New York: We told you so: DS200 voting machine screwed up – NY Board of Elections must be more vigilant about testing equipment | NY Daily News

You know those new electronic vote-scanning machines that are supposed to be foolproof in reading and counting every ballot in an election? Well, they’re anything but foolproof. In fact, they can screw up voter tallies to a fare-thee-well even after technicians carefully calibrate and test them. So state and city election officials have discovered, along with the machine’s manufacturer, thanks to insistent prodding by this page. Their learning experience began at a polling place at Public School 65 in the Bronx, where official tallies for 2010 primary and general elections showed that as many as 70% of the voters had cast invalid ballots, disqualifying them. The Brennan Center at NYU Law School brought the obviously impossible discrepancy to the attention of the city Board of Elections. The board responded, in essence, “Who cares?”

New York: Overheated ES&S DS200 automates election, places 60K votes itself | ITworld

The voting machine that cast between 50,000 and 60,000 extra votes for New York gubernatorial candidates in November has a bug that causes it to misread some ballots and add additional votes to others when the machine itself overheats, according to a review by the state Board of Election. All of the so-called “over-votes” were thrown out after election workers reported an unrealistic spike in the number of votes from the machine, from manufacturer Election Systems and Software (ES&S), which apparently overheated during the hour or so the polling location was closed for lunch. In 2010 NYC’s City Board of Elections decided to replace its old lever-driven voting machines, that required voters to flip a lever to register their choices with a newer model from ES&S. Rather than flipping a lever, voters fill in oval spaces on paper ballots, then scan the ballots into the voting machine to register their choices. The machine counts votes automatically; the stored paper ballots remain serve as the source for recounts or backups for lost votes.

New York: Overvotes: Phantoms of the Ballot Box | ReformNY

The New York State Board of Elections, New York City Boards of Elections, and voting machine manufacturer ES&S each released reports yesterday detailing the results of an investigation into the abnormally high numbers of lost votes attributed to “overvoting” in the South Bronx in 2010. The upshot is that a machine defect led to “phantom votes” on at least one machine used in the 2010 election, resulting in some candidates receiving more votes than they should have, and the choices of many more voters being voided when the machines detected both actual and phantom votes in the same contest. Now that the reports on how this happened are out, election officials must make sure that what happened in the Bronx in 2010 does not happen again in the future. Voting machines record overvotes when they detect more than one candidate selected for a contest. In such cases, no vote is recorded for any candidate in the overvoted contest, regardless of the voter’s actual intent. The Brennan Center first uncovered a high number of overvotes in the South Bronx while reviewing documents produced for discovery in a litigation it brought against the State and City. It published its findings in Design Deficiencies and Lost Votes; the report notes that in some election districts up to 40% of the votes cast did not count.

New York: Machine Casts Phantom Votes in the Bronx, Invalidating Real Ones: Report | WNYC

Tests on an electronic voting machine that recorded shockingly high numbers of extra votes in the 2010 election show that overheating may have caused upwards of 30 percent of the votes in a South Bronx voting precinct to go uncounted. WNYC first reported on the issue in December 2011, when it was found that tens of thousands of votes in the 2010 elections went uncounted because electronic voting machines counted more than one vote in a race.

New York: Special election to replace Kruger costs $1 million for vanishing seat | NYPOST.com

Talk about throwing good money after bad. Taxpayers will shell out about $1 million to elect a replacement for disgraced Brooklyn pol Carl Kruger — who pleaded guilty to taking more than $1 million in bribes — although the eventual winner will spend no more than eight months in office. That’s because Kruger’s 27th District state Senate seat will be wiped off the map by the redistricting process by the end of the year. There still hasn’t been a winner declared in the March 20 special election to replace Kruger — who resigned in disgrace in December — between Republican David Storobin and Democratic Councilman Lew Fidler. Storobin unofficially won by a mere two votes. So now, officials will recount all 22,000 ballots by hand — a lengthy process that could take months and hours upon hours of overtime at the Board of Elections. But the Legislature will adjourn for the year in June, which means the eventual winner may never cast a vote in Albany.

New York: Four elections during 2012 draw criticism for cost | The Journal News

If you love to vote, 2012 is your year. Four major elections will take place in New York this year, starting with Tuesday’s presidential primary. Primaries for U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives follow June 26, and primaries for state and local offices come Sept. 11. The general election caps off the season Nov. 6. “I guess you really get to be a part of the process this year,” Rockland County Republican Election Commissioner Louis Babcock said. The abundance of elections has raised several concerns, including the cost of holding so many and whether voters will keep turning out. “It’s costly and it’s taxing on the voters to come out that many times,” Westchester County Republican Election Commissioner Doug Colety said.

