The Voting News Daily: Why ES&S-Diebold sale is wrong, Easier to cage voters in Florida? Feds to monitor Cleveland election
Voting machine monopoly cont’d: “ES&S Acquires Premier Election Solutions. This is just wrong on so many levels….All this (problems with ES&S) and we keep buying their machines and now ES&S is rewarded with a bigger market share.” Diebold stock surges as voting co sold at $45 million loss. “The sale represents the end of an embarrassing era for Diebold. “ Meanwhile, another reason to worry about an ES&S/Diebold consolidation: Vanderburgh Co is ditching ES&S service, says ES&S has been overcharging since 2003. “They made some money, yes, but they made a little too much money as far as I’m concerned. I think they took advantage.” Vanderburgh County Clerk Susan Kirk.
Florida’s election dept’s new voter roll rules may disenfranchise voters.
Madison CO KY switching to paper for 2010. Federal officials will monitor Cleveland Ohio’s election on Tuesday. Atlantic City NJ Mayoral candidate Marty Small and 13 of his campaign workers were indicted for several absentee ballot fraud schemes. In Pierce Co WA an Op/Ed “If poll voting dies, RCV could be partly responsible.” (precinct count scanners were decertified).
Corporate cash in campaigns? The oral arguments for the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission are set for Wednesday, September 9. Check out the website for “The Committee to Modernize Voter Registration” In Afghanistan the election results from nearly 450 polling places were set aside pending an investigation and Pres Karzai is moving closer to the 50% threshold. India sees more opposition to electronic voting.
AL. “Large chunks of Birmingham city council campaign cash untraceable”
The Birmingham News reports: Large chunks of campaign cash contributed to Birmingham City Council candidates are untraceable because the contributing political action committees haven’t filed either campaign disclosure forms or organizational papers, an apparent violation of Alabama’s Fair Campaign Practices Act.
In other cases, the source of the money that fueled city races can’t be determined because the cash was transferred among PACs before being given to candidates, a Birmingham News review of financial disclosure forms shows.
http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/006307.html
CA. Some Theorists Withhold Best-Voting-System Award
September 2, 2009 The Oscars is shaking up its voting system, though not in a way that most voting theorists applaud…The new system for best-picture voting is just like the procedure for selecting nominees. It’s called single transferable vote and is similar to an instant-runoff election. Voters will rank the 10 nominees from 1 to 10…“Some voters, by raising an alternative from last to first place, [could] cause it to lose — just the opposite effect of what one would want a voting system to induce,” Brams said. Also possible is the scenario in which “some voters, by actually voting as opposed to not showing up at the polls, hurt the alternatives they rank highest.” http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/some-theorists-withhold-best-voting-system-award-794/
FL. The Florida Department of Elections proposes new rules that may make voter caging easier. The new rules address maintenance of voter registration rolls. If these rules are approved, it may be easier to wrongly purge legal voters from the rolls.You may read the rule at this link.