After a Senate panel heard testimony on April 14 from a handful of election watchdogs critical of the state’s system of electronic voting machines, a rather testy exchange took place in the hallway. “You guys have a tough job,” said USC computer scientist Duncan Buell to Chris Whitmire, the spokesman for the South Carolina State Election…
“It was a valuable experiment. We learned what worked well and what things didn’t,” said Burleigh County Auditor Kevin Glatt about using voting centers for this week’s special election on Bismarck’s smoking ban. One center was placed at the Bismarck Civic Center and one at the VFW Sports Arena. There are now 35 voting precincts and…
The times have changed, but a key part of the state’s election law is still stuck in the past, according to a coalition of students and advocacy groups that filed a challenge to New Jersey’s voter-registration law today. Instead of requiring 21 days to process a voter registration, the state should get with the times…
Un-American, ill-advised and expensive. The Honolulu City Council has a long list of reasons as to why state lawmakers ought to kill a move meant to improve its current voting system. Council members on Wednesday passed a resolution urging state lawmakers not to pass House Bill 638, which would bring instant runoff voting to Honolulu…
The Florida House passed a sweeping overhaul of election laws Thursday that Republicans say will streamline voting machinery and Democrats say will make it harder for people to vote in the nation’s biggest battleground state in 2012. Passage on a 79-37 party-line vote followed two days of intensely partisan debate — a harbinger of next…
When Secretary of State Scott Gessler held his town hall in Saguache March 15, he told county residents that he had requested the distributor of the M650 voting machine to provide him with a report of Saguache election records. On March 28, Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) sent Gessler a copy of the M650’s Unity…
Time to stop calling the gang running Florida’s government conservative. They’re busy concocting a liberal dose of new regulations that would serve their fortunes first, and Floridians dead last. It amounts to their ripping apart election laws that have made it easier for Floridians to vote, and replacing them with laws that could stack the…
Returning Officer (RO) for N65 Senadin Chai Ko Het’s rejection of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR)’s request for a recount after the completion of the official addition of votes at the Centre for the Official Addition of Votes, was in accordance with the law. Chai was right when he acted in accordance with subregulation 23A (1),…
There may be lot of debate in India over efficacy of the Electronic Voting Machines but Egypt, which is holding elections after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, is willing to try the “wonder machine — the EVMs” — in the country wide polls later this year. Egypt will not be the first country to use Indian EVMs.…
House Republicans are seeking to abolish the federal Election Assistance Commission — as if the nation is fully recovered from the hanging-chad nightmare of 2000. The 9-year-old commission was created in bipartisan Congressional resolve to repair the nation’s crazy quilt of tattered election standards and faltering machinery. The commission was charged with upgrading the mechanics…
After announcing she would request a statewide recount in the Supreme Court election earlier this week, challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg and incumbent Justice David Prosser argued in court Thursday to reach a decision as to how the recount would be done. Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Ness approved a recount procedure that would include a hand…
House Speaker Kurt Zellers found himself in a constitutional bind on Thursday after saying that voting was a privilege, not a right. The Maple Grove Republican made the comment Wednesday night during a local radio show, “The Late Debate.” He recanted his words on Thursday, saying he had misspoken. The gaffe came amid a discussion of…
The Indiana Senate has approved a measure that would allow Republican Governor Mitch Daniels to appoint a new secretary of state if current officeholder Charlie White is found to be ineligible. Democrats are calling it a blatant power grab. White, a Republican, is under indictment on voter fraud charges. Democrats are now challenging his eligibility. Current state…
Florida lawmakers passed a dramatic overhaul of state election law Thursday night, a move that GOP legislators say will bring integrity to the process and one that Democrats counter will disenfranchise voters across the state. The measure, a major rewrite to the laws that govern the state’s elections, passed 79-37. Among other things, the measure (HB…
The new Constitution provides that the election of President, MPs and the Senate, the county governor and the county ward representatives be held ‘‘on the second Tuesday in August in every fifth year’’. The management of five elections in one General Election in one day will be a Herculean task for the proposed Independent Elections and…