New York: Redistricting Process Continues in Legal Purgatory | WNYC

Like a sequel to a horror movie most people never saw in the first place, New York’s redistricting saga continues to play out in court rooms and administrative offices from Washington, DC and Albany. Even before Governor Andrew Cuomo signed off on a compromised redistricting agreement with state legislators—which was ultimately a reversal on his promise to veto maps drawn by said legislators—legal activity surrounding the contentious redrawing of the state’s political boundaries has kept the compromise signed into law by the Governor from being the final word. The redistricting afterlife, it turns out, consists of three levels of political purgatory.

New York: City elections official under fire for soliciting money from a voting systems contractor | NYPost.com

The city’s Board of Elections has suspended an employee who is a top official in the Queens Republican Party after being notified that he was caught on tape soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from a company competing for a $65 million contract in 2009, The Post has learned. Several sources said the Department of Investigation provided information to the board that Stephen Graves, first vice chairman of the Queens GOP and a $66,392-a-year board employee, asked for the money from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems as it was battling rival Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., to sell the city its first electronic voting machines. “He was recommending the use of a particular lobbyist,” said one source. “In exchange for that he wanted a finder’s fee.” The lobbyist, who was not identified, was supposed to receive $250,000 a year for five years, the source said. Dominion didn’t make any payments, and ES&S ended up winning the fiercely fought contract in a 6-1 vote on Jan. 5, 2010, with two board commissioners abstaining.

New York: They keep voting honest, one ballot at a time | The Columbia Paper

Columbia County’s election commissioners have counted 100% of the paper ballots in every election for the past two years, ever since the county switched to using new voting machines as part of a federal mandate. Their approach can delay the final vote tally and it may seem an odd when technology has taken over so many manual tasks. But they question the accuracy of the results for the new machines and see no reason to stop checking them by hand. “The most accurate and reliable method is a 100% visual audit,” Elections Commissioner Jason Nastke (R) said Tuesday. He referred to multiple scanner miscounts in Greenport in a past election. “The machines are not completely reliable,” he said. “Hand counting allows for voter intent to be taken into consideration,” said Election Commissioner Virginia Martin (D). “If someone has circled rather than filled in the ovals, it counts when the ballots are hand counted, but with machine counting, the only allowed discrepancies involve machine error, not human error.”

New York: In Overtime, Tight Race for Senate Rests With Vote Counters | NYTimes.com

The drama of a contentious Brooklyn special election for a State Senate seat moved into an unmarked warehouse on Wednesday, and as officials began reviewing votes, uncertainty increased alongside absurdity. Because the longer the contest drags on, the shorter the time the winner will serve the 27th District, which will cease to exist in its current form in 2013. The candidates each held ebullient, and premature, victory parties late Tuesday, but as of Wednesday night, there was still no winner. And there may not be for at least another week, if not two, or three, though each candidate continued to assert he had won. On election night, the upstart Republican candidate, David Storobin, rattled the Democratic establishment by taking a 120-vote lead over Lewis A. Fidler, a three-term city councilman, with more than 21,000 votes cast. On Wednesday night, Mr. Storobin increased his lead to 143 votes, according to the New York City Board of Elections — a number that will continue to change.

New York: Redistricting Battle Threatens to Leave New York Election Day in Chaos, Critics Say | DNAinfo.com

The drawn-out redistricting battle in Albany has paved the way for election day chaos in New York City, critics warn. As legislators and the courts finally wrap up the bitter fight over how to carve up the state following the latest census count, the city’s already-strained Board of Elections has been struggling to make preparations while voting districts were still in flux. “I don’t think they will be ready,” said City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who is planning to outline her concerns about the board’s ability to be adequately prepared for the races in a letter addressed to the state’s Board of Elections later this week. Brewer, who chairs the council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, said she has heard from staffers at the city board concerned about whether they’ll be ready for the petitioning process, which is set to kick off Tuesday, and then the state’s primaries, expected to take place June 26. “Nothing is clear. I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Brewer said.

