NMelections

Casting doubt on a voting plan

Link: Casting doubt on a voting plan.

Seventy-two days from now, when an estimated 122 million Americans will vote for our next President, nearly every crucial part of Election Day machinery - from the operation of the machines to the clarity of the ballot choices - will be, in many places, a confusing mess. The coming chaos is a testament to the indifference with which so many treat the yawning cracks in the foundation of our democracy. Consider this your wakeup call. Just last week, following years of complaints, a company called Premier Election Solutions - a division of Diebold, Inc. - made the startling announcement that boards of elections in 34 states should be on the lookout for a software glitch that sometimes causes votes to be dropped from its machines. The problem caused at least 1,000 votes to vanish from the final tallies in nine Ohio counties since 2006 - including this year's presidential primary. That's consistent with a report I wrote about last year, in which Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Bruni concluded that machine flaws meant that "the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet with a digital assistant."

Indiana ID law keeps nuns from voting - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Link: Indiana ID law keeps nuns from voting - SantaFeNewMexican.com.

WASHINGTON — At least 10 retired nuns in South Bend, Ind., were barred from voting in Tuesday's Indiana Democratic primary election because they lacked photo IDs required under a state law that the Supreme Court upheld last week.

John Borkowski, a South Bend lawyer volunteering as an election watchdog for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said several of the retired nuns had been voting all of their lives but were told they lacked the required identification cards and could only file provisional ballots.

Since 2005, Indiana's toughest-in-the-nation law requires every voter to produce a state or federal photo ID card. The Supreme Court, after weighing scores of legal briefs from conservatives who backed the statute and liberals who opposed it, upheld the law by a 6-3 vote, saying there was little evidence that it was unduly burdensome for voters.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Report on ES&S Unity Voting System Accessibility Issues

Executive Summary

The ES&S Unity 3.0.1.1 Voting System is generally accessible by a broad range

of voters with disabilities; however, there are several concerns about its

performance in certain areas and for voters with certain combinations of

disabilities.

In some cases, these accessibility or usability concerns could be partially or

wholly mitigated. Some of these mitigations would not require new federal and

state certification testing. Much mitigation would depend on poll worker

assistance and customization.

unity_3011_accessibility.pdf

California Reviewed ES&S Source Code for ES&S Unity Software

ES&S Unity 3.0.1.1

Source Code Review

for

California Secretary of State

Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment

February 15th, 2008

unity_3011_source_code.pdf

NH Recount Uncovers Discrepancies -- Result of Human Error Officials Say | Threat Level from Wired.com

Link: NH Recount Uncovers Discrepancies -- Result of Human Error Officials Say | Threat Level from Wired.com.

A recount of the New Hampshire Democratic primary is underway in two counties in that state, and already the internet is abuzz over initial figures that show some clear discrepancies on optical-scan ballots cast in two polling locations in Hillsborough County, though officials say the discrepancies are the result of human error rather than machine error. As you recall, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich and Republican presidential candidate Albert Howard asked the state to recount the primary ballots after a blogger posted a chart showing that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama received more votes than Hillary Clinton in regions where officials counted the paper ballots by hand than in regions where they were counted by optical-scan machines made by Diebold Election Systems and that Republican presidential candidate John McCain also received more votes than Mitt Romney in hand-counted districts over machine-counted ones. The implication was that Clinton and Romney somehow benefitted from the optical-scan machines.

Database glitch may hurt early vote in Texas

Star-Telegram.com | 04/28/2007 | Database glitch may hurt early vote:
County election officials statewide are braced for trouble next week because a new state database has not provided updated voter rolls for many polling places, and early voting begins Monday for the May 12 election.

Counties statewide have been struggling with the Texas Elections Administration Management system, or TEAM, since the state required them to switch to the system this year.

Smaller counties are particularly affected because the Web-based TEAM system has not provided some of the updated voter registration lists that counties normally distribute to every voting location, according to Scott Haywood, spokesman for Secretary of State Roger Williams' office.

Georgia and New Mexico Voting Systems Protected on Eve of 2006 Elections - Oct 25, 2006

Link: Georgia and New Mexico Voting Systems Protected on Eve of 2006 Elections - Oct 25, 2006.

Trusted Network Technologies, Inc. (TNT) is safeguarding Georgia's and New Mexico's voter registration systems from external hackers and unauthorized state and county electoral staff as part of the states' compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.