The Voting News Daily: A NO vote on certifying NY’s voting machines,TX polling place burglary, UT troops internet voting guinea pigs?

Still think internet voting is a great idea? The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has set up a bi-partisan taskforce on cybersecurity to evaluate potential online threats and provide recommendations for action to the US intelligence community….Although the US is struggling to prevent online threats, there’s a 50 state whack-a-mole agenda to promote internet voting/non secret ballots to our overseas troops. Next to drink the kool-aid: A Utah govt commission recommends Internet voting for military…Yesterday was the deadline to comment to the FCC about internet voting….

No decision on Citizens United for at least a month…Romania court orders recount of 138,000 void votes, Romanian spy chief questioned over election fraud…

The new voting systems do not meet New York’s standards for voting systems, says voting machine expert/activist Bo Lipari. Bo blogs today about being the only “no” vote on a NY citizens committee that makes recommendations on voting systems: “…the findings show that as of today, while the two voting systems have managed to meet most of the New York’s requirements, they have not yet met all of them, including some which to me, as a technologist, are important.” Meanwhile, Brad Friedman writes has a guest column at the Gouverneur Times titled “Officials Were Warned”…

Congratulations to Douglas W. Jones, associate professor of computer science at University of Iowa for his appointment to the EAC’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee…

All this and more in today’s voting news below…

CA: Longtime Vernon mayor, scion of ruling family, convicted of voter fraud *
December 4, 2009 A former mayor of Vernon and his wife were convicted today of voter fraud and conspiracy, capping a three-year legal saga that ended the family’s long grip on the tiny industrial city in southeast Los Angeles County.

Prosecutors accused Leonis and Dominica Malburg of engaging in an elaborate sham in which they pretended to reside in Vernon while they actually lived in a large home in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/longtime-vernon-mayor-scion-of-ruling-family-convicted-of-voter-fraud.html

FL: Pasco County supervisor of elections recruiting volunteer poll workers
Thursday, December 10, 2009. Pasco Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley is looking for volunteers who like to work with people and serve the community as poll workers. These volunteers help with the voting process in precincts across Pasco County on election days.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/pasco-county-supervisor-of-elections-recruiting-volunteer-poll-workers/1057733

IL: State Certification Has Election Officials Up Against a Wall
Champaign County Clerk I’ve written a couple times about the MOVE Act, a recently passed federal law that mandates among other items that election officials mail ballots to military and overseas voters at least 45 days in advance of the election.
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We’ve basically have a day to create, proof, and get the ballots out in time to meet the new federal standard. While the new law doesn’t apply to this particular election, it does highlight the practical difficulties that election officials will face in upcoming elections.
http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2009/12/11/state-certification-has-election-officials-up-against-a-wall/

IL: Unfunded mandate protested
Dec. 10, 2009 The Iroquois County Board on Tuesday approved a resolution recommended by board member John Dowling to protest “another unfunded mandate” from the state — this one the required equipping of voting machines with computer chips to let voters know they “under-voted.”

Verified Voting Blog: Polling Place Burglary Raises Specter of Fraud

The burglary at one of Houston's early voting locations (“Computers stolen at early polling location; Ballot board to check electronic voting machines for tampering,” Page B2, Tuesday) raises the specter of election fraud. Some computers were stolen, and as far as we know, the voting machines stored at Hester House were untouched. But if the burglars wanted to tamper with the election outcome, what could they have accomplished? In 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen put together a team to conduct a security analysis of the state's electronic voting systems. I was part of the team analyzing the Hart InterCivic voting system — the same type we use here in Harris County. Our report concluded that the Hart system has a wide variety of security flaws and that it can be attacked in a manner that makes it hard to detect and correct. We further concluded that these attacks can be carried out by a single individual without extensive effort and without long-term access to the equipment. Our results were corroborated by a follow-up study conducted by the Ohio secretary of state.

Did the Houston burglars tamper with the voting machines? I hope not. Could they have tampered with the voting machines? Absolutely. Could we determine if tampering had occurred? Only if we got lucky and found clearly incriminating evidence, such as the burglar's fingerprints near the connectors on the backs of the voting machines.

Verified Voting Blog: My Vote on NY Voting Machine Certification

During the week of December 7, 2009, the New York State Citizen Election Modernization Advisory Committee met and reviewed certification test data results from the state’s testing program, and to vote on recommending approval of the two voting systems to the four Commissioners of the State Board of Election. The Commissioners will vote on final certification at their December 15, 2009 meeting. On December 10, 2009, the Advisory Committee approved recommendation by a vote of 10 For and 1 Against. I was the only vote opposing the recommendation. Below is the statement I made prior to the committee vote.

I believe in New York State’s certification process. It is rightfully called the best in the nation. We have required vendors to conform to a higher standard than ever before, we have conducted extensive testing with independent oversight, and as a result we have a huge trove of data upon which we can base our decision on whether these new voting systems are ready to be certified. Just the fact that we even have this substantial set of test results against a large number of very specific standards is a credit to New York’s process. Arguably, we have more data available to us about these systems than has ever been made available to a public body such this Advisory Committee before. It is because of this comprehensive approach that we can even be talking about some of the test findings, which never would have been revealed in a typical voting system certification program.