New York: Cuomo to sign New York Legislature’s redistricting plan | WSJ.com

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Senate and Assembly majorities agreed Wednesday to enact the Legislature’s redistricting proposal as part of a long-term reform effort. The Senate Republican and Assembly Democratic majorities planned to pass the plan Wednesday night, despite condemnation from some good-government groups that the district lines were gerrymandered to protect the majorities’ political power and perks for the next 10 years. A senior administration official said Wednesday night that Cuomo will sign the measure, withdrawing his promised veto of any “hyper-partisan lines.” Cuomo ultimately traded his veto for a long-term overhaul through a constitutional amendment promised by legislative leaders. The senior administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because although the deal is sealed, the officials hadn’t yet announced it. Critics denounced Cuomo’s decision. As candidates in 2010, Cuomo and lawmakers promised independent redistricting.

New York: Redistricting End Is Nigh | Roll Call

There’s a growing bipartisan sense in top political circles in New York that the Congressional redistricting map released by a federal judge late last night represents the final lines for the 2012 cycle. Despite certain Democrats and Republicans pushing furiously for the Legislature to draw a map — one that creates a new majority-minority district in New York City or shores up Rep. Peter King (R) on Long Island or creates better districts for Reps. Kathy Hochul (D) and Chris Gibson (R) upstate — competing agendas make it more likely than not that the judge’s map will the final one. “At this point, I’d be surprised if something other than this is” the map, said one national Republican familiar with New York redistricting. That’s a sentiment plugged-in Empire State Democrats echoed in interviews with Roll Call. The map, viewable here (PDF), now goes to a federal three-judge panel for review. That panel will hold a hearing Thursday and decide soon thereafter if those lines will become law. A decision is expected Friday or, at the latest, Monday.

New York: New York unlikely to meet election deadlines | Star-Gazette

A federal judge’s ruling to set the congressional primaries for June 26 has turned New York’s election calendar on its head, making it almost impossible for the state to meet the deadline without changing laws. Legislators said Monday that the political calendar and the drawing of new district lines for state legislative and congressional seats this year makes it unlikely the state can comply with Judge Gary Sharpe’s orders. “I don’t see how you can meet it,” Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, said.

New York: Study Finds Voters Erred Often in Using New Machines | NYTimes.com

As many as 60,000 of the votes cast in New York State elections last year were voided because people unintentionally cast their ballots for more than one candidate, according to a study being released this week. The excess-voting was highest in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, including two Bronx election districts where 40 percent of the votes for governor were disqualified.

The study, by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, blamed software used with new electronic optical-scan voting machines as well as ambiguous instructions for disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. The old mechanical lever-operated machines did not allow votes for more than one candidate for the same office.

The study, by Lawrence Norden, acting director of Brennan’s Democracy Program, and Sundeep Iyer, a fellow with the program, estimated that 20,000 of the more than four million votes cast for governor were not counted and that as many as 40,000 votes were voided in other contests in New York State.

New York: Board of Elections has to end their cut and add tallies | NY Daily News

The Board of Elections will be commanded Thursday to defend the indefensible — plus the incomprehensible, the inexplicable and the incompetent. Good luck with that. The forum will be a hearing of the state Assembly Election Committee, where lawmakers will grill board representatives about their loony, hours-long process for tallying unofficial results.

No other election authority in the nation adds up numbers using the method employed by the board. In brief, when voting is done, poll workers:

Order each of 3,859 computerized scanners at 1,358 poll sites to print out a paper strip that shows the votes cast for every candidate, broken down by election district. Cut up each machine’s strip by election district. Gather the scraps of paper into piles for each race and each one of 6,109 election districts. Add the numbers up by hand and write the totals on sheets of paper that are taken to police stations to be entered into computers for dissemination by The Associated Press.

New York: Chautauqua County Election Commissioner Arraigned On Misdemeanors | post-journal.com

Norman P. Green was arraigned Monday in Chautauqua County Court on two election law misdemeanors. Green is the county’s Democratic election commissioner. The attempt to indict on felony charges failed to pass grand jury.

“I think it shows the system works, as far as grand juries,” said James Subjack, who is representing Green. “We’re looking forward to bringing the facts out to the public and I’m very confident that ultimately the charges will be dismissed either by motion or trial.” County Court Judge John Ward has recused himself from the case, which is now assigned to a Cattaraugus County judge.

New York: Pentagon Blasts New York’s Absentee-Ballot Plan for Troops | Metropolis

New York has failed to come up with an effective plan to send election ballots to military personnel overseas, the Defense Department said Wednesday in rejecting the state’s request for more time to meet absentee-ballot requirements.

