The resignation letter of Former New Mexico State Elections Director A.J. Salazar is now available online. The letter outlines allegations against SoS Herrera and Deputy SoS Don Francisco Trujillo: ethics violations, cronyism, political activity at the office, concerns about chain of custody of voting machines, and retaliation….WHO didn’t buy votes in Clay County Kentucky?… Good thing they have paper ballots in Palm Beach FL. This Tuesday: “Memory cartridges affecting five Jupiter precincts as well as precincts in Palm Beach Gardens and Tequesta were corrupted and could not be read.”… Canadians are waking up to risks of internet voting…..
All this and more in today’s voting news below….
CA: The California Top Two Primary Proposal and Third Parties
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/015456.html
CA: Green Party’s San Francisco Supervisor Changes to the Democratic Party
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/03/11/green-partys-san-francisco-supervisor-changes-to-the-democratic-party/
Mirkarimi had been the Green Party’s only county supervisor in California
CO: Commentary on Dismissal of Marks v. Koch – Aspen Election Transparency
http://aspenelectionreview.blogspot.com/2010/03/commentary-on-dismissal-of-marks-v-koch.html
On Wednesday District Court Judge Boyd decided, months into the process of litigation, to dismiss a case brought against the Aspen City Clerk to obtain public access to anonymous digital ballot images from a May 5 first-time in Colorado Instant Runoff Voting municipal election. The dismissal comes two days before an important deposition of the election contractor would have explained the election process on public record and a mere two weeks before the planned trial date.
FL: Late results, fouled cartridges hampered Tuesday’s Palm Beach County election tallies * (good thing they had paper ballots) http://bit.ly/b4fSJF
Web site problems, corrupted voting-machine memory cartridges and the late arrival of ballots from Delray Beach delayed the posting of complete election results until just after midnight following Tuesday’s municipal elections.
…
The company that hosts the site, Tampa-based SOE Software, said a file uploaded from the supervisor’s office at 8:15 p.m. had become corrupted. The file finally uploaded at 9:20 p.m. The supervisor’s Web site was subsequently updated four more times by 12:19 a.m. Wednesday, according to SOE Software records.
Memory cartridges affecting five Jupiter precincts as well as precincts in Palm Beach Gardens and Tequesta were corrupted and could not be read. That problem typically happens when poll workers neglect to shut down the voting machines before removing the cartridges.
Bucher’s office got the results from those precincts by doing a machine count of the paper ballots, which serve as a backup. The count for Jupiter ended just before midnight.
…
It’s not the first time problems have plagued the cartridges. During a special congressional primary in February, seven voting machine memory packs were corrupted, affecting nine precincts.
FL: Jupiter Election Results *
http://coastalflorida.blogspot.com/2010/03/jupiter-election-results.html
Voting machine cartridges did not read properly for several precincts in Jupiter, forcing election workers to resort to a backup method, counting paper ballots with a machine. The glitch delayed final election results for Jupiter…
IL: Getting Stonewalled on Citizenship Questions
Champaign County Clerk
http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2010/03/11/getting-stonewalled-on-citizenship-questions/ …It’s very simple. If you’re going to suggest that we automatically add people to the voter rolls from government databases, shouldn’t you at least be able to tell the public and policy makers about the ability of those databases to tell us who is a citizen or not?
KY: Former Clay County judge says he bought votes, but not recently *
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/03/11/1178070/former-clay-county-judge-says.html
KY: Clay County judge, judge-executive took part in vote fraud, judge finds *
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/03/11/1176503/clay-county-judge-judge-executive.html
Those Reeves said were involved in election fraud included Circuit Judge Oscar Gayle House; Judge-Executive Carl “Crawdad” Sizemore; Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary Gregory; former state Rep. Barbara Colter and current state Rep. Tim Couch, a Hyden Republican who defeated Colter; former Jailer Charles Marcum; former Sheriff Edd Jordan, who is running for re-election; Manchester attorneys Yancey White and Carl Anthony Short; and Roy Morgan, a former magistrate influential in politics…
NC: March 8 video of Gary Bartlett, the Director of the NC State Board of Elections talking about Citizens United impact on North Carolina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERZQFtAhPSA
NM: Salazar’s resignation letter is now available online
http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/2010/03/salazar%E2%80%99s-resignation-letter-is-now-available-online/
“During my tenure in your office it has become abundantly clear to me as to why my predecessors have left the office….”
