The Voting News Daily

The Voting News Daily: Online voting: An open invitation to voting fraud, Florida LWV: “legislature has declared war on voters”

Canada: Online voting: An open invitation to voting fraud – Vancouver Sun

The Internet voting system approved by Vancouver city council promises unprecedented and untraceable voter fraud if it is allowed to proceed. We can only hope the provincial government will have the good sense to reject the city’s plan. On the face of it, the system would allow voters to cast their ballots from the comfort of their own home. The idea sounds attractive and inevitable. After all, isn’t everything going online? Proponents suggest Internet voting will increase voter participation and will be secure. They are wrong on both counts. Internet systems are secure enough for banking, so you might think Internet voting systems are up to the task of collecting and counting votes. Unfortunately voting systems are different from online banking. Banking systems have audit trails that link the identity and conduct of a user. A voting system cannot link your name to your vote because the ballot must be secret. There is no way to determine whether a fraud has occurred or who committed it. This means that a candidate is deprived of the right to challenge results and have a recount. Internet voting systems presume that everything and everyone involved is beyond reproach. Banking systems accept a level of fraud. If a banking customer observes a fraud the transaction can be reversed. A voting system does not offer the voter the ability to posthumously examine a vote and does not afford officials the option of correcting an error. Full Article

FL: Collier, state League of Women Voters to stop voter registrations, consider legal action due to election bill –
Naples Daily News

A national organization aimed at encouraging participation in government has said it will no longer register Floridians to vote after state lawmakers approved a sweeping overhaul to the state’s election code. Lydia Galton, president of the League of Women Voters of Collier County and director of the state board, said Monday that the Florida association decided to immediately stop voter registration efforts across the state after passage of House Bill 1355. “While the league remains committed to empowering an active and informed citizenry, we cannot and will not place thousands of volunteers at risk, subjecting them to a process in which one late form could result in their facing financial and civil penalties,” she said. “By passing House Bill 1355, the legislature has declared war on voters.” Galton said the decision to stop registering voters is a statewide initiative, and will be discussed at the state board meeting later this week. The League of Women Voters of Florida is “exploring legal remedies” to restore voter rights, she said. The bill, passed last week and yet to be signed by Gov. Rick Scott, requires groups that sign up new voters register with the state, file regular reports and turn in completed voter-registration forms within 48 hours. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Internet voting fraud inevitable, Interview with CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen

Canada: Internet voting fraud inevitable, says expert – CityCaucus.com

It’s become an all too commonplace occurrence at Vancouver city council – a staff report is filed as ‘late distribution’ and posted on the Vancouver.ca website a day before it is to be voted upon. In this case it was about whether the City of Vancouver approves the adoption of internet voting in time for the 2011 election. The staff report was brief and to the point. Internet voting has been tried in other (smaller) Canadian jurisdictions, and anecdotally at least there has been no reported abuse. Therefore it is recommended by staff that Vancouver takes a leap of faith and tries it out during advanced polls this fall. Oh, and it won’t add any additional cost to how we vote. Those who have watched Vision Vancouver with a critical eye know to never take anything from the minds of their party strategists at face value. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what appears to have happened when it came to coverage of this topic. If you are to believe what was reported, this was simply an effort to move toward modernity and increase voter participation. Risks? Pah! Only Councillor Suzanne Anton voted against the proposal, and during the council meeting her concerns about possible voter fraud and the risks associated with technology were dismissed as mere narrow-mindedness by others on council. Full Article

CA: An interview with California Secretary of State Debra Bowen – Daily Kos

Secretary Bowen has a reputation among California’s online political community for her groundbreaking work on issues regarding the internet and election integrity (and for personally responding to Facebook messages and Twitter replies). I recently got the chance to catch up with Bowen in the district and talk to her about the election and her priorities. Please note that the publication of this interview here does not constitute an endorsement by Orange to Blue or DailyKos.

The Voting News Daily: Florida Senate passes election law overhaul, Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White Releases Rokita Report

FL: Florida legislature OKs elections-law overhaul – MiamiHerald.com

After dueling allegations that it was either a “protection against voting fraud” or a “disenfranchisement act,” Florida lawmakers on Thursday approved a 157-page overhaul of the state’s elections code. The House voted 77-38 along party lines to pass the bill (HB 1355); the Senate had voted 25-13 earlier in the day. Paula Dockery of Lakeland and Mike Fasano of New Port Richey were the only Senate Republicans to break ranks and vote against it. The measure now goes to Gov. Rick Scott, who is expected to sign it into law. Among other provisions, the bill reduces early voting time to one week and requires groups that sign up voters to register with the state. Immediately after the vote, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson asked Scott to veto the bill. If Scott signs it, Nelson said he’ll ask the Justice Department to look into whether it violates federal voting-rights law. “There are just too many questions about whether this measure would disenfranchise an untold number of Floridians,” Nelson said. No matter their party affiliation, Floridians still smart over their state’s reputation from 2000, made famous by butterfly ballots, hanging chads and an aborted presidential-election recount. Rep. Franklin Sands, a Weston Democrat, summed up the view of his colleagues in the House: “This is a mean-spirited attempt to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters and no more.” Full Article

IN: Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White Releases Rokita Report

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s office today released a report compiled by then Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita at the request of the Indiana State Democratic Party. Rokita had petitioned to have the report exempt from public record requests, and the move by White comes after final approval from the Indiana Inspector General regarding its release. Earlier today, the Indiana Inspector General issued a report clearing Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White of any wrongdoing regarding access to the report prepared by his predecessor. Prosecutors had alleged Secretary White had wrongfully accessed the report, yet the report indicates nothing improper. Furthermore, the Inspector General cleared the way to release the Rokita report per the request of Secretary White almost two months ago. Rokita had previously made the report inaccessible by public records request. In pushing transparency within the office, White’s administration had promised to release the report pending approval from the Indiana Attorney General, the Indiana Public Access Counselor and the Indiana Inspector General. With the Inspector General being the last to sign off as of this morning, the report is being prepared for public access. “As promised almost two months ago, we are providing the report in its entirety to allow Hoosiers an opportunity to see the facts for what they are,” White spokesman AJ Feeney-Ruiz said. “We continue to push for transparency and we applaud the Inspector General for allowing us to do so.” Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Wisconsin Recount Mess, Vancouver approves Internet voting

WI: Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Election ‘Recount’ is a Mess – The Brad Blog

