The Voting News Daily: India: ‘Electronic Voting Machines used in last polls not free of all doubts’, Elections System and Software could face contempt charges in Colorado

India: ‘Electronic Voting Machines used in last polls not free of all doubts’ | The Assam Tribune Online The controversies surrounding the use of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) refuse to die. A group of seven legal practitioners of the Mangaldai Bar Association have disclosed some sensational information regarding EVMs collected with the help of RTI Act which will make every concerned…

India: ‘Electronic Voting Machines used in last polls not free of all doubts’ | The Assam Tribune Online

The controversies surrounding the use of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) refuse to die. A group of seven legal practitioners of the Mangaldai Bar Association have disclosed some sensational information regarding EVMs collected with the help of RTI Act which will make every concerned citizen observe that the EVMs were not free from all doubts.

According to Jayanta Deka, one senior member of the group, the election authority here did not have any certificate from the experts that the EVMs used in the last Assembly election were a tamper proof. This was revealed by the District Election Officer, Darrang following a RTI petition filed by advocate Jayanta Deka and six of hiscolleagues. In the RTI petition to the District Election Officer cum Deputy Commissioner, Darrang it was asked whether the experts from the EVM manufacturing organisations issued any certificate that the EVMs were free of tampering. In the petition the district election authority was also asked to provide a photocopy of such certificate. But the authority failed to provide any such certificate as the EVM manufacturing company had not submitted any such certificate to the election authority.

Colorado: Elections System and Software could face contempt charges | Alamosa Valley Courier

District Judge Martin Gonzales ruled Wednesday that Elections System and Software (ES&S), who failed to appear for their depositions in the Marilyn Marks v. Melinda Myers Colorado Open Records Act suit could be held in contempt of court. Denver attorney Robert McGuire, on behalf of his client, Aspen election integrity advocate Marilyn Marks filed the suit to force Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers to turn over voting records and related documents Marks requested beginning last November. ES&S provided Saguache County with their M650 voting device and accompanying software used in the contested Nov. 2, 2010 election.

Gonzales ordered that the election firm appear in court to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for failing to appear for the scheduled depositions in June after he approved the issuance of a subpoena for the depositions. Marks later filed a motion with the court to hold ES&S in contempt unless they could show sufficient cause for refusing to honor the deposition subpoena. ES&S made no motion to file a protective order, protesting appearance on the grounds that the deposition would violate trade secrets and/or force the production of proprietary information. Nor did their attorneys move to quash the subpoena, court records show.

North Carolina: Voter ID Bill would not have stopped Wake Co. voters attempting to vote twice but current law did | Progressive Pulse

Media outlets reported Thursday that three Wake County residents were charged with voter fraud in connection with the 2008 presidential elections. The County Board of Elections noted that all three voted early and again on Election Day. The NC Republican Party used the opportunity to say this type of fraud is exactly why the state needs a photo voter ID law.

But Democracy NC says the core truth is that House Bill 351, the photo ID bill, would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the crime of attempting to vote twice. Here’s more from the good government group:

“The alleged cheaters could show an ID when they voted at the Early Voting site, and show it again a few days later when they voted at their polling site on Election Day. They voted in their own names and did not attempt to impersonate somebody else; impersonation is the only fraud H-351 really addresses.

Another truth: The current safeguards worked – none of the three successfully voted twice. Their ballots at the Early Voting sites were retrieved and not counted; the system worked, without an ID requirement! This case involves three black Democrats in the NC election Obama narrowly won; the outpouring of hostility is unfortunately predictable. More prosecutions of double voting are in the works.

Editorials: Wake County voter fraud not linked to ID | WRAL.com

The big story today was the arrests of four people in Wake Co. for voter fraud. Three are accused of having cast double ballots in 2008 – first during early one-stop voting, and then again at their local precincts on Election Day. (Two of them deny any criminal intent.) The fourth person was arrested for double-voting in 2010.

Backers of this year’s Voter ID legislation, which was vetoed by Gov. Bev Perdue – one of the few vetoes that hasn’t yet been overturned – heralded the news as proof that Perdue’s position was wrongheaded. Whether that’s true in general depends on your views on Voter ID. But in fact, the Voter ID bill supported by Republican lawmakers this year wouldn’t have prevented the double voting.

