The Voting News Daily: Oklahoma chooses Hart Intercivic, Kentucky SoS to depart, Connecticut panel advocates reforms
“In many cases, we see security devices or electronic voting machines where we really have to wonder, ‘Did anybody spend 60 seconds figuring out the security issues?” That question was posed by an Argonne National Laboratories security expert in an interview published today.
There is a good deal of news to share today: Oklahoma has chosen Hart Intercivic to supply its next generation of optical scan ballot tabulators (the state currently uses the IVS Vote by Phone system for accessibility); Washington State considers moving up the deadline for mail ballot receipt to Election Day; Kentucky’s Secretary of State Trey Grayson announced plans to leave office for a position at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; and Connecticut considers state takeover of ballot procurement.
All this and more in today’s Voting News below. Enjoy your weekend!
AR: Ex-Globetrotter allowed to join Ark. House | TheCabin.net
Smith was one of two incoming House members who were cleared by fellow lawmakers to be sworn in next week. The House also voted to recommend seating an incoming Democratic representative who won after her Republican rival was declared ineligible to serve in the House because of a bribery conviction. Read More
[Jan. 6] A disputed election in a sleepy county in south-central Colorado has erupted into a cacophony of bipartisan complaints that the clerk and recorder is improperly certifying its results for her own benefit.
So far, six citizens have filed grievances with both the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office alleging official misconduct and multiple criminal offenses in sparsely populated Saguache County, where the census shows just two residents per square mile. Read More
CT: Recipe For Voting Reform Offered In Connecticut – Courant.com
Early voting, automatic registration, “no-excuse” absentee ballots, and better training for poll workers.
Connecticut should consider these and other measures to improve the voting process, according to a panel organized by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill. Read More
CT: Merrill: Changes needed to avoid another Election Day fiasco | The Connecticut Mirror
The state’s new chief elections officer says she plans to promote changes to ensure that the Election Day fiasco of 2010, when polling place in Bridgeport and a half dozen other communities ran out of ballots on Election Day, doesn’t happen again. Read More
CT: After Bridgeport fiasco, ballot fix proposed – Connecticut Post
Merrill, speaking after a two-and-a-half-hour hearing Friday on Election Day problems, said she will also submit legislation to the General Assembly requiring the state to take over the purchase of ballots, so towns and cities can take advantage of bulk-buying power and save money. Read More
FL: Secretary of State Browning is Scott’s first double-dipper hire – St. Petersburg Times
Retirement was going as former Secretary of State Kurt Browning figured it would: a lot of working in the yard, loving on his grandbaby, padding around the barn at his Dade City home.