The Voting News Daily: $100 a vote in KY fraud case, Jeers to ES&S, Pushing e-voting in Ireland
ES&S charged Vanderburg Co IN $120 for carboard boxes containing tape, forms, rubber bands and pens – Election workers could make this same “kit” for $1.00 each. Kinston City Council NC candidate offers hotdogs and handshakes to lure early voters.
A Illinois elections clerk writes: “A Dangerous Proposal for Voter Registration.” In Kentucky, a guilty plea coming for old fashioned vote-buying case using 75 counter checks written out for $100.00 each. Will Justice Roberts “legislate” from the bench in Citizens United vs FEC? ACORN dropped by Census bureau.
Time to read between the lines? Ireland is still paying €800,000 a year to store e-voting machines deemed insecure, having spent €54.5m on the machines already. It would cost €28 million more to make the machines usable. So here comes a flurry of op/eds in Irish media supporting promoting e-voting and condemning Ireland’s current system of hand counting ballots.
“Automated elections in the Philippines next year could fail due to potential threats from hackers and other technical vulnerabilities” according to officials and IT experts.
IL. A Dangerous Proposal for Voter Registration
Published by Champaign County Clerk under Elections
…Accurate voter registration rolls that reduce the burden for voters on election day are worth the efforts made by election officials.
Spend a week in our office and see how registrations are processed. You’ll see hundreds of forms that require decisions from trained staff in order to get the registration done correctly. Quite simply, no computer program can be created that can substitute for the sound and experienced judgement of election administration staff…To the third, I’d say that the Committee is attacking a symptom of a greater problem. There is no lack of registration opportunities for people…A system that reduces voter control, which this proposal clearly does, is a system that will reduce confidence and increase cynicism.
http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2009/09/11/a-dangerous-proposal-for-voter-registration/
IN. Cheers, Jeers and Tears
September 12, 2009
jeers go this week to an old and extremely bothersome issue with Election Systems & Software, the company that manufactured and serviced the county’s electronic voting system. The county is contesting some $112,000 it says the company owes it. One of the items on that list is $38,019 for precinct kits. The company charged Vanderburgh County about $120 each for these kits, supposedly designed to meet workers’ needs at voting precincts. The kits consisted of cardboard boxes containing Scotch tape, paper election forms, rubber bands and pens. Local election workers found they could make their own for about $1 each.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/sep/12/cheers-jeers-and-tears-early-voting-is-on/
KY. Guilty plea coming in vote-buying case
The former judge-executive of Perry County plans to plead guilty in a federal vote-buying case
Neace, 68, and Chester Jones, 65, another longtime county official, are charged with using $7,500 from the state Democratic Party to buy votes for themselves last November.
..According to the indictment, the state Democratic Party sent the local Democratic Party Executive Committee $7,500 to use in promoting voting. Jones was chairman of the local party executive committee.
Jones allegedly went to the bank where the party had its account and got 75 blank counter checks and filled them out for $100 apiece, leaving the payee line blank, the indictment said.