5/5 Glitches in IN,NC,OH,TX. Butler OH BoE website attacked. Internet voting risks

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Special cinco de mayo "glitch" edition.

Glitches in IN,NC,OH,TX. Butler OH BoE website attacked. Internet voting risks

May 5 2010

Sending voted ballots over the public Internet “is in a security class by itself,” ...and these ballots are vulnerable to attacks from a wide range of individuals, organizations, and even governments." ~ Verified Voting Comments to EAC on i-voting pilots...Arizona mailer gives 27K voters wrong polling place... Voting machine probs in NC, IN, OH, TX - some mitigated by paper ballots....Should US vote by mail? ...Corp Candidate for Congress voter reg rejected twice...

All this and more in todays voting news below...

AR: The Looming Election: Is Arkansas Ready???
http://bluearkansasblog.com/?p=2300
The election is already taking place. Already, turnout has been big. And some problems are already appearing.

AZ: State mailing directs some voters to wrong polling place*(May 18 spec election)
Error affects 27,000 local voters; corrective postcard mailed this week
http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=80703
State mailers told approximately 27,000 registered voters in Yavapai County to go to incorrect polling places for the May 18 election.
...
The error, made by a third-party contractor used by the state, impacts 39 percent of all county households

CA: Los Angeles Ponders Instant-Runoff Voting
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/05/04/los-angeles-ponders-instant-runoff-voting/

CA: Schwarzenegger May Disenfranchise Thousands of Overseas Troops with Early Special Election Date
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7825

CA: SLO County supervisors take Schwarzenegger, Maldonado to task over special election (San Luis Obispo County)
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/05/04/1127958/slo-county-supervisors-take-schwarzenegger.html In a blistering rebuke, the county Board of Supervisors ripped into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado on Tuesday for neglecting taxpayers and county workers by backing a special election that could cost $3 million.
...
Supervisors said Schwarzenegger could have called the special primary in early fall and scheduled the runoff to coincide with the Nov. 2 election.

CO: Aspen - Both transparency and trustworthy elections are required. There can be no tradeoff.
http://coloradovotergroup.blogspot.com/2010/05/aspen-both-transparency-and-trustworthy.html "Aspen officials have admittedly violated the law. They created and operated an election system that does not provide for anonymous ballots." Al Kolwicz, Colorado Voter Group

CT: Connecticut Secretary of State Wins Qualifications Lawsuit
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/05/05/connecticut-secretary-of-state-wins-qualifications-lawsuit/

CT: Book Review: The Death and Life of American Journalism
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=3151 Part of the reason there has been so little improvement in our election laws is the lack of demonstrated public interest

IN: Voter turnout light in Vigo County* (ES&S iVotronic no paper)
http://tribstar.com/news/x500180624/Voter-turnout-light-in-Vigo-County
...The final tally of ballots changed nearly five hours after the polls closed, when the clerk’s office realized ballots cast by touch screen, used by handicapped voters, had not be counted.
...
Tabulation of 87 voting precincts was progressing speedily with all but six precincts counted as of about 6:40 p.m. Tuesday, then delays slowed the final tabulation, ending at 8:40 p.m. The six precincts had technical problems and were unable to send in results over computer lines.

The final precinct — Honey Creek E at Dixie Bee Elementary — experienced such a problem; however, poll workers left a computer card in a voting machine, forcing them to drive back to the poll, then back to the county courthouse for a final tabulation, Mansard said.

The Democratic Party race for prosecutor was by far the closest contest, with final numbers fluctuating as “remake” ballots were counted. Those ballots were damaged, such as a bent corner, and would not go through a voting machine at the poll site.

...There were 27 remake votes, according to the clerk’s office.

IN: Voting underway despite early hiccup* (Vanderburgh CO.ES&S iVotronic no paper)
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=12420376
...at about five polling places, voting machines were delivered just minutes before polls opened.

At Culver Elementary School, voting in the primary election was delayed by about 40 minutes. Poll workers told us they had just gotten those machines.
...
Kirk says there was a scramble yesterday to get machines delivered and her biggest concern was that in the chaos, some of them went to the wrong places.

"Being that we have several different ballots depending on where you live, they could have voted for the wrong people," Kirk said. "Let's put it this way... I don't want to think about figuring all that out. That would be a mess."

IN: Several polls open late in Marion County * (Video available)
http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-election-day-problems-050410,0,6098360.story
Several problems at the polls have been reported in Marion County Tuesday morning. However, the Marion County Clerk's Office said the issues were what they expected: inspectors not arriving, missing basic supplies, having trouble setting up machines.

KY: Election affected by flood
http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2010/05/05/news/news6.txt Warren County Clerk Dot Owens said she believes all 64 handicapped-accesible voting machines have been lost to the flooding at Basil Griffin Park, where voting machines were stored in an office.

