Election Reform & Related News, Friday 3/9/07 AVI RUBIN: 'After Four Years of Study

[rumpel]

BradBlog

I Now Believe that a DRE (touch-screen) with a VVPAT (paper-trail) is Not a Reasonable Voting System'I Now Believe that a DRE (touch-screen) with a VVPAT (paper-trail) is Not a Reasonable Voting System'

Johns Hopkins Professor, E-Voting Security Expert Goes on Record Against Electronic Ballots at Congressional Hearings on Election Integrity...

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 3/9/2007 9:35AM

Finally, I was asked if I thought that a DRE with a paper trail was an adequate voting system. I replied that when I first studied the Diebold DRE in 2003, I felt that a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) provided enough assurance. But, I continued, after four years of studying the issue, I now believe that a DRE with a VVPAT is not a reasonable voting system. The only system that I know of that achieves software independence as defined by NIST, is economically viable and readily available is paper ballots with ballot marking machines for accessibility and precinct optical scanners for counting - coupled with random audits. That is how we should be conducting elections in the US, in my opinion.


http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4242

http://avi-rubin.blogspot.com/2007/03/todays-congressional-hearing.html



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[rumpel]

1. TN: Bill would ban political activity by elections officials

WKRN Channel 2

March 9, 2007, 2:31 pm



NASHVILLE, Tenn.

Election commissioners would be barred from engaging in political activity under a bill introduced in the state Legislature.

The bill would forbid members of the State Election Commission or any of the 95 county election commissions from publicly endorsing a candidate or from becoming involved in the management or leadership of a campaign.

Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, is the House sponsor of the measure. He delayed consideration of the bill in a subcommittee of the State and Local Government Committee earlier this week.

Dunn said he supports the bill because of concerns about potential conflicts of...
...interest.

http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/ap-bill-would-ban-political-activity-by-elections-officials/82332.htm

[rumpel]

2. PA: County wants to keep voting machines in schools

Friday, March 09, 2007
By SARAH CASSI
The Express-Times

EASTON | Northampton County voter registration officials are trying to work with school districts that want polls moved out of schools.

The Easton Area School District has not returned its contract allowing polling locations in Forks, Palmer and Tracy elementary schools, said Chief Registrar Deborah DePaul. Easton schools are open on Election Day.

The Bethlehem Area School District returned its contract but wants county officials to move voting booths out of Hanover Elementary. Bethlehem has 10 schools used as polling sites, and schools are open on Election Day.

County officials have said state law allows the county to use school buildings as voting sites.

At an election commission meeting Thursday, DePaul said the districts are requesting the moves because of safety concerns.

DePaul said she's begun discussions with Easton officials to work on a solution.

http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1173416879288770.xml&coll=2

[rumpel]

3. CA: Voter Apathy Stikes McFarland Election

KERO 23 (ABC)

Only 22 Percent Vote In Election; Results Still Muddled

POSTED: 10:14 am PST March 9, 2007
UPDATED: 11:05 am PST March 9, 2007

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Of the 2,500 registered voters in McFarland far less than a quarter exercised their civic muscle this past Tuesday.

ABC23 tried to ask voters Friday how they felt about the delayed election results, but quickly discovered the biggest challenge came in finding someone who voted.

City manager Gerald Forde estimated McFarland has a population of 12,000, but only 555 residents bothered to cast a ballot in the election.

Despite the small number of votes the results have been a big problem for the city.

Forde said "The unofficial results have been tallied and the city is trying to resolve the discrepancies between the machine tabulations and the hand count."

http://www.turnto23.com/news/11213386/detail.html

[rumpel]

4. OH: Election officials probe complaints about touch screens

The Beacon Journal
Posted on Fri, Mar. 09, 2007

Associated Press

DAYTON, Ohio - The county board of elections is investigating complaints from 20 voters who say their votes were not registered properly on touch-screen electronic voting machines during the November election, officials said Friday.

Elections officials are trying to duplicate what happened on the machines to determine whether the machines, made by Diebold Inc., were not calibrated properly or there was another problem, said Steve Harsman, director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections. Diebold said the problem was not with the machines.

Harsman said in virtually each of the 20 instances, the voters noticed that their votes were not recorded properly and went back and corrected them before casting their ballots.

"I'm not overly concerned at this stage," Harsman said. "I still have full confidence in the system."

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/16870205.htm

[Land Shark]

13. more coverage of this same story at

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/03/09/ddn030907voting.html

Both news stories fail to point out that "touch screen calibration fraud" is a known method of attack on touch screens, with the added benefit of looking like it could be natural. But here again, happens to only shake loose those Democratic votes and make them flip to Republican but not the other way around.

[rumpel]

5. NM: Misread ballots force election hand-count

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Talk about lost in translation.

City officials are blaming an error in Tuesday's elections that may have affected the outcome of at least one race and a minimum wage proposal on a ballot question that was improperly translated to Spanish. Starting this morning, they'll be recounting some of the ballots by hand to find the votes the machines missed.