Where Minnesota’s post-election hand count of the 2008 U.S. Senate election between then Sen. Norm Coleman and now Sen. Al Franken was, as we wrote at the UK’s Guardian at the time, “one of the longest and most transparent election hand-counts in the history of the US,” Wisconsin has made it extremely difficult (putting it nicely) to know what the hell is actually going on in their statewide “recount” of the April 5th, 2011, state Supreme Court election between Justice David Prosser and Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg. Where Minnesota’s chief election official, Sec. of State Mark Ritchie, oversaw a process to ensure that updated and accurate numbers were easily tracked and transparently shared with the media on a daily basis, Wisconsin’s chief election authority, their Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), has posted (and even sometimes removed) confusing, misleading, and unclear updates, often with inaccurate information, on various schedules, and frequently with little or no explanation for wholesale changes and deletion of data. Where Minnesota counted every vote by hand with full public scrutiny, including photographs and video cameras, Wisconsin is tabulating ballots, often by the same oft-failed, easily-manipulated computer systems that counted them in the first place, behind barriers that preclude broad public oversight, under an agreement between both campaigns which disallows the use of video cameras by observers. The count, which began last Wednesday, often feels as if it’s happening in virtual darkness, at least to those of us trying to observe from afar, but the same sentiment has been shared with us by many we’ve spoken to who are there on the ground. There is an alarming lack of transparency to help the citizenry oversee the process in order to ensure accountability and an accurate count. To make matters worse, if that’s possible, chain of custody issues for the ballots appear questionable in a number of reported cases, after ballots have been kept in the same darkness by election officials — sometimes securely, sometimes not — for the three weeks following the election and prior to the “recount.” Read More

Canada: Vancouver approves Internet voting in advanced civic election polls – Vancouver Sun

On Tuesday the Vancouver city council approved in principle a pilot project to allow online voters to cast ballots in the advance polls for the Nov. 19 civic election. In a 10-1 vote, council said the benefits — increased voter turnout, elimination of lineups and less costly elections — far outweigh some of the potential downsides, including the potential for stolen voter packages, technical difficulties and hacking attacks and difficulty in identifying voter identification. “I totally appreciate for some that voting online is a totally, totally strange thing to do,” said Coun. Andrea Reimer, who wants to see more of the city’s business done online. “To my mind there are risks to online voting but there are also risks to have so few people voting. It isn’t about forcing anyone to vote online but to give people choices.”

The Voting News Daily: Nelson blasts Florida election-law fixes, Report shows that 1 in 6 recounts changed results

FL: Nelson blasts Florida Legislature’s 2012 election-law fixes – Legislature – MiamiHerald.com

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson blasted state Republican lawmakers Monday for an election law overhaul that he says will block college students and military personnel from having their votes counted next year when he and President Barack Obama both seek re-election. Then Nelson waded into a controversy of his own when he suggested the U.S. special forces that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden could be blocked from voting if the Legislature passes the bill. “Should we deny those very military that carried out this very successful decapitating of the al-Qaida snake?” Nelson asked at a Capitol news conference. “Should we deny them because they have signed their voter registration card in a different way than they signed their absentee ballot overseas?” Full Article

Report: Recounts rarely impact state elections | California Watch

Between 2000 and 2009, recounts in state elections were extremely uncommon and rarely resulted in reversals when they did happen, according to a new study [PDF] by the Center for Voting and Democracy. Out of 2,884 statewide general elections there were 18 recounts, only three of which resulted in a change in decision. “There are people who have been pretty critical of the way that we do a lot of voting, thinking it could be done better. But at the same time the basic function of tallying ballots once the voter gets them to their poll worker or the machine, it seems to actually be doing well,” said Robert Richie, co-author of the study. … Having an automatic recount procedure for a race won by 0.5 percent, that’s way too high, absent some reason to think that there’s something that was systematically done in error or fraud.”

But Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, said the systems used in many states can’t be recounted because of their design. And even where recountable systems are used, fraud and error can easily go undetected if a race is not close enough to merit a recount. “You’ve got 18 recounts out of close to 3,000 contests, three of which resulted in decisions being reversed,” she said. “Well, three isn’t a large percentage out of 3,000, but it’s a sixth of 18. If those are the only cases that you’re doing a recount in, I think you have to look at that.” Californians have been nothing if not skeptical when it comes to using electronic machines and adopting methods like ranked-choice voting. But Smith said California is ahead of the curve when it comes to many of these issues. The state has been conducting a baseline manual tally of 1 percent of precincts in every county for decades. And in 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen commissioned a “top-to-bottom review” of voting systems and created a Post Election Audit Standards Working Group [PDF]. California also recently passed legislation launching a “risk-limiting audit” program to increase the scrutiny of electronic voting machines, which is something that Richie calls for in the study.

The Voting News Daily: Misplaced Ballots in Arizona and Wisconsin

AZ: Ballots ‘misplaced,’ raising concern over all-mail vote – Arizona Daily Star

The U.S. Postal Service “misplaced” about 85 mail-in ballots for an upcoming all-mail election in Sahuarita, Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said Friday. While replacing the ballots was relatively easy for a smaller-city election, the incident is raising questions about the Tucson City Council’s recent decision to switch to all-mail voting. This is the first time the Recorder’s Office has heard of the Postal Service losing ballots, said Rodriguez. The disappearance of what “appears to be a single mail tray” of ballots was discovered when voters, all in the same section of the Quail Creek neighborhood, started reporting they hadn’t received theirs a week after they were mailed out. Just over 12,000 ballots were mailed to Sahuarita voters on April 21. So far, 85 voters have requested replacements. Rodriguez said the problem appears to be limited to “a single tray” of ballots intended for that neighborhood. With 1.6 million mail-in ballots sent in Pima County over the last decade, “this is a very rare occurrence,” she said. Postal workers “haven’t found any evidence that any mail was misplaced,” said Robert Soler, a spokesperson with the U.S. Postal Service in Tucson. Still, both Soler and Rodriguez urged voters to call the Recorder’s Office if they hadn’t received a ballot and they would be mailed before the election on May 17. “The voters have been issued second ballots and we have taken care of them,” Rodriguez said, who added that measures are in place to make sure there would be only one vote per person. Full Article

WI: Missing Verona ballots cause glitch in Supreme Court race recount – madison.comt

Newly appointed Dane County Clerk Karen Peters initially had doubts that the county could finish hand counting some 182,000 Supreme Court ballots within a 13-day deadline. But on Thursday she expressed confidence that it could be done. But that was before the glitch. On Thursday afternoon official “tabulators” were busily counting ballots from the city of Verona when the votes came up more than 90 short of what the electronic readout from the voting machines said they should. That sent Verona officials on a hunt, and a rubber-banded stack of 97 ballots turned up in the office of Verona City Clerk Judy Masarik. “There’s a table in the clerk’s office, and there was a binder and some other papers on top of the ballots,” said City Administrator Bill Burns, who found the stack. The statewide recount, requested by challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg after her narrow loss to incumbent David Prosser, has the potential to change the outcome, so the Verona situation caused much consternation. On election night, all the ballots were supposed to be secured in sealed bags, which were then supposed to be signed by local elections officials. The seals were supposed to remain intact. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: The Democracy Theater of Online Voting, Tennessee Needs Paper Ballots

