Louisiana

New Report: Voting Rights Act Protections Still Needed in Louisiana

By Tyler Lewis
civilrights.org
April 12, 2006

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) continues to remove barriers to voting for many Louisiana residents, according to a new report on the state of voting rights in the state by RenewtheVRA.org, a collaboration of national organizations that is examining the Voting Rights Act in the 24 years since its last full reauthorization.

The VRA, considered the most successful civil rights legislation ever enacted, prohibits discrimination based on race.

Three key provisions of the VRA will expire in August 2007 if Congress does not act now to renew them: Section 5, which requires preclearance of voting changes in states and localities with a history of voting discrimination, Section 203, which require counties where more than 5 percent of citizens are not native English speakers to provide language assistance, and Sections 6-9, which authorize the Department of Justice to send federal examiners and observers to monitor elections.

The entire state of Louisiana is covered under Section 5.

more at:
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/voting/details.cfm?id=42077

[autorank]

19. LA: Disenfranchiesment is Alive and Well in Louisiana

The Disenfranchisement Of Katrina's Survivors
Wednesday, 1 March 2006, 3:02 pm
Article: Michael Collins
Adding Insult to Injury for Katrina Survivors
- Barriers to Voting Due to Inadequate State & Local Efforts
- Two Law Suits Fail to Remedy the Situation.

Special for "Scoop" Independent Media
Michael Collins
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0603/S00016.htm#7

Wash. DC. - Two court decisions this weekend create barriers to voting for hurricane Katrina survivors spread around the United States. The U.S. District Court of Louisiana (Eastern) denied a lawsuit that sought to delay elections and allow special measures to enable voting by several hundred thousand displaced New Orleans evacuees. Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, filed the suit with ACORN (a national community rights organization) and individual voters.

The suit asked for immediate relief for displaced voters through satellite polling places in major evacuee locales, publicity efforts in these areas to let people know their right to vote, and an expanded form of identification to include Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Red Cross documentation with a New Orleans address. The suit also asked the court to declare that the Louisiana legislature's Act 40 and the Secretary of State's emergency voting plan "impose a severe burden on displaced voters' fundamental right to vote."

After the judge ruled against the Plaintiffs, Advancement issued a statement saying, "Advancement Project is extremely disappointed at the recent ruling of Judge Ivan Lemelle (a Clinton appointee) against providing satellite polling places to Katrina evacuees currently residing outside of the state of Louisiana." The statement went on to note that current election law "fails to ensure that displaced residents will be able to exercise their voting rights - and that thousands of displaced victims of Katrina will have to travel great distances in order to cast their ballot."

[kpete]

13. Arkansas County Gets New Voting Machines

County Gets New Voting Machines

Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels was in the Jefferson County Courthouse in Pine Bluff Wednesday to demonstrate new touch screen voting machines.

The machines will replace older models that don't comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which is a federal law put in place to prevent voting problems like the ones in Florida in 2000.

Statewide, each polling place will have at least one of the touch screen machines that can be modified to allow blind people to vote through an audio program. The machines make a paper record of the votes cast, as a backup.

Some counties will receive a full set, or 46 touch screen machines, and others will have a mix of the touch screen and other machines. In 22 counties, the new machines will be in place for the May 23 primaries.

Monika Rued, Web Producer
Created: 4/12/2006 1:36:16 PM
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=26904

[kpete]

15. Burlesconi's Recount

Burlesconi's Recount
by DoDo
Wed Apr 12th, 2006 at 03:34:31 PM EDT

Silvio Berlusconi goes true to form, trying to establish the world record of bad loser.
After narrowly losing in the elections, his incoherent last-ditch efforts to cling to power included a call for a (German-style) Grand Coalition, a protest that no winner shall be declared yet - and, evoking the memory of Florida, a call for recount.

The last is underway. It will be finished by Friday. And stop being nervous: it won't change anything, the victory of Prodi's L'Unione coalition is secured.

