California bill to pilot risk limiting audits has bi partisan support…Should bounty on party registrations be illegal?…Proposal to make voting mandatory riles up tiny Ridgway,CO…Maryland now has $ to run fall elections…Judge’s ruling stops voter purge programs that illegally purge about 77K eligible Michigan voters a year… GOP to file suit for N.Y. 29th special…
Georgia AG refuses to file suit over voter citizenship checks…Provision to kill Home Rule from Florida law was defeated in legislature. This protects hard fought, highly touted Sarasota County chartered election audits…About 450 Republicans in Clermont County will have to re-vote…Lucas Co. Ohio BOE investigating poll worker intimidation…The DISCLOSE Act-the legislative response to Citizens United…
If fraud or error occurs in Arizona elections, there’s very little that can be done: “The ease-of-cheating problem becomes magnified when combined with the impossibility of challenging any computerized rigged election in Arizona.” ~ Bill Risner, chair of advocacy group AUDIT AZ…Aspen,CO Election Commission to review May 2009 election complaints in May 2010…SC House to…
AZ House panel OKs Clean Elections repeal…Students registered to vote in Alamance County run into trouble at polling stations…TN Rep Odom calls for investigation into Benton Co voter purge: “I know firsthand that some of these voters have been registered to vote in Tennessee for more than 48 years,” wrote Rep. Odom… TX Atty Gen…
Arapahoe County, CO man gets 12 mail-in ballots…Gun control proposal kills DC voting rights bill…Update on Clay Co KY vote buying scheme…New Albany, MS man sentenced in vote buying scheme, 7 others pled guilty, 7 await trial….NY State Board of Elections violates section 5 of the Voting Rights Act due to changes in overvote notification…TN…
Corporations in Democracy: “…Proposition 16 on California’s June ballot was “written and bankrolled by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for the benefit of PG&E.” ~ George Skelton of LA Times. Anchorage split precinct balloting mixup affects 160 votes…No one tells Sarasota Election Sup Kathy Dent what to do? …Montgomery Co KY switching to paper ballots…
A bill has been revived that would give District of Columbia representation in Congress…Will there or won’t there be a special election NY’s 29th?…The economy is causing cuts in elections in Tennessee…West Virginia will be first state to hold internet election for overseas military. What could possibly go wrong? Boise State University’s internet election was…
Outsourcing democracy – The voting vendor TrueBallot Inc certified Aspen Colorado’s May 5, 2009 election as “fair and accurate” on April 12, 2010 according to FOIA request…Jim Crow makes a comeback in Virginia…Voter Action charged the Election Assistance Commission with shortchanging comment period on Internet Voting. The EAC then quickly issued a “correction” adding a…
Georgia passed bill to use overseas military as guinea pigs in an internet voting experiment…MO. House approves voter ID’s, early voting…10 percent of Cuyahoga County Ohio’s ES&S DS200 voting machines fail pre-election tests…200+ letters already sent to ex-felons in Virginia telling them to write a “personal letter to the Governor” to get their voting rights…
Is a Colorado election bill trying to do too much?…Buying of Pa. judicial elections troubling…Fort Bend County TX Reports Problems With Electronic Poll List…The ACLU of Virginia accused Gov. Bob McDonnell of reinstating a “literacy test” in Virginia for non violent ex-felons…New Voting Machines Stoke Filipinos’ Fears…Diebold ATMs are hackable too – BofA Insider to…
Illinois SBE open source campaign finance reporting software will save state money and is flexible…Will Sarasota voters ever get what audits audits they voted for 4 yrs ago?… Tennessee -Proposes Bill to fix voter purge that impacted long registered voters…VA Gov McDonnell in hot water over nonviolent felons’ rights…Two Problems with the New Challenge to…
Did mail-in voting enhance turnout in Dallas TX the wrong way?…Election 2010: Why is everything digital except the voting system?…Arrogance and pride in action: Sarasota Florida Elections Supervisor Kathy Dent is wasting the taxpayers’ dollars and time suing the county and state to fight the charter ordered, court upheld post election audits. Now Dent claims…
Aspen Transparency Litigation: What’s being hidden and why?…Kinston, North Carolina voters challenge Section 5 of Voting Rights Act….von Spakovsky Votes to End Fairfax County Distribution of Voting Materials in Languages other than English…An advocacy group filed a complaint against Webb County,Texas saying voters with disabilities do not have access to a secret ballot…Advocates and Legislators…
NYT Concedes They Were Wrong? Paper Loses ‘Pimp’ Language Entirely in Latest ACORN Report. Also: ACORN not dead yet!…Florida Gov Crist vetos legislative money grab bill…189 MD voters may have voted twice in 2008, but prosecutor’s office can’t afford to investigate…Secret Funding of US Chamber’s Political Ads May Change…Although the United States likely has the…
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post writes about coal, corruption, campaign finance reform and yesterday’s mining tragedy in West Virginia. Klein says Blankenship, leader of the Massey coal mine “has more or less purchased the state’s government. He’s certainly bought the state Supreme Court….” Klein says that some sort of reform is needed in this…