CT: Online voting is risky and expensive | The Connecticut Mirror

Online voting is an appealing option to speed voting for military and overseas voters. Yet it is actually “Democracy Theater”, providing an expensive, risky illusion of supporting our troops. Technologists warn of the unsolved technical challenges, while experience shows that the risks are tangible and pervasive. There are safer, less expensive solutions available. This year, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on a bill for online voting for military voters. Later they approved a “technical bill”, S.B. 939. Tucked at the end was a paragraph requiring that the Secretary of the State “shall, within available appropriations, establish a method to allow for on-line voting by military personnel stationed out of state.” In 2008, over thirty computer scientists, security experts and technicians signed the “Computer Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting,” listing five unsolved technical challenges and concluding: “[W]e believe it is necessary to warn policymakers and the public that secure internet voting is a very hard technical problem, and that we should proceed with internet voting schemes only after thorough consideration of the technical and non-technical issues in doing so.” Full Article

TN: Tennessee needs reliable paper ballots – The Tennessean

Now The Tennessean reports that this session of the state legislature may repeal the never-implemented Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (April 25). It was the fine work of an earlier session to give us this law. It is a reliable system of voting that requires the use of paper ballots for a possible real check on the accuracy of the electronic vote if and when it becomes necessary. This is quite impossible with the system that Tennessee has been using, which relies totally on electronic voting machines without paper ballots. These machines have been shown in many different places to be subject to large errors or even deliberate manipulation. There is no way to verify an election with these delicate machines. The present Tennessee law requiring a paper ballot record of every vote as counted by electronic counters was passed years ago. It had the strong support of most legislators, Republican and Democrat, but the law’s implementation has been deferred until the 2012 election. Some in this legislature are bent on repeal of the law, claiming that it will cost too much. But Tennessee for years has had money in the bank from the federal government which covers the full cost of the new equipment. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Wisconsin Recount Begins, Democrats Will Gain Secretary of State’s Office If White Is Disqualified

WI: And the recount begins | ThirdCoast Digest

If you’re expecting to see images reminiscent of Florida 2000, you’re out of luck. The first day of the Wisconsin Supreme Count election recount began and ended quietly in Milwaukee County with no protesters, a few citizen observers and about 50 Kloppenburg and Prosser operatives. No hanging chads – just election canvassers sorting through the paper scan sheets each voter filled out on April 5, putting them into piles designated for Justice David Prosser or Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg. An occasional question as to the marking of an arrow on the ballot brought over county election commission officials, who listened to polite challenges from the observers. Only one magnifying glass was noticed on a table next to a Kloppenburg worker. Milwaukee County is holding its recount at the county’s sports complex in Franklin. The 55,000 square foot building is large enough to hold canvassers from the 19 municipalities, but that isn’t the practice being used. Instead, Wednesday started with the cities of Milwaukee and West Allis and the village of Shorewood counting ballots. As municipalities finish their counts, others will arrive. A pair of canvassers – one Republican and one Democratic – seated at 30 tables began counting Wednesday morning. Each pair is responsible for a single ward through the entire recount process; when complete they are given a new ward to count. The ballots are secured in large bins and guarded by Milwaukee County Sheriff’s deputies. Each ward’s ballots are enclosed in a rip-resistant plastic bag and sealed with zip ties. An election commission official verifies the ward number with paperwork supplied by the Government Accountability Board, then breaks the seal on the bag. Milwaukee County is completing a hand recount, since most of the municipalities use older vote scanning machines. These machines would require their existing memory cartridges to be erased in order to re-run the ballots — thus destroying an original record of the count from election night. Since the original election counts must be preserved during a recount and the machines are unable to save those counts, a Dane County judge ordered and the candidates agreed to the hand count process. Votes that were cast on the electronic screen voting machines will also be hand recounted. The machine keeps a paper record of each vote, which will be recounted in the same manner as the regular ballots. Full Article

IN: Democrats Will Gain Secretary of State’s Office If White Is Disqualified – 93.1 WIBC Indianapolis

Republicans are backing off a proposal to ensure Governor Daniels picks the next Secretary of State if Charlie White is forced from office. White is facing seven felony counts linked to his use of his ex-wife’s address on his voter registration. Daniels already gets to replace White if he resigns or is convicted of a felony. But Democrats are arguing White’s flawed registration makes him ineligible to have run in the first place. If the Indiana Recount Commission agrees, current law would make Democratic nominee Vop Osili the winner by default.

The Voting News Daily: Wisconsin Recount to Begin Wednesday, Proposed bills would make voting harder for many Floridians

WI: Wisconsin Supreme Court recount begins Wednesday, required to be done by May 9 – StarTribune.com

The recount in the state Supreme Court race will begin Wednesday and barring a court-ordered extension, must be finished by May 9. Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Board discussed the recount procedure Monday with local election officials from nearly all 72 counties. Given the rarity of a statewide recount, clerks on the conference call peppered board attorneys with questions about everything from what to do about challenged ballots to what to do with observers seen holding pens that could alter a vote. Challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg asked for the recount after results showed she lost to incumbent Justice David Prosser by 7,316 votes, roughly one-half of 1 percent of the 1.5 million votes cast in the April 5 election. The recount is the first in a race involving candidates since 1858. The only other one, in 1989, involved a referendum. Full Article

FL: Proposed bills would make voting harder for many Floridians – Sun Sentinel

College students seeking to vote at their campus precinct will find it harder to do. So will women who’ve changed their name but not re-registered before an election. The time for early voting would be cut from 14 days to six. Groups like the League of Women Voters will find it tougher to register voters. And citizens attempting to amend the constitution will have to gather more than 600,000 signatures in two years instead of four. All these changes are in Republican-backed bills steaming through the Florida Legislature, despite vigorous opposition from county supervisors of elections as well as Democrats, who’ve labeled them GOP attempts at “voter suppression.” The election supervisors worry that the changes — after two relatively problem-free elections — will inconvenience and frustrate voters. “If there’s something we don’t want to happen, it’s that registered voters lose confidence in the process if they’re faced with obstacles when they try to exercise their right to vote,” said Evelyn Perez-Verdia, spokeswoman for the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Oak Ridge, spear phishing, and internet voting, Voter Files Altered in New Mexico

Oak Ridge, spear phishing, and internet voting – Freedom to Tinker

Oak Ridge National Labs (one of the US national energy labs, along with Sandia, Livermore, Los Alamos, etc) had a bunch of people fall for a spear phishing attack (see articles in Computerworld and many other descriptions). For those not familiar with the term, spear phishing is sending targeted emails at specific recipients, designed to have them do an action (e.g., click on a link) that will install some form of software (e.g., to allow stealing information from their computers). This is distinct from spam, where the goal is primarily to get you to purchase pharmaceuticals, or maybe install software, but in any case is widespread and not targeted at particular victims. Spear phishing is the same technique used in the Google Aurora (and related) cases last year, the RSA case earlier this year, Epsilon a few weeks ago, and doubtless many others that we haven’t heard about. Targets of spear phishing might be particular people within an organization (e.g., executives, or people on a particular project). Full Article