KY: Campbell to buy protective sleeves for ballots
http://cincinnati.com/blogs/nkypolitics/2010/05/04/campbell-to-buy-protective-sleeves-for-ballots/ At the urging of new County Board of Elections member Tim Nolan, Campbell County will drop $1,100 on cardboard sleeves for voters to use when carrying their completed ballots to the voting machine, the Campbell County Recorder reports.

MA: Mendon election may wait until November
http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x1195010626/Mendon-selectman-election-may-wait-until-November

MD: Corporate Candidate for Congress Blasts "Anti-Corporate Bigotry" in Voter Registration Rejection by Maryland Board of Elections
http://murrayhillincforcongress.blogspot.com/2010/05/voter-registration-release.html
the Maryland Board of Elections again defied the Supreme Court and rejected Murray Hill Inc.'s voter registration for the second time.

NC: Primary election marked by low turnout and equipment glitches* (ES&S iVotronic with VVPAT and M100s)
http://www.newbernsj.com/news/primary-87190-election-turnout.html
(Craven County). ... a broken tabulator for Grantham 2-B,
...“The judges announced they are moving ballots from the emergency bin to count,”
...
When the first results rolled into the elections office from George Street Precinct about 8 p.m., it came with an equipment malfunction that required the board to run the ballots through a tabulator

NC: Glitch to blame for election results delay*(Davidson Co ES&S iVotronic w/RTAL)
http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20100505/ARTICLES/100509950/1005
“For some reason the computer sent the early voting and absentee numbers in the provisional ballot cube rather than the absentee cube.”

NE: Clerk clears up election protocol
http://www.yorknewstimes.com/articles/2010/05/05/
news/doc4be0dc975c5de730935355.txt http://bit.ly/aLetNw
"...no electioneering may be conducted within 200 feet of a polling place or building,”

OH: Butler County, OH, Election Website Servers 'Under Attack' on Primary Night, Says Elections Director http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7823

OH: County election website ‘under attack,’ director says
http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/election/county-election-website-under-attack-director-says-686922.html
“Our IT is saying this is being done deliberately,”

OH: 'Deliberate attack' on Butler elex website
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100504/NEWS0108/
305040072/+Deliberate+attack++on+Butler+elex+website
http://bit.ly/9wFjqk “It appears right now with the info we have that there are two traffic sites that are directed at our Board of Elections web site

OH: Website hacked, election officials say
http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/election/website-hacked-election-officials-say-687529.html The Butler County Sheriff’s Office to decide if criminal acts were involved with disruption.

OH: Cleveland polling station loses power; voter turnout low in several counties *
http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/
2010/05/voter_turnout_remains_light_in.html http://bit.ly/cE3AIa
(Cuyahoga Co DS200 optical scan) ...Platten said a damaged transformer caused a power outage at Patrick Henry Middle School in Cleveland's 9th ward earlier this afternoon.
People continued to vote on the machines for some time because they had back up battery power. Election workers have since taken a generator to the school.
...
...workers also replaced voting machines in Warrensville Heights and Cleveland after the screens on the machines froze.

(Summit County) ...they have had problems with around a dozen voting machines that range from memory cards not functioning properly to paper jams, but none of the issues caused major problems.

OH: More ballots required Tuesday
http://www.wnewsj.com/main.asp?SectionID=49&SubSectionID=156&ArticleID=183873
High voter turnout for Tuesday’s primary elections caused problems for several Clinton County precincts, some of which had to print more ballots to accommodate the crowds, officials said.

OH: Web posting of vote stirs ethics storm
Executive's ballot may have been compromised
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100504/NEWS16/100509864/0/SPORTS09

OH; Controversy erupts over Facebook posting by elections' board employee
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100504/NEWS16/100509864/0/SPORTS09 (updated)...Joseph Lorenzo Hall, a researcher at the UC Berkeley School of Information who participated in two studies on voting machine security in 2007, said it is possible for someone to crack open the sealed voter tape, although it would require deliberate tampering. He said the canisters that protects the tapes on the ES&S machines used by Lucas County are quite flimsy.

OH: Kudos to Cuyahoga
http://www.trustthevote.org/kudos-to-cuyahoga
the Cuyahoga BOE disclosed to the public exactly the problems that they encountered, the scope of the problems, and the possible effect on the election that will be conducted with machines that they tested.

OR: Washington County primary election ballot flawed*
http://blog.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/2010/05/
washington_county_primary_elec.html http://bit.ly/a7AKj1
...First, there is one error on the ballot, plus a stuffing problem. The ballot error is minor, and it is one that the county already acknowledges as of Tuesday. That error is that they list Judge Kohl as up for election for position 2, when in fact he holds position 1. No real problem as position 2 is not up for election and Kohl is unopposed.

Same with the last minor issue, which is some people received more than one precinct committeeperson ballot. The county already knows this, and only one will get counted, so another minor issue that has no effect, but makes the Elections Division look bad.