According to City Clerk Patricia Holland, Question 1, which proposed raising the local minimum wage to $7.50 an hour, did not include the dollar figure in its Spanish version. The city caught the problem before Tuesday, and ordered new ballots. But no one realized that the change had shifted the position of the ovals people were required to fill in to vote for or against the question. And because the machines the city was using to scan the ballots weren't reprogrammed to detect the new position of the ovals, they weren't counted.

City Attorney George Kozeliski said the change in Question 1 also shifted the ovals in the race for municipal judge, between incumbent Linda Padilla and challenger Anthony Dimas. According to Tuesday's unofficial count, Padilla received 1,702 votes to Dimas' 1,507. But because of the shift, Kozeliski said, some of the votes for Padilla could have been counted for Dimas and vice versa.

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/march/030807zp_misreadballots.html

[rumpel]

6. ‘Scorecard’ to aid election reform

New Haven Register

Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor
03/09/2007

-NEW HAVEN — Thousands of uncounted ballots, a 10-hour wait to vote and voter registrations rejected because the paper was the wrong weight.

Those were some of the more egregious examples of a broken election process in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

But for reformers who study the nuts and bolts of the system, the problems aren’t restricted to a handful of states and the harm of allowing unfair elections to continue goes to the heart of our democracy.

"Our election system is in bad shape," said Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale University and an expert on the issue who runs the Tobin Project, which connects academics with lawmakers looking to address problems.

One solution to tamping down fraud, Gerken said, is to set up a "Democracy Index," a data-driven review that would detail how well each state runs elections.

She compares it to college and university rankings published by U.S. News and World Report, which she said is an influential index simply because no one wants to be at the bottom.

Politicians, Gerken said, continue to be the main obstacle to voting reform, but this system readjusts their self-interest with the interest of the voter.

http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18058528&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7576&rfi=6

[rumpel]

7. CT: Out with the old — Lever voting booths scrap heap bound

Online Wilton Villager

By AUDREY ADADE

WILTON— Wilton is bidding farewell to its old lever voting machines and replacing them with new mechanical LHS optical machines.

The town is currently working to get rid of the 40 year old lever machines, said Gardner. The Secretary of State made the decision to switch to optical scan machines after a federal law was inacted outlawing the use of lever machines by January 2006.

The federal government provided an extension since the date was not met by states including Connecticut. Thereafter, the state of Connecticut began working with the Department of Justice, since it did not meet the date, Gardner added.

The fate of the old voting machines is left up to each town, according to Derreck Flap at the Secretary of the State of Connecticut. Towns can recycle them, sell them for scrap metal, or give them away, he said.

http://www.wiltonvillager.com/wilton_templates/wilton_story/288374444630778.php

[rumpel]

8. Election commission: Kucinich must repay public campaign funds

Examiner

The Associated Press
Mar 8, 2007 5:35 PM (20 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 614 of 19,613 articles


WASHINGTON - Three years ago, long after Sen. John Kerry had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, fellow Democrat Dennis Kucinich continued to campaign for the White House. Now, federal regulators say the Ohio congressman has to pay for his futile adventure.

The Federal Election Commission on Thursday said Kucinich, who is again running for president, must repay the government $135,518 in public matching funds that he spent after he had become ineligible to use them.

FEC auditors said Kucinich spent the money between March 4, 2004, and July 29, 2004, when Kerry was officially nominated. Candidates who receive less than 10 percent of the popular vote in two consecutive primaries lose their eligibility for money from the taxpayer financed presidential campaign fund.

http://www.examiner.com/a-608193~Election_commission__Kucinich_must_repay_public_campaign_funds.html

[rumpel]

9. PA: 54 counties may be poll-axed

Post Gazette

New federal standards could make most voting machines in Pa. obsolete after 1 year

Friday, March 09, 2007
By Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Nine counties in Pennsylvania have the type of optical scanner voting machines that easily will meet proposed new federal standards. Another 54 -- including Allegheny County -- will have to buy new machines or find a way to retrofit millions of dollars worth of equipment they bought just last year, according to VotePA, a voters' rights organization.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., has 198 co-sponsors of a bill to make additional changes to voting procedures as a follow to the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The changes would require that each voting machine have a paper trail using archival-quality paper so results can be verified, and that they be fully accessible to handicapped people.

The changes could be costly.

Last year, Congress made $3 billion available to help counties comply with HAVA. Mr. Holt's bill would provide another $300 million to upgrade or replace machines that wouldn't meet the proposed standards.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07068/768071-103.stm

[rumpel]

10. OpEd: 'Daily Voting News' For March 8, 2007

by JGideon


Tell A Friend

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

From the just released GAO report "ELECTIONS: All Levels of Government Are Needed to Address Electronic Voting System Challenges", "Election officials, computer security experts, citizen advocacy groups, and others have raised significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems, citing vague or incomplete standards, weak security controls, system design flaws, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and inadequate security testing, among other issues. These security and reliability concerns are legitimate and thus merit the combined and focused attention of federal, state, and local authorities responsible for election administration."...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_jgideon_070308__daily_voting_news__.htm

with lots of links to reports :)

[rumpel]

11. NY: Judge moves Port Chester voting-rights trial to May 21

Original publication: March 9, 2007)

U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson has changed the trial date in the Port Chester federal voting rights case to May 21 from April 16.