According to calculations by La Repubblica, the number of disputed ballots to be recounted is just 70,000. What's more, 27,000 of these are votes for the Senate, which won't change anything even if all would be given to B's Casa della Libertà (CdL) bloc: for the Senate, majorities were counted regionally, and no region produced a tight race.

So 43,000 ballots for the House remain. CdL would need to 'win' those by a highly improbable 33,600 to 9,400 margin (to offset the 24,204-vote L'Unione advantage in the preliminary result).

Indeed the first recount results show B gains nothing - in fact he may lose even more. For example in Milan, CdL gained 30 votes - while L'Unione gained 109...

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/4/12/153431/388

[stillcool]

16. Voting forum yields calls for reform

James Faulk The Times-Standard
ARCATA -- “It all comes down to the vote.”

So declared a sign above the heads of the speakers Tuesday at a forum held at Humboldt State University to discuss perceived problems with national and local democracies.
Roughly 20 people attended the event, where former Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb; retired professor and NAACP official Nate Smith; Measure T campaign manager Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap; and voting advocate Dave Berman spoke on what they believe are the problems with the current system for electing governments.

Berman said the voting systems currently dominant throughout much of the United States, and even Humboldt County, amount to faith-based elections -- we're asked to have blind faith that the interpreter codes in the ballot-counting machines are telling the truth, he said.

”I don't think we've been having elections,” he said. “I think we've been having events that resemble elections.”
He announced that the Voter Confidence Committee would once more be putting on a parallel election this June to set a good example. Volunteers will set up outside polling places and ask voters to vote again.
Those second ballots will be hand-counted, and if enough people participate, it can function as a check on the system that the county uses.
"I think we should be demanding a basis for confidence,” he said.

http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3701936

[kpete]

17. BREAKING: Lawsuit Filed Over Electronic Voting Machines

Apr 12, 2006 4:50 pm

Lawsuit Filed Over Electronic Voting Machines

David Highfield

(KDKA) PITTSBURGH A group of Allegheny County residents along with national nonprofit organization People for the American Way, have filed suit today in federal court in Pittsburgh against county, state and federal officials.

They are trying to prevent touchscreen machines from being used in next month's primary election.

Just five weeks ago, Allegheny County officials decided to switch voting machine companies.

The lawsuit filed today says that decision risks chaos on Election Day because of the lack of time to train election officials and educate voters about the change from lever machines which have been in use for 40 years.

“This rush to a new and flawed technology just weeks before the election threatens to sow chaos in the primary and compromise the fundamental rights of thousands of voters for years to come,” says Harry Litman, the former United States Attorney in Pittsburgh and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “It’s a bad deal for Allegheny County, and, we believe, a violation of federal law.”

The suit, Celeste Taylor v. Dan Onorato asks the court to prevent use of machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software until the County has spent the time necessary to identify voting systems that are secure; reliable; and accessible to voters with disabilities.

http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_102152530.html
via:http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002684.htm

[stillcool]

18. ....and from the Tribune-Review

Federal lawsuit seeks to stop use of new voting machines

By Glenn May
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, April 12, 2006

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by a group of citizens and a civil rights organization seeks to stop Allegheny County from using new electronic voting machines in its May 16 primary election.

The suit, which also names the state of Pennsylvania and the federal government as defendants, alleges that the county's proposed purchase of 4,700 iVotronic machines from Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software was so rushed that serious election-day problems are all but guaranteed.

"We could have bedlam in this election in May, the sort of thing you saw in Florida in 2000," said lawyer Harry Litman, a former U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania who filed the suit on behalf of People for the American Way and seven voters.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pmupdate/s_443118.html

[EFerrari]

20. KiCK

[FogerRox]

21. Everyone recommend & Kick this thread

[rumpel]

22. States warned about failing to comply with election law

Belleville News Democrat

Posted on Wed, Apr. 12, 2006

JULIE CARR SMYTH
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio officials are scrambling to respond to a federal warning that the state hasn't complied with part of the Help America Vote Act, a measure packed with election mandates states must have in place this year.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said he is confident his office can satisfy the concerns that the Justice Department expressed in its March 31 letter. His office must respond to the Justice Department by Friday.