NM: Thousands of voter files altered; Bernalillo County clerk demands SOS restrict database access – Veritas NM.com

A few days after New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran notified all 33 county clerks that their biennial voter purge would be canceled this year, Deputy Bernalillo County Clerk Robert Adams made a disturbing discovery — 44,601 county files stored on the state’s voter registration database had been accessed and altered. Accustomed to spending long hours in front of his computer, Adams says he was shocked to learn informational “flags,” which are attached to voter files after mail is returned by the U.S. Postal Service as undeliverable, had simply vanished on Valentine’s Day. After securely logging on to the database, known as PowerProfile, Adam’s heart began beating a little faster as he started considering worst-case scenarios. He needed to know what happened before the Bernalillo County Board of Voter Registrations was convened the third Monday of March, the date required by state statute. Adams worried a criminal might have breached a government intranet connection with the goal of stealing voters’ social security and driver license numbers and other sensitive personal identification information, including voters’ dates of birth and addresses. Later the same chilly February morning, however, Adams determined the flags had been deleted by an unauthorized technician at Nebraska-based Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) without his, or County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s written or verbal permission. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Florida GOP stacks the election deck, Minnesota House Speaker admits that voting is a right after all

FL: Election bills rap democracy: Public short-served by GOP legislation – OrlandoSentinel.com

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 deck — election outcomes — in the Republicans’ favor. Forget for the moment that Republicans already control two-thirds of the Legislature. And the governor’s office. And the Cabinet. And 19 of Florida’s 25 congressional seats. The Legislature has forgotten all of that. If Republican lawmakers manage to reconcile the House elections bill that passed on Thursday with the Senate elections bill that’s expected to pass next week, they’ll have pressed their advantage by giving Floridians… Far less time to vote. By most measures, the state’s two-week early voting procedure has been fabulously successful, with about one-in-five voters opting for it. Full Article

MN: Voting is indeed a right, Zellers agrees after radio show error | StarTribune.com

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 legislation that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls. That bill is nearing a vote after months of hearings. “When you go to even a Burger King or a McDonalds and use your debit card, they’ll ask you to see your ID,” Zellers said sometime after 11 p.m. “Should we have to do that when we vote, something that is one of the most sacred — I think it’s a privilege, it’s not a right. Everybody doesn’t get it, because if you go to jail or if you commit some heinous crime your rights are taken away. This is a privilege.” The right to vote is explicitly referenced in several constitutional amendments, in addition to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “I fully understand it’s a right we all have,” Zellers said on Thursday. “I probably should have said it a little bit better at that late hour at night.” His comments drew a quick rebuke from DFLers, some of whom believe the voter ID legislation will hinder seniors and college students from voting. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Florida House passes election code overhaul, No tweeting election results in Canada?

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 two days of intensely partisan debate — a harbinger of next year’s presidential election when Florida’s newly increased 29 electoral votes and all 160 legislative seats will be at stake in a pivotal reapportionment year. But the closest that any Republican lawmaker came to stating the obvious — invoking President Barack Obama’s name — was a passing reference to preventing “the Chicago method” of voting more than once. In another sign of the muscle-flexing power of Republican supermajorities in both houses, the GOP is making changes to voting laws for the next election, and the vastly outnumbered Democrats are powerless to stop it. “This is a great country. Our vote is precious, and we’re going to protect it,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sponsor of the bill, HB 1355. Neither Florida’s election supervisors nor the secretary of state requested the most controversial changes, which are among the most hotly debated since the aftermath of the 2000 presidential recount. Full Article

Canada: Canadians can’t Tweet election results – Dalje.com

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 forbids anyone from revealing election results before all polls in the country have closed to avoid creating a bias in western regions. The law provides for a fine of as much as $25,000 for premature disclosure of vote tabulations, the Calgary Herald reported. Elections Canada spokesman James Hale told the newspaper regardless of its age, the law would be enforced. “As long as the law is on the books, like any other law, it has to be obeyed,” he said. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Kloppenburg Files for Recount in Wisconsin, Is that North Carolina ID on the up and up?

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 the curbs they have imposed on public sector collective bargaining, which drew national attention as other states weighed similar moves. In a statement, the Government Accountability Board said it was “prepared to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for Supreme Court Justice, as requested by the Kloppenburg campaign today.” The announcement came just minutes before JoAnne Kloppenburg, who trails incumbent David Prosser by just 7,316 of the nearly 1.5 million votes in the closely watched race, was scheduled to hold a press conference in Madison outlining her plans. Wednesday was the deadline for her to request a recount. Full Article

NC: Is that ID on the up and up? – News-Record.com

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 forwarded some email correspondence she’s had with legislators. One question she asked was what mechanism the bill creates for election officials to verify whether the ID presented is legitimate. After all, the fake ID industry is thriving. Today, at the behest of Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, she received a reply from Kara A. McCraw, staff attorney and legislative analyst for the General Assembly’s Research Division. It said: “HB 351 requires the voter to present a photo ID to the local election official assigned to check registration when the voter enters the voting enclosure. Voters are currently required to state their name and address, and HB 351 would add the additional requirement that the voter present one of the forms of photo ID listed in the statute. The bill does not address the issue of “fake” IDs, specify a verification process by the election official, or require other agencies to share databases for verification of IDs. So Ms. McCloy is correct that the bill does not include a system or funding for verification of the IDs, and as a result the remaining questions (computer system for ID verification, electronic pollbooks , cost of such a system, security, etc.) are not addressed in the bill. “In reviewing the laws of the other 8 states which require photo ID, none appear to have established a process or system to verify whether an ID is fake or not at the polling site. The challenge procedure in current NC law established underG.S. 163-87 for challenges on election day could still be used to challenge a voter on any of the grounds included in that statute, such as the person is not who they represent themselves to be, even if that voter has presented identification.”

