The Voting News Daily: Maryland paper ballots on track, saving the Military vote, Open Source Momentum
U.S. House Passes Military and Overseas Voter Act…Verified Voting comments on voting system guidelines…Disenfranchised prisoners used to gerrymander districts… Maryland’s new voting machines on track…Post election audits proposed for Massachusetts…Minneapolis explains ranked choice voting process…New York’s 23rd Absentee ballots missing Congress candidates..Voting glitch in Franklin Co Tenn…Courts best resort for Tennessee paper ballot law?….Should Judicial Elections Be Abolished?…Verified Voting Oct 09 Newsletter…
AL. Defeated primary candidate claims election fraud
October 08, 2009 MONTGOMERY — A candidate for the state House of Representatives who lost a primary election last month by margin of 80 percent to 20 percent has asked officials to investigate what he contends was a conspiracy to steal the election.
Ozelle Hubert sent letters alleging election fraud to everyone from Clarke County’s probate judge to the president of the United States.
http://www.al.com/news/press-register/metro.ssf?/base/news/1254993347186020.xml&coll=3
CA. Pelosi Adds Voice to Open Source Voting Systems Momentum
“Everywhere I go, no matter what else people have to say, they ultimately ask one question: ‘Why should we work our hearts out if the fix is already in?’” Pelosi said during a keynote speech at a fundraiser last week held to benefit Open Voting Consortium (OVC). “When we look at the elections and look at how close everything is, you know that there’s something happening in that machine that we need to know about.”…momentum is now building to replace proprietary systems with open source systems. Los Angeles County is OVC’s most promising prospect and is considering using OVC’s system by 2012, he said.
http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/2009/10/07/pelosi-adds-voice-to-open-source-voting-systems-momentum/
http://www.openvoting.org/our_solution
CA. Mistake delays mailing of county’s absentee ballots *
Posted: 10/08/2009 A mistake in the Humboldt County Elections Office has officials scurrying to re-send some of the county’s sample ballots and to get absentee ballots in the mail in advance of the Nov. 3 election… Crnich said elections staff made the mistake of only listing candidates for the Eureka City Schools board race on sample and absentee ballots for voters in the city’s 1st Ward, when the board members are actually elected at large. ”We’re working with a brand new voter registration and elections management systems, and a brand new voting system, and we just built that one portion of the data base incorrectly,” Crnich said.
Crnich said her office will be sending Eureka voters new, clearly marked sample ballots on colored paper so they stand out.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_13512841
IA. The Prison Town Advantage
Inmates who can’t vote nevertheless add to the power of the politicians who don’t represent them.
October 08, 2009 …in Young’s Ward 2, fewer than 100 of those residents were eligible to run for the Council seat, or even to vote. That’s because the ward is dominated by Anamosa State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison where about 1,300 men are incarcerated…They are, however, counted by the U.S. Census Bureau for data used to draw congressional, state and municipal legislative districts…Counting disenfranchised prisoners to draw up legislative districts “makes no sense,” Wagner said, “and is actually offensive to our notion of democracy.”
It also bears, in the words of Boston-based voting rights attorney Brenda Wright, an “uncomfortable resemblance” to the “three-fifths” compromise between Southern and Northern states written into the U.S.