6/21 SC invisible ballots. Canadian E-vote firm buys Sequoia. 'What IS my ballot, really?'

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SC invisible ballots. Canadian E-vote firm buys Sequoia. 'What IS my ballot, really?'

June 21 2010

Invisible ballots - Voting Without A Net In South Carolina -Alvin Greene's Controversial Senate Primary Upset Can't Be Checked Against Records That Don't Exist...On Heels of Diebold/Premier Purchase, Canadian E-Voting Firm Dominion Also Acquires Sequoia, Lies About Chavez-Ties in Announcement...A boost for Nassau's fight to keep lever voting machines...Texas vote fraud problem centers on absentee ballots...In "Dude, What Is My Ballot, Really?" John Sebes compares traditional voting to internet based voting...

All this and more in today's voting news below...

AL: Picture 100 lawyers talking recount
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4231506
MONTGOMERY -- In the curious world of politics, last week's Republican gubernatorial primary vote recount brought high drama to Tim James and Dr. Robert Bentley supporters.

To the political party chairmen, the issue underscored weaknesses in state law.

To other party observers, fuzzy or essentially absent state law on primary recounts brought out other thoughts

CA: Riverside County Registrar Barbara Dunmore rebuts critics on tally delay
Dunmore: Volume of ballots that require hand tally growing, but her budget is not
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20100620/NEWS0301/6200301/Registrar-rebuts-critics-on-tally-delay ...The registrar's office waited until about 5 p.m. the day after the June 8 primary to announce some 106,000 vote-by-mail and provisional ballots, representing about 44 percent of the vote, had yet to be counted.
...
Riverside County has six optical scanners, capable of counting 400 cards a minute, compared to 12 such scanners in neighboring San Bernardino County.

GA: New technology speeds up Lee County’s early voting
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/headlines/96772319.html?ref=319
Equipment purchased by the Lee Elections office simplifies paperwork required during the voting process. Carlton Fletcher, metro editor

KY: Two recounts, two different routes
http://cincinnati.com/blogs/nkypolitics/2010/06/19/two-recounts-two-different-routes/
The recounts conducted following the May 18 primaries in Boone and Campbell counties demonstrate a lack of consistency in the way the procedures may be conducted

NC: Counties spend significant sums on runoff elections
http://charlotte.news14.com/content/local_news/charlotte/627319/counties-spend-significant-sums-on-runoff-elections “One of the several things that the General Assembly is looking at is combining polling places,” Bartlett said.

NY: A boost for Nassau's fight to keep lever voting machines
http://www.newsday.com/columnists/rick-brand/a-boost-for-nassau-s-fight-to-keep-lever-voting-machines-1.2037844
(also at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/electionreform/message/13665 )
New York's old reliable lever voting machines, which lately seemed beyond life support, gasped new life last week.

That wheeze came in an arcane federal court ruling which, on the surface, dealt with jurisdictional issues, but it left the door ajar for Nassau County's lawsuit to keep using 2,000 lever workhorses, employed without taint for a century.

SC: Voting Without A Net In South Carolina
Alvin Greene's Controversial Senate Primary Upset Can't Be Checked Against Records That Don't Exist http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/rulesofthegame.php
..."There is no state more representative of the need for a verifiable standard for nationwide systems than South Carolina," said Sean Flaherty, a policy analyst for the California-based advocacy group Verified Voting.

The brand of voting machine that South Carolina voters use -- the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machine -- has proved particularly controversial. Election law blogger Brad Friedman has reported numerous instances of ES&S machines allegedly causing votes to disappear, to flip to the wrong candidate and to produce electronic results that didn't match with paper trails.

SC: Mystery Candidate in S.C. (CBS News Video)
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6599169n
Alvin Greene seemingly came out of nowhere to win the Democratic primary for senator in South Carolina, and party leaders don't know how he did it. Jay Dow report report


SC: Elections Official Says System Is Secure
Defeated Candidate’s Complaints About Machine Not Widespread, Official Says
http://www.wyff4.com/news/23956296/detail.html ...Rawl had argued that a potential glitch could have occurred while programming the software. Because most of the county’s machines are programmed in Columbia, a problem could have resulted statewide, Rawl said.

TX: TX Sec of State puts proposed rules for Military and Overseas voting out for comment. Comments due July 3
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/about/newsreleases/2010/061410.shtml

TX: Voter ID should not be a priority - Express-News Editorial Board
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/Voter_ID_should_not
_be_a_priority_96685039.html http://is.gd/cYkJZ The state’s voter fraud problem is small and centers on mail-in ballots anyway, not picture identification.

National

EXCLUSIVE: On Heels of Diebold/Premier Purchase, Canadian E-Voting Firm Dominion Also Acquires Sequoia, Lies About Chavez-Ties in Announcement
'Intellectual Property' of voting systems still owned by firm linked to Venezuelan President, despite press statement to the contrary
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7906
PLUS: The election official/e-voting company revolving 'oversight' door continues to turn.

Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2008
http://nonprofitvote.blogspot.com/2010/06/voting-and-registration-in-election-of.html
A new report on voter turnout in the 2008 election from the Census Bureau, based on updated data, mostly confirms previous analysis that:

Internet Voting Watch

US: Are you interested in more techonology for the absentee voting process? If so, you may want to be a part of the Workshop on UOCAVA Remote Voting Systems - http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/uocava_workshop_aug2010.cfm

Dude, What Is My Ballot, Really? (Part 2 of 2: What’s My Ballot?)
http://www.trustthevote.org/dude-what-is-my-ballot-really Today, I’m continuing on from a recent post, which compared my in-person voting experience with one method of Internet-based voting: return of marked ballots by fax or email. Next up is a similar comparison with another form of Internet-based voting: Internet voting from home using a PC’s Web browser.

UK: Calls for online voting to end discrimination against disabled
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/equality/calls-for-online-voting-to-end-discrimination-against-disabled-$21380245.htm A charity is urging the government to introduce online voting after disabled people experienced difficulties casting their ballot at the recent general election.
Disability charity Scope described reform of the voting system as "critical" to ensure disabled people are able to exercise their electoral rights

International

Colombia: This Candidate Doesn't Just Run - He Oversaw the Company Managing Elections http://huffpostfund.org/stories/2010/06/candidate-doesnt-just-run-he-oversaw-company-managing-elections Colombia Party Leader-Turned-Presidential Hopeful was Corporate Officer, Documents Show

India: HOW TO MAKE INDIAN EVMs SECURE
http://www.indianevm.com/blogs/?p=275

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