"We don't have any indication that we should be worried about their throwing us into noncompliance," said Blackwell, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful.

John Tanner, chief of the Justice Department's voting rights division, indicated in the letter that Ohio and 29 other states had yet to sign the required agreements with the Social Security Administration to match the last four digits of voters' Social Security numbers against federal records. Under HAVA, the numbers will be used to verify the identity of voters.

SSA spokesman Mark Lassiter in Washington said Ohio has signed the agreement but doesn't have the system up and running. Ohio's Bureau of Motor Vehicles is already matching voter records against a different Social Security database, Blackwell spokesman James Lee said.

Lassiter said agreements between the SSA and state motor vehicle agencies are being signed at a steady pace. Ohio was supposed to have its in place Jan. 1.


http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/14328479.htm

[rumpel]

23. Ireland:We’re still paying for the e-voting cock-up, but don’t expect apol

ogies

13/04/06

By Noel Whelan
ONE might have thought that those who were responsible for the electronic voting debacle would have learnt some humility from the experience.

It appears that this is not the case if we are to judge from an interview with Moncia Leech in one of last weekend’s Sunday newspapers. Her name will be familiar to readers because she used to be communications adviser to Martin Cullen when he was the Minister for Environment and Local Government and at the time there was much controversy about her contract.

She currently works as chief executive of Waterford Chamber of Commerce and last weekend’s interview was in the context of a campaign to have Waterford’s Institute of Technology designated a university.

However, the interview also dealt with many of the communications projects she was involved with during her time in the Department of Environment. There was much about successful communication strategies during her time there, in particular the Race Against Waste campaign.

Inevitably, however, the interviewer also had questions for her about the proposed introduction of e-voting which certainly cannot be seen as a success in either political or communications terms.

Ms Leech, however, was not prepared to attribute that fiasco to any communications errors. Rather she maintained that opponents of what she still sees as a reforming proposal had too much “sentimentality” for “the old ways” and that its abandonment in 2004 was a “triumph of ignorance”.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/pport/web/opinion/Full_Story/did-sgtQgQh79jfG2sg7OWirIStPSk.asp

[rumpel]

24. India: Transfer issue: EC moves Supreme Court

J. Venkatesan

Says Election Commission's jurisdiction already recognised by apex court

New Delhi: The Election Commission moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday, challenging a Madras High Court order maintaining that the Commission's direction to transfer the Chennai Police Commissioner, R. Nataraj was not binding on the Tamil Nadu Government.

In its March 13 letter, the Commission asked the Government to shift Mr.Nataraj, taking a serious view of his statement in an interview to a newspaper: "Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is the perfect example of the ideal woman. I think she is an icon and every woman should look up to her."

Assailing the March 31 judgment, the Commission, in its special leave petition, said the High Court failed to appreciate that following the announcement of elections through a press release till the actual issuance of statutory notification, it was required to initiate several steps with a view to ensuring free and fair elections.

The SLP pointed out that the powers and jurisdiction of the Commission during the period between the announcement of polls and notification was recognised by the apex court in its April 26, 2001 order stating that the model code of conduct would come into operation from the date of announcement of polls and not from the date of the actual notification.

Ground situation


The Commission had to assess the ground situation in each State regarding infrastructure and postings of officials including police. All these would play a vital role in ensuring free and fair elections.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/13/stories/2006041309090100.htm

[rumpel]

25. Nigeria: INEC and Electronic Voting System

Daily Trust

Daily Trust (Abuja)
OPINION
April 12, 2006
Posted to the web April 12, 2006
Angela Ogodo Odah

At last, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that it would open the voters' register on the 1st of January 2006. This is coming three years after the last voter registration exercise in September 2002 and the make-up registration process of January 2003.