The Voting News Daily: Indiana Senate fixes election code for White’s successor, Colorado Senate Democrats kill voter ID

IN: Senate OKs plan to alter election law – The Indianapolis Star

Despite howls from Democrats that Republicans were changing the rules because they fear the outcome, the Senate on Monday approved a provision that would let the governor appoint a new secretary of state if Charlie White is found ineligible to have been elected. The provision would overturn current law that says the second-highest vote-getter — in this case, Democrat Vop Osili — would be declared the winner. The amendment, offered by Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, would minimize the fallout for Republicans if White is found ineligible. Not only would it let the Republican governor choose White’s replacement, but Republicans would keep political perks based on the number of votes a party’s candidate for secretary of state wins, especially getting their candidates on ballots without going through the petition process. White has been indicted in Hamilton County on seven felony counts stemming from his having voted in the wrong precinct in the May primary. The grand jury and Democrats allege White did so deliberately in order to cover up that he had moved out of the Fishers Town Council district he represented; White insists it was an innocent mistake. Full Article

CO: Senate Dems kill voter ID, immigration crackdown proposals – KWGN

Senate Democrats have killed two more bills from the GOP-controlled House, both of which dealt with the issue of illegal immigration. A controversial proposal to reduce alleged voter fraud, House 1252 would have allowed the Secretary of State’s office to cross-check the state’s voter rolls with immigration databases and to send letters demanding further proof of citizenship to any registered voters whose status appeared to be in doubt. Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican voted into office last November, was pushing for the bill and worried that thousands of people may have been voting illegally in Colorado’s elections. H.B. 1252, sponsored by Rep. Chris Holbert, passed the House, but ran into trouble in the Democrat-controlled Senate. After testimony from several progressive groups who argued that there’s no evidence of voter fraud, the Senate State Affairs Committee voted the bill down Monday afternoon on a 2-3 party-line vote. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Prosser urges against a “frivolous” recount, Bipartisan support for paper trail voting in South Carolina

WI: Prosser urges against a “frivolous” recount – POLITICO.com

Wisconsin Supreme Court justice David Prosser said Monday that he’s won a “decisive” victory in his race for a 10-year term on the court and that a request from his opponent for a state-funded recount would be “frivolous.” “The result of the election is not in doubt,” the conservative judge said Monday at a press conference in the state capitol in Madison, referring to the tight margin by which he leads challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. “A funny thing happened to me on the way to my concession speech: The people of Wisconsin told me to tear it up and go back to work.” Prosser declared victory on Friday after the state released final vote totals that put him up by 7,316 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast. Kloppenburg has until the end of the day Wednesday to decide whether she will request a recount. Her campaign said Monday that she hasn’t made a decision yet, the Associated Press reported. Prosser’s attorney Jim Troupis warned against a recount, saying the campaign “will take every and any step to prevent this frivolous matter going forward.” And a spokesman for Prosser, Brian Schimming, said the justice notched “a strong enough win” that for Kloppenburg “to ask for a recount in any form will be enormously costly to the voters of this state.” Schimming also cautioned that there is “no evidence there to suggest that a recount is going to change the outcome.” Full Article

SC: Bipartisan support for paper trail voting in South Carolina – Examiner.com

It’s no secret that opposing political parties frequently disagree. But when it comes to voting machines currently used in their state, South Carolina Democrats and Republicans unite in demand for improvement. Distrust in the use of electronic voting machines is noted in the 2011 resolutions of both state parties. Both call for changes to include verification, if not complete replacement, by paper records. The Abbeville County Republican Party forwarded aresolution, recently passed at its county convention, to the state GOP calling for an end to use of all types of voting machines in the state, and recommending “use (of) paper ballots exclusively from this point forward(.)” This resolution will be voted on at the SCGOP 2011 convention, scheduled for May 7 in Columbia. Resolutions of the state Democratic Party will include similar terms, according to Susan Smith, a Georgetown County representative to the SCDP’s Executive Committee. A member of its subcommittee on resolutions, Smith says a 2011 resolution will call for a paper trail verification of votes. SCDP delegates will vote on all resolutions at its April 30 state convention. Read More

The Voting News Daily: Wisconsin Investigates Five Years of Waukesha Elections, Printers for India’s Electronic Voting Machines?

WI: State investigating vote irregularities in Waukesha County going back five years – Madison State Journal

The state’s investigation into vote irregularities in Waukesha County will stretch back at least five years, the head of the Government Accountability Board said Thursday. Questions over vote totals in Waukesha have lingered over the past week after County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced she failed to report more than 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield in initial vote totals. The new total gave incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser a lead of about 7,000 votes over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg in the hotly contested state Supreme Court race. Official results in that race have not yet been announced. Now questions have emerged over Nickolaus’ published vote counts from as far back as the fall of 2006, when there were key statewide elections including races for governor and attorney general. “This is part of what we’re looking into. We have a lot of complaints,” said Kevin Kennedy, the director and general counsel for GAB. “It’s part of our investigation.” Kennedy said the board’s current priority is determining the integrity of numbers reported in this spring’s election but added investigators are reviewing broader questions about Nickolaus and vote counting. Full Article

India: Election Commission seeks roadmap for EVM with printers – Hindustan Times

An Election Commission committee on Friday asked Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) manufacturers the time-frame within which the machines can be upgraded as per its suggestions. The high level technical committee has suggested some up-gradations including installing a small printer in EVMs as reported by HT on Friday, to give out receipts for every vote cast. The idea is to have a record of all the votes that can be verified. The voter, however, will not get the receipt as the commission believes it could be traded. The concept is called paper trail of votes cast. The committee asked the two EVM manufacturing companies, Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited, to come out with a roadmap to introduce paper trail in 14 lakh EVMs. Read More

The Voting News Daily: The Fate of the EAC Discussed in Congressional Hearing, West Virginia Audit finds errors in accounting

Election Assistance Commission May Be Closing : Roll Call Politics

House Republicans may have found a way to trim $14 million from the federal budget: eliminate the Election Assistance Commission. The House Administration Committee is holding a hearing today to discuss closing the agency that is charged with administering federal election requirements and testing voting equipment. A corresponding Republican bill that would transfer most of the agency’s responsibilities to the Federal Election Commission may run into strong Democratic opposition. Getting rid of the EAC would save millions and reduce government redundancy, according the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Gregg Harper. The EAC has “clearly served its purpose and is no longer essential to the administration of our elections,” the Mississippi Republican, chairman of the Subcommittee on Elections, said in a statement. “This is why I have introduced legislation to eliminate the Commission and transfer its remaining responsibilities and its authority to more appropriate and competent entities.” But Minority Whip Steny Hoyer may have a thing or two to say about Harper’s plan as the first witness slated to testify at today’s hearing. Excerpts of the Maryland Democrat’s written testimony obtained by Roll Call show he will come out sharply against closing the EAC. Full Article

WV: Audit finds counting of federal election money had errors spanning 3 secretaries of state – Greenfield Reporter

An audit shows West Virginia’s accounting of federal money it received for replacing voting machines and other election improvements contained several errors. The audit by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Office of the Inspector General examined the state’s use of the funding from April 2003 to August 2009, a period spanning the terms of Secretary of State Natalie Tennant and two predecessors, Betty Ireland and Joe Manchin. According to the audit, the Secretary of State’s Office didn’t put matching money received into a single account with the federal money until 2007. As a result, the election account lost more than $95,000 in interest earnings. Auditors also found discrepancies between the Secretary of State’s balance sheets and the Treasurer’s Office’s balance sheets. Ireland told the Charleston Daily Mail that the balance sheet discrepancies were the only problem she wasn’t aware of when she left office. The other problems identified by auditors were corrected. In a response to audit, Tennant attributed the balance sheet discrepancies to data entry errors and differences in accounting procedures. She said her office has made changes to correct the problem. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Nickolaus Rebuffs Calls for Resignation, White recuses himself in Indiana Recount Commission case