OR: Oregon senators lead effort to spread vote-by-mail
http://www.clackamasreview.com/news/story.php?story_id=127299588419535000
Proposed legislation would make it easier for states to create mail ballot system
...
Senators introducing the new legislation – all Democrats – were John Kerry of Massachussetts, Thomas Carper of Delaware, Maria Cantwell of Washington and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

SD: Election to feature sit-down voting (Dawes County)
http://www.thechadronnews.com/articles/2010/05/04/
chadron/brief/doc4be064216e2ba541843559.txt http://bit.ly/bimLl0

TX: Coding error allowed District 5 voter to cast vote in District 1* (Boerne)
http://boernestar.com/articles/2010/05/04/news/doc4be0d8dfdc4c4758831220.txt
After casting a vote on an electronic voting machine at the early voting station in the court house Zartler said the voter mentioned to election officials that the name of the candidate the voter wanted to vote for was not on the ballot. That prompted the officials to check further and discover a coding error, Zartler said.

TX: Local candidate files suit against election officials* (Hill County)
http://www.kxxv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12426427
Westmoreland was first told he won the spot for Justice of Peace in Hill County. Then, the next day, he was told he lost by seven votes to Brad Henley. Westmoreland says something is just not right.
...
He is talking about extra ballots that were reportedly not scanned in when they announced Westmoreland as the winner. Also, a miscount of handwritten ballots that were reportedly never turned in.

TX: Claims of voter fraud in Alton * (Hidalgo County)
http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=452787
Twenty-four individuals were registered at candidate Jose Picasso's home, who's a candidate for Mayor.

Eight others were registered at candidate Vidal Farias' home


National

Verified Voting Newsletter, Issue 6 May 05, 2010
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6760
The latest election integrity news from the team at Verified Voting

Legislation introduced to expand Vote by Mail process (for all of US)
http://www.wgmd.com/?p=3648

How to Trust a Voting Machine
http://www.trustthevote.org/how-to-trust-a-voting-machine
guest post is from election technology expert Doug Jones

Defend Democracy - Make Companies Disclose Political Spending
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-de-blasio/defend-democracy---make-c_b_565209.html

Internet Voting Watch

Verified Voting Comments to EAC on Internet Voting Pilots
http://blog.verifiedvoting.org/2010/05/05/442

E-mail Voting, Complexity, and Trust
http://www.trustthevote.org/e-mail-voting-complexity-and-trust
Is email voting really that bad? Sure, emailed ballots can be snooped, tampered, or diverted en route, but so can paper vote-by-mail ballots – yet we still use them. So what, specifically, is so much worse about emailed ballots?

More thoughts on email voting
http://www.trustthevote.org/more-thoughts-on-email-voting
...it’s worth asking whether using the Internet makes voting immediately riskier than the model we all know
...
it’s just much more difficult to do bad things to ballots on route if their route uses atoms (paper, trucks, aircraft) rather than bits (files, email messages, protocols.)

Elections and the Internet: What’s Helpful, and What’s Not
http://www.trustthevote.org/elections-and-the-internet-whats-helpful-and-whats-not
There is some interesting recent “Internet Voting” news from North Carolina and Georgia.

Canada: Two more votes for E-vote (its Intelivote Internet Voting again)
Arnprior, McNab-Braeside embrace new technology for Oct. 25 vote
http://www.yourottawaregion.com/news/local/article/811773--two-more-votes-for-e-vote

SCOTT CHARNEY – DECONSTRUCTING CYBER THREAT
http://blogs.technet.com/security/archive/2010/05/03/scott-charney-deconstructing-cyber-threat.aspx
Cyber Warfare: Cyber warfare is a particularly difficult area, because the Internet is a shared domain and it’s difficult to separate military and civilian targets.

International

Canada: VOTER ID LAW UPHELD BY SUPREME COURT....OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/015898.html

Nigeria: Reps reject Option A4, electronic voting
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/article01/050510?pdate=050510&ptitle=Reps%20reject%20Option%20A4,%20electronic%20voting
Section 54 (1) stated that voting at an election under this Act shall be by Open Secret Ballot, adding that the use of electronic voting machine for the time being is prohibited.

Philippines: Philippines to hold vote Monday, despite glitch
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/05/2728275/philippines-to-hold-vote-monday.html
Presidential elections will proceed next week as scheduled and a voting machine supplier has promised to correct defects that had sparked fears of chaotic failure in the Philippines' first automated vote, officials said Wednesday.

UK: The rules on postal voting must be changed
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100037883/the-rules-on-postal-voting-must-be-changed/ ...For 10 years, ministers have made voting progressively more convenient. They have widened the use of postal votes, and experimented with telephone votes and e-votes. They have placed polling stations in supermarkets. They have sought to enfranchise felons, lunatics, foreigners, 16-year-olds and even clergymen. Yet the only people whom they have succeeded in encouraging are fraudsters.

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