INEC has announced some reforms too. It says it's ready to start a continuous voter registration exercise (a provision in the 2002 Electoral Act, which INEC never implemented), as well as an Electronic Voter Registration System. The chairman of INEC, Professor Maurice Iwu, stated that the reasons for the revalidation of Electronic Voters' Register (EVR) are to correct the imperfections of the existing voters' register, to capture photographs of voters. Similarly, everyone would be required to revalidate and this revalidation would take place at 120,000 polling units.

The proposed EVR would however be in two phases: a revalidation of the old register and new registration for those who turned 18 after the last voter registration process and include those excluded during the last exercise.

While we (i.e. TMG) all welcome INEC's announcement (which is long overdue), it is pertinent that INEC strategises to implement this foundation of the electoral process in an efficient manner by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

What were the experiences of prospective Nigerian voters during the 1998, 2002/2003 voter registration processes? Reviews of those exercises reveal the following:

http://allafrica.com/stories/200604120692.html

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26. NC: Equipment, polling places ready for early voting (Wayne County)

Goldsboro
News-Argus

By Andrew Bell
Published in News on April 12, 2006 01:52 PM

Wayne County voters can begin casting early ballots Thursday in the May primary races.

All early one-stop voting will take place at the county Board of Elections office at 209 S. William St. Voting can start at 8 a.m. Thursday. The primary will be held May 2, with voting at all precincts in the county.

Early voting ends on April 29 with the polls open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on that Saturday. Every other day, Monday through Friday until April 29, one-stop early voting will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

There are more than 63,000 registered voters in the county, with more than 32,000 Democratic and 21,000 Republican voters. The county also has more than 9,000 unaffiliated registered voters. Unaffiliated voters can cast ballots in either primary.

Voters during the one-stop early voting process and primary election will help determine candidates for county clerk of Superior Court, state House, associate justice of the state Supreme Court and two Court of Appeals seats. In Duplin County, voters will decide races for clerk of court, state House, seats on the school board and board of county commissioners. All early ballots in Duplin must be cast at the Board of Elections ofice at 160 Mallard St.

Wayne County Board of Elections Director Gary Sims said he and his staff have worked diligently over the past two weeks to ensure the election will go smoothly. The state ordered most counties to switch voting machines, and Wayne did not receive the new machines until the last week in March. Equipment has been arriving daily since, he said. Sims said election officials have put the balloting machines through rigorous practice to make sure there will be no malfunctions when voting begins.

"We are doing everything in our power to prove these machines won't break on Election Day. We are even doing more than the state recommends," Sims said.

http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2006/04/12/equipment_polling_places_ready_for_early_voting/index.shtml

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27. TX: County ballot counting goes smoothly

San Angelo Standard Times
April 12, 2006


Round two went much smoother Tuesday night for the Tom Green County elections office.

Final results Tuesday were in by 10 p.m., and enough votes were counted an hour earlier for The Associated Press to declare Drew Darby the winner in the Texas House District 72 race.

''They're counting them as fast as they're getting them,'' said County Judge Mike Brown, who as head of the commissioners court oversees the elections office. ''I think it was a learning curve (on March 7). Now that they're getting used to and familiar with the machines, it's running a lot smoother.''

Plagued by mishaps and difficulties working new voting equipment, election results in the March 7 primary weren't available until 1 a.m. March 8.

Additional, uncounted ballots were discovered the day after the election, and a recount in the tight County Court-at-Law No. 2 race was suspended after mistakes in the handling of electronic voting machines led to a malfunction in the printing of recount ballots.

http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4615089,00.html

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28. MO: Missing ballots lead to four-vote win

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

By JON HETZEL
The Fulton Sun

This time, all the write-in votes were counted.

The four election judges who were unaware they needed to pull write-in votes out of a separate voting bin recounted the ballots Tuesday at Callaway County Clerk Linda Love's office.

Although 11 write-in candidates received votes for the Millersburg Fire Protection District Board of Directors, incumbent Ed Bright beat Michael Martin 33-29.