FL: Florida House passes elections law overhaul – St. Petersburg Times The Florida House passed a sweeping overhaul of election laws Thursday that Republicans say will streamline voting machinery and Democrats say will make it harder for people to vote in the nation’s biggest battleground state in 2012. Passage on a 79-37 party-line vote followed…
Charging that voting “anomalies” were “widespread,” the liberal challenger in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race filed papers Wednesday afternoon requesting a recount in the close election that has her trailing a conservative incumbent by less than 0.5 percent. JoAnne Kloppenburg arrived at the state Government Accountability Board’s office in Madison barely an hour before the…
Ghana will not be using the e-voting technology for the 2012 polls, the Electoral Commission (EC) has declared. The declaration is in response to a campaign for the country to adopt electronic voting for future polls. The system allows eligible voters to select their preferred candidate by pressing a button on a computer. Campaigners say the system…
Canadians who post local results from the May 2 national election online before polling stations close in all six time zones face fines, election law states. The upcoming election is the first one in which huge numbers of people are using such Internet social sites as Facebook and Twitter, but the 1938 Canada Elections Act…
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board asked a judge to allow the use of electronic voting memory cartridges to speed the recount in a contested Supreme Court election, even if that use might erase the voting data. The nonpartisan agency filed the lawsuit today in state court in Madison, naming as defendants incumbent Supreme Court Justice…
It’s going to cost Wisconsin’s taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million to find out who will be the next state Supreme Court justice. Assistant attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg on Wednesday said she will seek a full, statewide recount of the April 5 election in which she is challenging Justice David Prosser…
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David T. Prosser Jr. and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg agreed to the recounting of some ballots by hand and others electronically to resolve who won the April 5 election. Lawyers for Prosser and Kloppenburg reached the accord in court today, representatives for both sides said, after the state agency responsible for counting…
WI: Wisconsin court race heads for recount – Reuters Wisconsin’s election oversight agency said on Wednesday that the challenger in the close race for a seat on the state Supreme Court has asked for a recount. The April 5 high court contest was widely seen as a referendum on the state’s new Republican leadership and…
In a bid to ensure fair and free counting on May 13, the Election Commission, for the first time, will instal high resolution web cameras over each counting table to capture images of the counting process including the final figures that will appear in the electronic voting machines. Chief electoral officer Praveen Kumar said web…
A consortium of university computer science departments has warned the Federal Government that all future computerised voting systems should be made open source to ensure that no votes will be miscast. In a submission (PDF) to the House of Representatives review into the 2010 Federal Election, the Computing Research and Education Association of Australia (CORE)…
Wisconsin’s Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg has filed paperwork for a statewide, state-sponsored “recount” in the controversial April 5th State Supreme Court election. She has also called for a special investigator be named to examine questions about election results in Waukesha County, where the County Clerk’s procedures have come under fire both before and since…
Wisconsin’s election oversight agency said on Wednesday that the challenger in the close race for a seat on the state Supreme Court has asked for a recount. The April 5 high court contest was widely seen as a referendum on the state’s new Republican leadership and the curbs they have imposed on public sector collective…
There was a lively discussion on our letters blog today about the proposed Voter ID bill. Supporters of the measure simply can’t understand why anyone would see a problem with requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Joyce McCloy of the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting didn’t weigh in there, but she…
GOP backers of a plan to require photo IDs at the polls are considering an effort to seek a constitutional amendment if the bill is thwarted by a veto. The controversial voter ID bill is nearing a floor vote after months of hearings and while Gov. Mark Dayton said Tuesday he is willing to look at…
Maged Osman, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, today denied reports Egypt is seeking technological support from abroad to conduct electronic voting in the country’s upcoming elections. He stressed that the Egyptian government and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has full confidence in the ability of local companies to carry out the task,…