He also said he would decide "very quickly" on a petition to intervene, i.e., join the federal case, from Cesar Ruiz, whose complaint to the Justice Department triggered thel investigation into Hispanic voter disenfranchisement in the village.

Ruiz filed papers last week seeking to join the suit as a plaintiff.

Robinson last week halted the village's March 20 election for trustee. The U.S. Justice Department had asked for the injunction, saying the village's election system discriminates against Hispanic voters.

http://www.nynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/UPDATE/703090455

[rumpel]

12. MA: Failed talks remain riddle in voting case

Friday, March 09, 2007
By STEPHANIE BARRY
[e-mail]

SPRINGFIELD - Opposing sides in a federal voting rights trial are staying mum about the sticking points that thwarted settlement talks and thrust the plaintiffs and the city into a lengthy, taxpayer-financed court battle.

The trial - pitting civil rights groups and residents seeking a district-based City Council and School Committee against the city government - started on Tuesday in U.S. District Court. It is expected to last four weeks.

A lawyer for the city of Springfield said it already has paid roughly $200,000 to hire a voting rights expert and an outside lawyer since 2005. And the bill inevitably will grow.

Under the Voting Rights Act, lawyers for the plaintiffs are entitled to attorney fees if they win. But plaintiffs' lawyer Paul E. Nemser said money didn't drive the case to trial.

"It's about voting rights," said Nemser, a lawyer with Boston legal giant Goodwin Procter. That firm, along with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in Boston, is representing the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit claims that black and Latino candidates cannot compete in a citywide system that they say favors white candidates with greater connections and fund-raising clout.

http://www.masslive.com/chicopeeholyoke/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1173430056229640.xml&coll=1

[Land Shark]

14. UK: Lib Dem sentenced to 18 mos for conspiracy to rig 2004 elections

Now this is good news from the standpoint that a paper balloting system in the UK actually creates and leaves evidence that ALLOWS prosecutions to take place, for the most part quite unlike electronic systems.

(The voting system can AMPLIFY the ease of fraud exponentially but does not CREATE the motive to defraud in the first place) It is thus somewhat inaccurate to say "paper ballots have fraud too..." when it is elections that have fraud because of the stakes involved, and teh voting systems either amplify that, make it more difficult, and to varying degrees create evidence of the actual or attempted tampering...)

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/display.var.1249751.0.fraud_councillor_fails_in_appeal_bid.php

[BeFree]

15. Another one bites the dust

Rubin, like so many others, at first thought DREs were cool. Another one bites the dust!

And if you happen to be NOT on the east coast tonight. You can still catch the CBS show - "Numb3rs" I just caught the end of it. It was about stealing elections using DREs with a VVPAT. Seems the idea of stolen elections via computers is catching on and hitting the mainstream. Finally.

[rumpel]

16. It seems,

when congress takes up the issue, they have no choice but report.

Little by little....

[autorank]

18. So why would be believe his solutions now?

Just asking...

[BeFree]

19. Indeed

Wrong before; even wrong well after us little people had it figured out years ago. So what relevancy does he offer? Not much different than what he hung with for four long miserable years, eh?

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. Avi Rubin thought DREs were "cool"? in his own words...

I feel that accusing me of having supported DREs is like accusing Erin Brockovich of having supported water pollution. I have done nothing but argue and fight against DREs from day one. If you read my new book, Brave New Ballot (Random House, 2006), you will see that I have maintained a steady position on this all along.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.39.html

What he said was that he once thought DREs were acceptable as long as they incorporated a VVPAT, and now he doesn't think that.

With everything Rubin has done to investigate and to inform people about the security risks of DREs, it's a bit hard to figure this weird attempt to portray him as an irrelevant defender of the machines.

[rumpel]

17. TX: Election commission fines Doggett campaign $6,500 for aide's theft

Commission says congressman's campaign should have had tighter controls over its books.

By Tara Copp
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, March 09, 2007

WASHINGTON — In an unusual penalty, the Federal Election Commission has fined U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett's campaign $6,500 for five years of financial reports doctored by former staffer Kristi Willis, who admitted last year to stealing $168,000 from Doggett's campaign.

The Austin Democrat, who has paid the fine, questioned why the commission would punish his campaign when his campaign alerted the commission to the missing money as soon as it was discovered.

"It's a strange process that levies a fine against the person from whom money is stolen," Doggett said Friday.

Willis was well-known in Austin's Democratic circles and was a close friend of Doggett and his wife, Libby, when she confessed in January 2006 to stealing from the congressman and two other local campaigns. She also stole $17,000 from former Texas House Democratic candidate Andy Brown and $10,000 from the Capital Area Democratic Women.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/10/10doggett.html

strange process, indeed! rumpel's comment