Many long time voters in Benton County Tennessee may be purged from the voter rolls simply because they did not check off a box on their voter registration form that says they are a US Citizen. …The Dept of Justice had to instruct Alamance County DSS to comply with the 17 year old National Voter…
Are Colorado Election officials making decisions behind closed doors?…They want to keep the lever machines: Nassau County wants the New York Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 declared unconstitutional, and wants the DS200 system decertified in New York State…Wal-Mart, UBS and Other Groups Added to OpenSecrets.org List of Top Political Givers…Too late the CA…
Tano Tijerina has filed a lawsuit to block e-voting in the Webb Co TX runoff election. Atty Balli says the machines always create many problems in Webb County elections and his client wants to make sure each vote counts. Balli was successful in blocking use of e-voting in Webb Co’s Democratic primary. Avi Rubin on…
Aspens ballot images are secret depending on who asks for them. Marilyn Marks sued Aspen CO for public release of ballot images from Aspen’s May 2009 election and was told the images were “secret”. In turn the city sued Marks for frivolous litigation. There is a double standard here: “The judge, newspapers, Internet, GrassRoots and…
New Mexico SOS Herrera’s office may have violated federal law in a recent email dump revealing protected medical records of a former employee (and war veteran). The former employee recently resigned and alleged corruption in the SOS office…The Herald Tribune says “Sarasota County and the state should respect the will of local voters” and enact…
WVA officials tout the use of “multiple keyholders” as making the state’s military internet voting pilot safer: “The county will be given a passcode to access voter information,” Harris said. “But it will take multiple keyholders to get to the information. This will prevent one person from having access.” WV officials must have missed reading…
It is a tough week for election transparency and the activists who work so hard for it. Sarasota FL officials try another tactic to kill the charter mandated election audits that citizens asked for: “It is the duty of the County Commission and the county attorney to protect and defend our county charter, not work…
“Auditing election results isn’t just a good idea, it’s absolutely essential in order to guarantee the integrity of our elections,” said Connecticut Sec. of State Bysiewicz…Letter to editor criticizing Aspen Times: “An independently owned community newspaper should demand government transparency, not defend the government in demonizing the reformers.”…Trial set in Neb. election trade secrets case…
The Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections wants the state attorney and sheriff to investigate Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent’s decision not to have a spot-check audit last Tuesday of the school tax referendum results. “We must hold our elected officials accountable,” ~alliance co-founder Kindra Munt….The value of paper ballots demonstrated in Pelham MA after public…
An interesting candidate to run for California Secretary of State, Orly Taitz…Oakland, CA debates whether to use funds from campaign finance towards educating voters about instant runoff voting…Wisconsin considers a bill to automatically register drivers…CNN has an “article” advocating for internet voting. (It reads like a vendor issued press release). CNN’s expert? Not a computer…
“Silence isn’t golden for election issue” writes Tom Lyons, FL Herald Tribune. Kathy Dent failed to announce that she would not conduct the charter mandated pre certification election audits. Other examples of Dent’s silence: when she left an entire Republican’s primary state Senate race off some absentee ballots that had been mailed; and the 2006…
“It’s time for elected officials to abide by the law the same way citizens have to abide by the law,” ~ Kindra Muntz, president of Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections. Sarasota FL Election Supervisor Kathy Dent chose not to perform the charter mandated, court upheld, post election audits. Dent said there wasn’t enough time (since…
“The integrity of our ballots should supersede other considerations.” ~ Mary C. Eberle, President, Coloradans for Voting Integrity op-ed in favor of keeping precinct voting in Bolder County, Colorado….Voting activist Harvie Branscomb has an OpEd about judges decision to not hear the ballot image case in Aspen…Former Clay KY official jailed for dining with witness…Budget…
“Our leaders have slowly taken away our rights to control our elections as we mindlessly shirked our responsibilities of oversight, assuming that the government would substitute for us.” ~ Marilyn Marks in response to judge’s dismissal of case to review ballot images…A top UK election official is promoting internet voting, meanwhile citizens and groups from…
The “Un-Merger” is a step in the right direction. But there’s more work to be done. ES&S election monopoly blocked. Still at least 17 ways to steal or botch your next election…Ballot brouhaha in Aspen Colorado….Hans A. von Spakovsky appointed to Fairfax VA election board… “How can Florida, North Carolina and so many other states…