The Voting News Daily: Just say no to Internet Voting, DoJ Voting Rights Fight Reboots, Absentee voting growth market for fraud?

DoJ Voting Rights Fight Reboots…LTE: Just say no to Internet Voting – “as a programmer, I must caution you. Not only do programmers make mistakes, some of them can be bought.” Lisa Pease, electronic voting activist…Hawaii lacks funds to send Rep. to Congress…“Absentee voting is the new growth market for election fraud,” said Richard Hayes-Phillips -responding to news of the Detroit recount…Vote Fraud charges in Independence Louisiana….Tennessee is Poised to Move Backwards Again due SB0872 – the bill that if passed would delay implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) until 2012…Overseas military will have to register again to get ballots this year…

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

CA: Party pays thousands to signature collector at center of past controversies
http://bit.ly/93aRti
…In 2006, Burkett’s firm was hit by voter-registration fraud allegations in Orange and San Bernardino counties.

Dozens of voters claimed their party affiliation had been switched to Republican without their knowledge by signature collectors working for Burkett.

HI: Hawaii lacks funds to send Rep. to Congress
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115825§ionid=3510203
A vote-by-mail special election scheduled for May 1 could only be held if the state collected the USD 925,000 it would cost. This is while a walk-in election would mean 1.2 million for the election office coffer.

IL: Election law angers county clerk (machines would beep)
http://bit.ly/4uUb8v
McHenry County Clerk Katherine Schultz has told the state that she will not comply with a controversial election “undervoting” law for the Feb. 2 primary.
…
Lake County’s voting machine software is able to accommodate the new law, County Clerk Willard Helander said. But she called the law flawed and unnecessary and said it could mislead people who chose not to vote for a statewide candidate to think that they made a mistake.

“[The General Assembly] didn’t seem to care if you skip voting for Congress, County Board or sheriff, so there’s no equal protection. It seems to be a very flawed law. It’s Illinois at work,” Helander said.

LA: Voter fraud charges causing change in Independence police dept.*
http://www.wwltv.com/news/Voter-fraud-charges-causing-change-in-Independence-police-dept-81182412.html
January 11, 2010 …Maurer was elected Police Chief in February 2008, but is now being charged in a Federal Bill of Information with illegally registering voters for that election.
…
“A number of people from the Town of Independence called and came in,” Tony Radosti, the Vice-President of the Metropolitan Crime Commission told Eyewitness News Monday. “They were telling us about people being registered to vote in the city who were not residents.”

MI: Voter fraud in Detroit?
http://bit.ly/8Ajkug
DETROIT — Former mayoral candidate Tom Barrow is waging a battle to expose what he and others call massive, historic election fraud in last November’s mayoral race. Over 51 percent of the votes cast were compromised, Barrow charges, including all 41,458 absentee ballots deemed unrecountable by the Wayne County Board of Canvassers last month.
…
BenDor said elections in counties across the state are rife with absentee voter fraud, insecure chains of custody of paper ballots, and other irregularities…

NY: First Look at NY’s New Electronic Voting Machines (video)
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/station/as-seen-on/First_Look_at_NY_s_New_Electronic_Voting_Machines_New_York.html

Verified Voting Blog: Justice Department Seeks to Block Merger of Voting Machine Vendors

According to an article in the New York Post a lawsuit is expected to be filed by the Department of Justice that would seek to block the already-completed merger of the nation's two largest voting-machine makers, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems). The article cites “a person close to the situation” that the DoJ lawsuit, “if successful, would effectively undo the merger of Diebold's Premier Elections Solutions with Election Systems & Software, a $5 million deal completed in September.”

Voting Blogs: OSDV Responds to FCC Inquiry about Internet Voting | OSDV

The OSDV Foundation and TrustTheVote Project are pleased to have an opportunity to provide comment on an increasingly vital aspect of broadband in the United States: its use in civic participation and the processes of democracy.  We encourage the Commission to develop a comprehensive national broadband plan that particularly includes a plan for the use of broadband infrastructure and services to advance civic participation. To the extent this Plan includes consideration of broadband infrastructure for election processes and services, we advise careful consideration of what the architecture for a broadband‐based voting system should look like and call upon experts and stakeholders to facilitate that understanding.

Clearly the digital age and increasingly mobile society can benefit from digital means for such civic participation services. However, the extent to which the challenges discussed herein can be adequately addressed remains unclear. However, any such Plan should consider the possibility that broadband infrastructure may be called upon in the future to support and sustain elections services in some capacity, whether strictly for back‐office functions or all the way out to ballot casting and counting services. We do not recommend reliance on home or personal broadband connected digital devices for citizen‐facing voting services for the foreseeable future or until such time as the challenges discussed herein are resolved to the satisfaction of the public.