The Voter ID bill, H351, would require voters to produce a photo ID to prove they are who they say they are – if they vote on election day. But according to what we know tonight about the charges, these four voters didn’t claim to be anyone else – they voted twice under their own names, and the system didn’t catch it.

Florida: New system in Volusia County will make voters swipe their IDs | Daytona Beach News-Journal

A new voting system in Volusia County will mean less work for poll workers and more for machines — computers that can identify voters with the swipe of a driver’s license and are already common in counties across Florida, including Flagler.

“It’s not only going to save dollars, but it’s going to save possible fraud,” elections head Ann McFall said Thursday of the system on its way to Volusia: EViD, or the Electronic Voter Identification System. The new voting process, instead of requiring voters to sign in on a precinct register, will have many of them swiping their licenses like credit cards instead. “This is a real, real popular piece of equipment,” McFall said. “You’re going to see it in every one of the counties in the next five years. We were waiting for all the little chinks to be worked out of it.”

Colorado: Arapahoe County completes successful test of Web-based voter check-in | Littleton Independent

The Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder’s Office completed a “stress test” Aug. 3 to determine the viability of using a web-based voter check-in system in the 2011 Coordinated Election. The goal of the test was to determine whether the county would be able to successfully connect to SCORE, the Colorado Secretary of State’s web-based pollbook of all registered voters, from 17 Vote Center locations on Election Day, Nov. 1, 2011.

“The stress test simulated an Election Day scenario, with a large number of voters being artificially checked in at our 17 vote center locations at once in order to place strain on the SCORE server and our network connections,” said Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty. “Our systems handled the volume beautifully with no major issues with connectivity or download speeds. We plan to move ahead using the web-based pollbook starting this year, instead of the inches-thick paper pollbooks we have used for decades.”

Washington: Voting by mail fails to increase turnout in King County | Seattle Times

When King County shifted to an all-mail voting system in 2009, it was supposed to increase voter participation. A progress report published Thursday makes the tentative conclusion that it hasn’t.

“It is interesting to note that voting by mail appears to have made no difference in election turnout,” wrote Mike Alvine, the report’s author and an analyst for the Metropolitan King County Council. Turnout was about the same — about 53 percent — in two comparable general elections, one before and one after the county implemented vote-by-mail.

Voting Blogs: Florida’s “hacktivism” controversy and its lessons for the election community | PEEA

Recently, the Miami Herald ran a story about the boasts of a hacker named Abhaxas that he had twice compromised Florida’s election systems by gaining access to servers with sensitive data. State and local election officials – and their vendors – vehemently denied the hacker’s claims and insisted that their systems (and the personally-identifiable voter data on them) remained insecure.

That didn’t stop what the Herald called “major geek news clearinghouses” like Gizmodo and Slashdot from publicizing news of the alleged hack, leading to lots of “here we go again” in the comments.

Even more importantly, the hacker appears to have taken the public denials of harm as a challenge – and has invited others to do the same. Last week, he tweeted the location of the vendor’s server, saying it had a “hack me” sign on it and noting “hack one, have access to all”.

Zambia: 2011 headed for a record number of presidential candidates for Zambia | Lusaka Times

The high success rate of filling in of nominations by different political parties point to a record number of presidential candidates in this year’s elections. The last highest number of presidential candidates was in 2001 which saw eleven candidates fight it out for plot one.

9 presidential candidates have successfully filed in for the race to plot one ahead of the 20th September elections. Only with the failure by Dr Cosmo Mumba’s NRP to participate in the presidential elections, and the withdraw by the ZDDM, the expected number of presidential candidates now stands at 15, from the total of seventeen who had shown interest to vie for the highest office in the country.

UAE: Federal National Council election process ahead of schedule says Gargash | Zawya

The preparations for the Federal National Council (FNC) elections, including the arrangements at polling stations and the fine tuning of the electronic voting system, are going on ahead of the schedule. This was stated by Dr Anwar Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and FNC Affairs and Chairman of the National Election Committee (NEC), while addressing a preparatory meeting. Dr Gargash affirmed that the new FNC’s first session will start in the third week of October.

The National Election Committee (NEC) discussed the preparations of the Election Management Committee for the Federal National Council elections at the meeting chaired by Dr Gargash. He said, “After the list of candidates is announced, they can start campaigning within the regulations prescribed by the NEC.” It is not allowed to use public places for the campaign and no comments on other candidates will be tolerated, he asserted.