NM: Rio Grande Sun goes deep into allegations against Herrera
http://bit.ly/9hDqnv
OH: ACORN gives up Ohio business license, won’t return
http://bit.ly/ccU15t
OK: Oklahoma Senate gets tough on fraud
UNLAWFUL VOTING GETS FINE, PRISON
http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-senate-gets-tough-on-fraud/article/3445164
SC: Court Ruling Could Boost Third Parties
Fusion Voting Still Alive For Now
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992912064017974&ShowArticle_ID=11011003101204074
South Carolina is one of only four states that allow multiple political parties to nominate the same candidate for an election. The practice, known as “fusion” voting, strengthens third-party bids
TX: Dallas Voters Suspect Fraud (with absentee ballots)
http://bit.ly/bqWTCK
TX: County clerk asks for recount
http://bit.ly/cTCLLu …The party is working with Hart InterCivic — the company that tabulated the election votes — to determine when officials can perform the recount. Patterson said it also is not clear yet whether the Hart officials must perform the recount…
TX: Justice Department clears voting plan
http://bit.ly/d9pkRS The City of Boerne…
In a two-paragraph letter dated March 8, Chris Herren, the acting chief of the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice, told City Attorney Mick McKamie the city can proceed with the May elections of council members from districts.
VA: Va. House votes to keep voter records closed
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/03/va-house-votes-keep-voter-records-closed
National
Antitrust and Your Vote
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11thu3.html?ref=opinion
The Justice Department’s work should not end with blocking this one sale.
Another ACORN Court Victory; Federal Judge Strikes Down Funding Ban as Unconstitutional
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7736 Judgment Grants ACORN Declaratory, Permanent Injunctive Relief Slams Congress for acting without administrative process or trial..
FAIR Slams NYT’s ‘Wildly Misleading’ ACORN Coverage
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7740
The New York Times “was duped” and “refuses to own up to mistakes in the paper’s coverage” of the now-infamous ACORN “pimp” hoax video
Edward Blum on the Irving Case About Counting Non-Citizens in Drawing Districts
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/015460.html
National voter registration form now available in five Asian languages
http://www.eac.gov/blog-postings/national-voter-registration-form-now-available-in-five-asian-languages
Internet voting watch
Canada: Markham, Ontario. Questions raised about Markham’s e-voting system after dog reportedly added to voter’s list
http://bit.ly/dkr7BF
Canada: No guarantees online
http://www.tbnewswatch.com/opinion/84109/No-guarantees-online
…With Internet voting, how does general public have the opportunity to examine the ballots? Where is the guarantee my vote would be kept secret?
…
We should return to hand-counted ballots, not only for the transparency, but also for the lesser cost and the fact the people determine the outcome of the election, not administration.
UK: Internet will influence UK General Election
http://www.techeye.net/internet/internet-will-influence-uk-general-election
…The idea of e-voting was also raised, which a poll today found that more than three quarters of electors – 77 percent – would vote on the internet if they could. The idea was put forward that everyone gets an automatic postal vote. This was dismissed by Wyatt who said that anyone would “put it straight in the bin” as we do with all council correspondence…
However, Sparrow was for the idea of an e-vote saying: “The internet is a necessity. If you don’t have a connection then you will be at a disadvantage.”
UK: Seriously: Keep the general election offline
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-03/11/seriously-keep-the-general-election-offline.aspx
Let’s put an end to this sordid behaviour before it gets out of hand, and before a cat registers your vote by walking across a keyboard
UK: Forget the traditional polling booth; voters want the chance to vote online.
http://www.ukauthority.com/Headlines/tabid/36/NewsArticle/tabid/64/Default.aspx?id=2739
But it is hard to know what credence to give the poll as four per cent believed former Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee had the greatest number of Twitter fans, even though he died in 1967 and seven per cent thought a tweet was a small African rodent.
International
Philippines election: Doubts arise over electronic voting machines
http://bit.ly/9AQjhC
New computerized electronic voting machines are meant to prevent fraud in Philippines election in May. But in tests, the voting machines rejected ballots and failed to connect to the cell phone networks to transmit results.
Uganda: Donors warn EC over vote rigging
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/877716/-/wj8vuu/-/
Three of Uganda’s key development partners have warned that the 2011 elections run a risk of being discredited unless the Electoral Commission urgently cleans a cluttered national voters’ register and engages political parties without bias.
Voting News by Joyce McCloy.
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