An air of confusion has surrounded the missing ballots as multiple steps were missed during the voting and its count April 4. It already was known that the judges failed to remove the write-in ballots from their bin and did not hand count every ballot to compare them to the final tally. However, if 14 voters had heeded the ballot instructions, the mistake may have been caught that night.

The electronic machines automatically separate write-in ballots from their counterparts when the card is fed into the voting slot. Most of the write-in votes were sent to the correct bin. However, more than a dozen people wrote in a candidate's name but forgot to draw a connecting line beside the vote to indicate a write-in ballot had been cast. If all the votes had ended up in the correct bin, the judges said they would have realized something was amiss.

http://www.fultonsun.com/articles/2006/04/12/news/264news11.txt

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29. WV: Early Voting on Paper

WTAP News
Apr 12, 2006

Todd Baucher

The software is basically used to program, and even start, the touch-screen machines which have been demonstrated to Wood County residents since the beginning of this year. But delays in getting that completed software already have held up required testing before the county commission.

That means early voting, when it takes place at the county courthouse, also will take place, at least at the outset, on paper.

" We'll have to start early voting with the absentee by mail ballots, or paper ballots," says Wood County Clerk Jamie Six. "We'll still open our early voting next Wednesday as scheduled. We just won't be able to use our electronic machines just yet."

The County Clerk told the Wood County Commission Monday about the problems. But it wasn't until Tuesday that the Secretary of State's office put out a statement, that it was learned the problems could affect other parts of West Virginia.

Six points out the delays aren't unique to local or state elections officials, or even the companies nationwide who are developing this equipment for the first time, in elections throughout the country.

"They're trying to upscale their workforce, to take this higher demand throughout the country", he says. "But it's not a Wood County or a West Virginia problem, it's a national problem."

Six also notes that, while early voting begins next Wednesday, Tuesday is the last day to register to vote for the May ninth West Virginia primary.

http://www.wtap.com/news/headlines/2624496.html

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30. WI: Council approves voting system purchase

Wednesday
April 12, 2006

By BRIAN PAYNTER/Staff Reporter

WAUPUN - The Common Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to allow Fond du Lac County Clerk Joyce Buechel to apply for purchasing an accessible voting system for the community.

The accessible voting system will consist of two different types of equipment to comply with those used in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties because Waupun falls in both.

"We thought it was prudent and wise to go with that type of equipment rather than to have one local system that might be incompatible with one or the other counties," said Kyle Clark, clerk-treasurer. "It just makes sense to be uniform so everything can be combined and consolidated in each county."

He said the state has allocated $6,000 for the equipment in each polling location. Dodge County residents now vote in the upstairs auditorium at city hall while Fond du Lac County residents vote downstairs in the council chambers. Any funds left over after the final cost of purchasing the accessible voting system will be used for equipment programming and training, Clark said.

The two different types of voting equipment vary in ballot styles but both have features such as audio, optical scanning and touch pads for people with disabilities.

http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/news/index.php?ntid=79888&ntpid=1

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31. Pennsylvania Teaches People How to Use E-Voting Systems on the Web

Government Technology

April 12, 2006 By News Staff
Yesterday, Pennsylvania kicked off an outreach effort to help voters use new electronic voting machines in the upcoming May 16th Primary Election. "Ready.Set.Vote." will give voters the opportunity to experience how new voting machines operate through weekly "cultural elections" on the Internet.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortés unveiled the campaign and showed how the Web site, www.votespa.com, works.

At the new Web site people can learn how the new voting machines work by casting a vote in one of five weekly "cultural elections." For example, visitors to the Web site will be asked: "What is your favorite movie ever made in Pennsylvania?" "Candidates" include Silence of the Lambs (Pittsburgh, 1990), Girl, Interrupted (Harrisburg, 1999), Rocky (Philadelphia, 1975), and Witness (Lancaster, 1984), as well as a spot for a write-in.

http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=99153