WI: Nickolaus fends off calls for resignation – JSOnline

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, under blistering attack by critics since an election night reporting error that temporarily reversed results of the Supreme Court race, on Tuesday rejected calls that she resign. “I will serve the remainder of my term,” Nickolaus said in a written statement. “I understand why people are upset and I am taking this matter seriously. Again, I am sorry for my mistake.” Earlier Tuesday, Waukesha County Democratic Party Chairman Victor Weers said in a news release that not only has the clerk’s vote-counting and reporting process produced problems, but “Ms. Nicholaus (sic) has willfully ignored pleas to repair her broken reporting process in an open and technologically reliable way.” “We must have a county clerk that we can trust to do this important work of the people with competence, security and openness. Waukesha must have a new county clerk now.”

In her written response, Nickolaus said: “I have immediately begun the process of reviewing my procedures. I have also asked the Government Accountability Board and the Waukesha County auditor to assist my office in a review and implementation of improved practices and procedures to make sure the process is more transparent and this mistake does not happen again. I will use the remainder of my term to restore the voter’s (sic) confidence in me.” Nickolaus was first elected county clerk in November 2002 after winning a Republican primary race against former deputy county clerk Kathy Karalewitz. She was re-elected in 2004, 2006 and 2008 without opposition, when state law was changed and made the term four years. Her current term expires at the end of 2012. Nickolaus earns $67,787 a year. Full Article

IN: White recuses himself in Recount Commission case – The Indianapolis Star

Secretary of State Charlie White has partially stepped down from the Indiana Recount Commission, the group that has been charged with determining whether he’s eligible to stay in office. White is removing himself only from matters related to that case. Last week, a judge ordered the Indiana Recount Commission to hear Democrats’ challenge that White was not legally registered to vote at the time he filed his candidacy and is therefore ineligible to remain secretary of state. The commission had dismissed the complaint last December. On Monday, White announced in a letter to Republican chairman Eric Holcomb that he would not participate in discussions pertaining to this case, including whether an appeal should be filed. Holcomb will have to select a Republican replacement for White, who became chairman of the three-member commission when he was elected secretary of state. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Democrat on Waukesha County vote panel speaks out , Mayoral recalls gone wild

WI: Democrat on Waukesha County vote panel speaks out – JSOnline

The Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers who was widely quoted as endorsing the county clerk’s official ballot count that flipped the state Supreme Court winner last week said Monday that she was never told about more than 14,000 missing votes from the city of Brookfield until shortly before a Thursday news conference. By then, the three-member board had finished its canvass, which had started midday Wednesday. The Waukesha County Democratic Party released a statement Monday ascribed to Ramona Kitzinger, 80, a member of the canvassing board since 2004. In the statement, Kitzinger said that even during the canvass of Brookfield’s votes during the day Thursday, no mention was made of the big mistake, something in retrospect she called “shocking and somewhat appalling.” Read More

Mayoral recall drives go viral – USATODAY.com

Buoyed by the viral power of the Internet and rising anti-government sentiment, disgruntled voters have set off a rash of recall drives against mayors in cities across the USA. The urge to oust city leaders has intensified in the struggling economy as more mayors raise taxes and cut services to close budget shortfalls. Fifty-seven mayors faced recall attempts last year, up from 23 in 2009, according to Ballotpedia, a non-profit that tracks recall elections. So far this year: 15. Almost all have failed. Recalls are so frequent that the U.S. Conference of Mayors today launches a campaign warning mayors to brace for recalls. The effort includes a documentary-style film, Recall Fever: Stop the Madness. The film recounts recent recall efforts in Omaha; Miami; Akron, Ohio; and Chattanooga, Tenn. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Prosser open to Waukesha County recount, Clarification of Election Night Reporting from the City of Brookfield

WI: Prosser open to Waukesha County recount – JSOnline

Justice David Prosser’s campaign said Saturday that it was open to a recount of votes in Waukesha County as the state Supreme Court race remained without a declared winner. “If you need to do a recount in Waukesha (County) and Waukesha (County) alone to satisfy heightened interest, that’s fine,” said Prosser campaign manager Brian Nemoir. “We believe it will only affirm the margin of victory we now enjoy.” In Waukesha County, thousands of votes from the city of Brookfield were not reported by the county clerk on election night but were discovered the day after. Prosser’s margin of victory in Brookfield helped push him ahead of challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. Kloppenburg’s campaign manager, Melissa Mulliken, said of the proposed Waukesha County recount, “That is their talk. Once again, we’re evaluating the data, looking at what we’ve got.” Updated but not yet final results compiled by the Journal Sentinel on Friday showed Prosser ahead by 6,744 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast. If either candidate requests a recount in Waukesha County, his or her campaign would have to pay for it, said a Government Accountability Board spokesman. But if Kloppenburg remains close enough to Prosser in the statewide tally – within half a percentage point – she could ask for a statewide recount and not have to pay the cost. Both campaigns have sought advice from top recount attorneys in the nation as Wisconsin remained poised for the possibility of the first statewide recount in two decades. Full Article

WI: Clarification of Election Night Reporting from the City of Brookfield

The City of Brookfield submitted the election results from the April 5th Election to the County Clerk at 10:05 p.m. on April 5th and called the County to make sure they received the results and they were in the correct format. We were informed that they were received and in the correct format. The same results were sent to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Brookfield Patch and placed on the City of Brookfield’s website. The Elmbrook and Waukesha School Districts were also called with their results. Due to an error at Waukesha County, the votes reported by the City of Brookfield were not included in the totals sent by the County to the Government Accountability Board on April 5. On Thursday April 7, as a result of its canvass of votes, Waukesha County determined that the votes for the City of Brookfield were not included in its April 5 submission. The County has included all votes cast in the City of Brookfield in its final submission of canvassed votes to the State, which submission was made on April 7. In summary, all votes cast in the April 5 election by City of Brookfield voters have been counted and submitted to the State, whether those votes were cast at the polls or by absentee ballot. The original problem was not in the transmission of the votes from the City to the County, but was rather due to a failure by the County in transmitting the vote totals from the County to the State.

The Voting News Daily: Unexpected Twist in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election, Was the Indiana Secretary of State registered legally when elected?

