The Voting News Daily: Md. needs to switch to paper ballots. A Decent Proposal – for voting machines

“if Maryland is truly concerned about election results that are not only verifiable but also available much more quickly on election night, we would move as quickly as possible to the optical scan voting system mandated in the law passed by the General Assembly in 2007.” ~ Rebecca Wilson, SAVEourVotes.org ..Shelby County Tennessee Election Commission, Democrats prepare for trial over voting irregularities…An Important New Proposal for Voting Machines – create a searchable national database of voting machine problems to be created and made available to the public.

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

AK: Murkowski’s Write-in Bid Could Test Alaska’s Dubious Diebold E-Voting System
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8078 The three-way race, along with Democratic candidate and Mayor of Sitka Scott McAdams, could prove to be a serious challenge for Alaska’s historically-dicey optical-scan voting system made by Diebold. Given the shortcomings of the system which otherwise employs the concealed vote-counting of centrally tabulate ballots, the need to hand-review write-in votes this November could present a unique opportunity for citizens of the 49th state to oversee at least some of their own electoral system — for a welcome change.

CT: LGWCT: Voters Guide to Secretary of the State Candidates
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/lgwct-voters-guide-to-secretary-of-the-state-candidates/
The League of Women Voters have published a guide to the Secretary of the State Candidates, listing their qualifications and their responses to two questions

HI: Hundreds of Maui voters assigned to the wrong voting district *
http://www.staradvertiser.com/elections/2010/primary/Hundreds_of_Maui_voters_ assigned_to_the_wrong_voting_district.html http://tinyurl.com/27yncxh
Hoylman said the error could’ve affected yesterday’s election as well as previous elections. “It bewilders me that all these years went by and no one challenged it,” he added.

IL: Court fight possible over early-voting site on UI campus
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/politics-and-government/2010-09-16/court-fight-possible-over-early-voting-site-ui-campus.html

MD: Md. needs to switch to paper ballots
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-paper-ballot-letter-20100920,0,417348.story In response to your editorial, “How the Votes are Counted”

MN: Revamped voting procedures, meant to avoid 2008 recount hassles, begin today for general election
http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2010/09/17/21534/revamped_voting_procedures_ meant_to_avoid_2008 _recount_hassles_ begin_today_for_general_election http://tinyurl.com/2a9b29j

Given the recent polls, and yet another three-way race for a statewide office, some officials are preparing for another 2008-style recount in an election that’s sure to attract 2 million voters.

NM: County Clerk concerned by lax third-party voter registration rules
http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_16099262
LAS CRUCES – Doña Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins said this week he remains concerned about the laxity of a law that allows non-county groups to register voters.

NY: 71 New York poling stations opened late Tuesday *
http://blastmagazine.com/the-news/new-york-news/2010/09/71-new-york-poling-stations-opened-late-tuesday/ According to the New York Times, 71 polling locations opened late due to missing or malfunctioning machines. With polls scheduled to open at 6 a.m., some voters experienced a delay of up to 4 hours.

OH: Lawsuit seeks end to Cuyahoga voters’ edge in casting ballot by mail
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/09/lawsuit_seeks_an_end_to_cuyaho.html
They want to block counties like Cuyahoga and Franklin from mailing absentee ballot applications to all registered voters, from paying return postage on the applications and from paying return postage for the completed ballots. Or, they argue, the state should help pay to offer that same service in all 88 counties.

SD: Early voting in Shannon County encounters roadblocks
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_bf831c0e-c2df-11df-a9e0-001cc4c002e0.html

Verified Voting Blog: An Important New Proposal for Voting Machines

If you've wondered why voting machine problems seem to occur again and again around the country and what can be done about it, the Brennan Center at New York University School of Law has an answer. A report released last week by the non-partisan organization, Voting System Failures: A Database Solution, found that in the absence of requirements to report malfunctions, vendors do not keep election officials informed about voting system defects. The report recommends several remedies for this pervasive problem. Among other conclusions, it calls for a searchable national database of voting machine problems to be created and made available to the public.

The report found that election officials "must rely almost exclusively on the voting system vendors for information about malfunctions, defects, vulnerabilities and other problems that the vendors have discovered, or that have occurred with their voting systems in other states". Vendors "don’t have an incentive to inform [election officials] of certain problems with their systems". Noting that this leads to repeated failures of systems year after year, " these malfunctions – and their consequence, disenfranchisement – could have been avoided had election officials and/or public advocates known about earlier problems and had an opportunity to fix them".