WI: Wisconsin Election Surprise: David Prosser Gains 7,500 Votes After ‘Human Error’ In Waukesha County (VIDEO) – HuffingtonPost

In a dramatic turn of events on Thursday, the Waukesha County clerk announced that the vote total announced for Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race had been mistaken — and that the corrected numbers changed the outcome of the entire election. There were 3,456 missing votes for Democratic-backed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg and 11,059 for incumbent GOP-backed Justice David Prosser. Kloppenburg has previously been beating Prosser by just 200 votes of the roughly 1.5 million cast statewide. The new total puts Prosser on a significant path to victory, about 7,500 votes ahead of Kloppenburg. Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced the news in a press conference at 5:30 p.m. local time, sounding nervous and, at times, on the verge of tears. She insisted that there was no foul play in the results and blamed the mess on her own “human error.” Nickolaus cited several reasons for the discrepancies between Tuesday night’s unofficial vote totals and the new numbers. In the city of New Berlin, the total for one ward was recorded as 37 votes for Prosser, but it was actually 237, she said. In the town of Lisbon, a “typing error” resulted in both candidates losing votes. The most significant error, however, occurred in the city of Brookfield. “The spreadsheet from Brookfield was imported into a database that was provided by the Government Accountability Board, but it inadvertently was not saved,” Nickolaus said. “As a result, when I ran the report to show the aggregate numbers that were collected from all the municipalities, I assumed that the city of Brookfield was included. It was not. The city of Brookfield cast 14,315 votes on April 5 — 10,859 votes went for Justice David Prosser, 3,456 went for JoAnne Kloppenburg.” “It is important to stress that this is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found,” she added. “This is human error, which I apologize for — which is common in this process.” Full Article

IN: Challenge to Charlie White’s election is ruled valid – The Indianapolis Star

Democrats’ legal challenge to the election of Secretary of State Charlie White is valid, a judge ruled Thursday, and he sent it back to the Indiana Recount Commission to be resolved. Marion Circuit Judge Louis Rosenberg said the commission’s interpretation of the law when it dismissed questions of White’s eligibility would “undermine a key purpose of (the law): preventing fraud.” Bradley Skolnik, the state’s recount director, said it’s too early to say whether the commission will appeal Rosenberg’s ruling. Democrats filed suit in December after the commission voted along party lines to dismiss their allegations that White, who was registered at an old address when he filed his candidacy, was not eligible to run in November’s election. The Democrats said their claim shouldn’t have been dismissed because a state law that requires candidates for secretary of state to be registered to vote means they must be registered legally.

The Voting News Daily: Wisconsin State Supreme Court race headed for likely recount, Internet Voting rejected in Australia

WI: State Supreme Court race headed for likely recount – JSOnline

A recount is all but certain in the race for state Supreme Court, which would pose a host of legal questions, raise the political stakes in efforts to recall state senators, ignite a new bout of political fundraising and further fuel Wisconsin’s ongoing battle over union bargaining. On Wednesday, nearly 20 hours after the polls closed, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg claimed victory over Justice David Prosser after an unofficial tally showed her holding the thinnest of leads. According to an unofficial tally by The Associated Press, she was up 204 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast – a margin of 1/100th of a percent. “Wisconsin voters have spoken, and I am grateful for, and humbled by, their confidence and trust,” she said in a statement. Wisconsin is already a focus of national attention because of the fight over Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining measure, and now the state’s election system will likely get unprecedented scrutiny under the first statewide recount in more than 20 years. Read More

Australia: Queensland legislation holds e-voting at bay – Computerworld

The Electoral Commission of Queensland will forgo electronic voting for the next state election, sidelining plans to develop a system as a result of legislative restrictions in the state. The commission allocated $960,000 in funding late last year for research into technology to assist voting for the blind and vision impaired, following similar projects in NSW and Victoria ahead of their respective elections. However, the funding has so far remained unused. Electoral Commissioner for Queensland, David Kerslake, told Computerworld Australia that the project was dependent on changes in state legislation which, even if made this year, would not provide enough time for system development ahead of the next election sometime early in 2012. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Wisconsin court election courts disaster, New Montana bill ending Election Day voter registration might hurt state GOP

WI: Opinion: Wisconsin court election courts disaster – Richard L. Hasen – POLITICO.com

With a razor-thin 204-vote lead, Democratic state assistant attorney general JoAnne Kloppenburg has declared victoryover Republican incumbent David Prosser in the race for Wisconsin state Supreme Court justice. A recount in this race, which some view as a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union policies, seems inevitable, and it is not clear who will ultimately take the seat on the Wisconsin bench. But if this expensive and nasty race ends up in protracted litigation, it could undermine public confidence in both the judiciary and Wisconsin’s electoral process, especially if, as I expect, supporters of Prosser raise ugly allegations of voter fraud. To begin with, these days any statewide election within a few hundred votes will likely be within the margin of litigation. Since the 2000 election and dispute over the razor-thin margin separating George W. Bush and Al Gore for the Florida vote, and therefore the U.S. presidency, litigating the outcome of close elections has become a regular feature of U.S. political life. Whether the 2004 governor’s race in Washington State between Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire, the 2008 Senate race in Minnesota pitching Al Franken against Norm Coleman or the 2010 Senate race in Alaska between Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller, close elections bring out intense partisan fighting and, often from the Republican side, allegations of fraud or voting irregularities. While the fraud allegations remain stuck in the public’s mind, no proof of any systemic fraud has been unearthed. Instead, close examination of elections show, time and again, that our election systems are not perfect – but this is due to human error and not fraud. Full Article

MT: New Montana bill ending Election Day voter registration might hurt state GOP – KBZK.com

The state legislature has passed a bill ending Election Day voter registration. The last day voters could now register is the Friday before an election. The Republican sponsored House Bill 180 passed largely on party lines Monday. Long held political thought says blocking same day registration benefits the G.O.P. But new research calls that into question. The general argument put forth around the issue goes like this: Republicans say allowing voters to register on Election Day can lead to fraud; Democrats argue we should be trying to get as many citizens as possible to vote–and same day voter registration helps. This issue, though, is often seen as having a deeper partisan motive. “Anything you do to try to make it easier for people to turn out, theoretically the conventional wisdom states it should help Democrats,” said MSU Political Science Professor, Dr. David Parker. Conversely anything making the process more difficult should help Republicans. But Parker said a study released last year by the University of Wisconsin found a different conclusion. Full Article
Read the University of Wisconsin Report (pdf)

The Voting News Daily: DoJ Clears GA Voter ID Law, Egypt Looks to India for Voting Machines

GA: Secretary of State Georgia’s voter ID requirement cleared by DoJ – Rome News-Tribune

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced today that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) precleared Georgia’s law and related regulations which require new voter registration applicants to provide evidence of United States citizenship with their voter registration applications. The law is Act 143 of the 2009 Georgia General Assembly, also known as Senate Bill 86. “This law is a common sense enhancement to our voter registration process that will prevent non-citizens from voting in Georgia’s elections,” Kemp said. “Every ballot cast by a non-citizen erases a ballot cast by an eligible Georgia voter. The voter roll protections in Act 143, our photo ID requirement for in-person voting, and our triple-signature verification procedure for mail-in ballots make Georgia a national model for election security and integrity.” Act 143 was signed into law by Governor Sonny Perdue on May 5, 2009 and requires those registering to vote to submit evidence of United States citizenship with their applications. There are many forms of acceptable identification, including a Georgia driver’s license number or identification card number, birth certificate, U.S. passport, U.S. naturalization documents or alien registration number, and a copy of a driver’s license or identification card from any state whose cards comply with the requirements of the federal REAL ID Act of 2005. Full Article

Egypt: Envoy seeks Inia’s chief election commissione’s help in conducting polls – The Times of India

Egypt’s ambassador to India Khaled el Bakly met chief election commissioner (CEC) S Y Quraishi recently, seeking assistance in conducting elections after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. Parliamentary elections will be held in Egypt in September, followed by presidential polls in November. During the meeting with Quraishi, Bakly wanted to know about various aspects of election management and electronic voting machines (EVMs). “He asked how fast we can provide EVMs in case they decide to use them,” said a senior election commission (EC) official. The EC has sent Bakly documents on skills, experience and technical know-how in conducting elections in India. Bakly also wanted to know about Indian Institute of Democrat and Election Management (IIDEM), which the Commission proposes to set up.IIDEM will offer assistance and support, training and educational materials and consultancy service in election management. “We get a lot of requests from various countries to train their poll officials,” said Quraishi. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Voter ID Bill Stymied in Iowa, Federal Bill Coming?

IA: Iowa voter ID plan stymied – Omaha.com

A proposal to require Iowa voters to produce identification at polling places appears unlikely to become law this year. House File 95 went to the Senate State Government Committee after being passed by the House in January. Because it failed to win the panel’s approval by Friday’s deadline for committee action, it’s unlikely the bill will advance any further this year. “It’s dead,” said Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who made voter identification a cornerstone of his 2010 election campaign. “Unfortunately, something that is a commonsense issue has somehow become partisan,” the Council Bluffs Republican told The World-Herald. Schultz and other bill supporters have said that requiring voters to show identification is a way to prevent voter fraud. Others said such efforts are a way to reduce voter turnout. County auditors run elections in Iowa, and the Iowa State Association of County Auditors opposed the bill. Read More

As Voter ID Laws Spread Across Statehouses, House GOP Telegraphs Anti-Voter Fraud Bill – TPMMuckraker

With voter ID laws popping up in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country, could a federal bill be far off? According to data from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, at least 27 state-level voter ID bills — fromAlaska and Arizona to Wisconsin and West Virginia — have been proposed in recent months. “It’s unbelievable, probably half the states in the country have bills in play and more than a dozen are seriously in the pipeline,” Tova Wang of the left-leaning think tank Demos told TPM in an interview. “It’s really unprecedented in terms of geographic scope. I’ve never seen anything like it certainly since I’ve been working on voting rights issues that voter suppression bills would be introduced in so many places at the same time.” “Definitely students are a target here. It’s totally clear to me that you saw in 2008 this unprecedented historic turnout among African-Americans, Latinos and young people — and those happen to be the exact groups of people that are being targeted by these laws to disenfranchise them, and that’s really sad,” Wang said. Wang said the most restrictive bills are in Ohio and Wisconsin, which Wang said require identification issued by the DMV. “Perhaps most interestingly, it doesn’t even include student ID even from schools that are public universities,” she said. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: Diebold TS on E-Bay – Get Yours Now!, Florida – 10 Years After

100+ Diebold voting machines, known for how easily they can be hacked, available now on EBay | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

You really can get anything on EBay, even electronic voting machines proved to be easy to corrupt for purposes of voting fraud. Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog first noticed that “more than 10” AccuVote-TS voting machines, built by Diebold, were being sold on the online auction site for the buy-it-now price of $1,200 (plus $50 shipping and handling). The machines are used and don’t come with user’s manuals, power supplies, batteries or memory cards, which may explain their discounted price. However, for those who wish to rig elections, machines like these are priceless. Friedman was contacted by the seller, who told him that he had more than 100 of the electronic voting machines that were originally used in Van Wert County, Ohio. AccuVote-TS voting machines were also used in New Jersey, when a professor at Princeton demonstrated how easy the Diebold machines were to manipulate for nefarious means. In congressional testimony in 2006 on “Electronic Voting Machines: Verification, Security and Paper Trails,” professor Edward W. Felten explained to the Committee on House Administration that the AccuVote-TS was quite easy to hack through “malicious software” to produce whatever election results a criminal would want to achieve How easy? It would only take one minute to install the software that would destroy the integrity of the voting. Full Article

FL: Report Tracks Election Reform 10 Years After Bush v. Gore – PRNewswire-USNewswire

In a new report, the Collins Center for Public Policy examines the state of election reform in Floridaa decade after a bipartisan task force called for substantial changes. Florida became a laughingstock in 2000 as the nation awaited the results of the presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Alarmed by the spectacle, Gov. Jeb Bush asked the Collins Center to form a task force and analyze flaws in Florida’s elections proces. In March 2001, the Governor’s Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology produced 35 recommendations in a report “Revitalizing Democracy in Florida.” Ten years later, a majority of the recommendations have been instituted. Full Article

The Voting News Daily: EAC Certifies New ES&S Election Management System, Voter ID Gambit?

EAC Certifies ES&S Unity 3.2.1.0 Voting System

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has certified the Unity 3.2.1.0 voting system by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) to the 2002 Voting System Standards. It is the fifth voting system to achieve federal certification under EAC’s Voting System Testing and Certification Program. The Unity 3.2.1.0 comprises two precinct-based optical scanners—the M100 and the DS200—and one central-count scanner, the M650. The accessible voting device for this system is the AutoMark. EAC issued federal certification for the Unity 3.2.1.0 system after ES&S demonstrated compliance with the following final certification requirements, which completes the EAC’s comprehensive testing process. Source

The GOP’s Voter ID gambit – The Fix – The Washington Post

As Republican governors and legislators across the country push forward with ambitious and sometimes controversial budget-cutting agendas, the GOP in many states is also quietly encouraging another controversial measure: Voter ID. The Associated Press reported this weekendthat Republicans are moving forward with such measures – which can require people to show identification or swear an oath of their identity when they vote – in about half of the 50 states. And in many of them, the bills have a better chance of becoming law than in a long time. While the big new Republican majorities and GOP governors give Voter ID advocates new hope to pass these bills, the efforts do carry some political risk. Voter ID bills, often compared by opponents to modern-day poll taxes, are characterized by critics as thinly veiled efforts to disenfranchise poor and minority populations who tend to vote Democratic. And for Republicans already dealing with some dicey budget debates, the Voter ID battles are causing a stir. Full Article