The decision raises the stakes for a legal showdown between federal lawyers and the state, which last year violated a federal law requiring that ballots be mailed at least 45 days before an election.

New York: In Washington County, counting ballots to save dollars | poststar.com

Whether you voted or not, counties use that data to save money. But Board of Elections commissioners at Washington County take things a step further. Not only do they look at voter turnouts from previous elections, they’ve adopted a strategy similar to Wal-Mart’s “just-in-time” inventory, projecting the ballot needs of each polling site beforehand and hand-delivering extra ballots when needed.

With traditional lever-type voting machines, election boards simply stored a summary sheet along with affidavit, emergency and absentee ballots. But for the last two years, with electronic voting ballots in use, the state and printers have informally recommended that election boards look at the number of registered voters, then print out 110 percent of ballots needed, according to state and local officials.

New York: Voting Machine Troubles and County-Wide Impounding Delay Vote Counts | yorktown.patch.com

The county legislator, town board and supervisor races have hundreds of uncounted votes because of machine malfunctions. Voting machine troubles and a county-wide machine impounding from Tuesday’s election is leading to uncounted votes and unfinished business for candidates in the race for county legislator and the supervisor seat.

The Westchester County Board of Elections updated its website on Thursday and showed that all districts have reported results from the election, but those are not the final or official results. The absentee ballots and affidavits would still have to be counted.

New York: Voting technology frustrates Ontario County officials | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com

The high-tech voting systems now being used across the country may provide a secure and accurate method of tallying votes, but they don’t necessarily offer a fast and efficient method of getting results out to the public. Like most places, polls closed in Ontario County at 9 p.m. Tuesday, and Board of Elections officials there managed to get the memory cards from voting machines in 92 districts to their office on Ontario Street in Canandaigua by 11:10 p.m., where the cards were “read” by a computer.

But because of a software glitch, it wasn’t until about 9 a.m. Wednesday before the complete results were actually posted on the Board’s website. In Wayne County, memory cards from 67 machines were delivered to the Board of Elections office in Lyons by about 10:15 p.m., but the results weren’t posted on the site for another three hours.

New York: Westchester voting machines seized; many ballots uncounted in several legislative races | LoHud.com

Now it’s up to the lawyers. Voting machines throughout Westchester County have been impounded by a state Supreme Court justice so ballots won’t be counted until next week, election officials said Wednesday. And in some county legislative races, it’s still unclear who is leading because the county Board of Elections hasn’t posted results from all the voting districts.

The machines and ballots, which include 3,245 affidavits, are under “lockdown” and therefore cannot be tallied, said Reginald LaFayette, Democratic election commissioner. “Until we all get it sorted out, we’re not giving out any information,” he said Wednesday.

New York: Control of Nassau legislature undetermined | newsday.com

Which party will control the Nassau County Legislature next year may not be known before early December. With all precincts reporting, Republicans have an 11-8 majority in the legislature, holding slim leads in the 14th and 18th districts. Both races, however, are heading to a paper recount that could take several weeks to conclude, both sides said.

Wednesday, Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs and Republican chairman Joe Mondello, as they do every year, filed an order to show cause in State Supreme Court compelling the Board of Elections to begin counting all paper ballots. A court date is set for Nov. 16. Mondello spokesman Anthony Santino said the recount would begin after the Nov. 15 deadline to receive all outstanding absentee ballots. Ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 7.

New York: Voting Machine Troubles Delay Vote Counts | Bedford-Katonah Patch

Machines in at least three election districts broke down Tuesday leading to uncounted votes and unfinished business for candidates in the race for District 2 county legislator and for the contest for two town board seats. Bedford GOP Chairman Don Scott said that he knew of two districts in Bedford and one in Mt. Kisco that reported problems with their machines. Bruce Yablon, chair of the Bedford Democratic Committee, said there were uncounted votes in four election districts in Bedford.

The Westchester County Board of Elections results have not changed since Tuesday night, and show the incumbent Peter Harckham, the Democratic incumbent for District 2 county legislator, leading over Repulican challenger Peter Michaelis with 54 percent of the vote, with 42 of 52 districts reporting.

New York: Erie County ballot case goes national | The Buffalo News

The national media paid attention today to the alleged ballot tampering in Erie County, and Republican County Executive Chris Collins took advantage of it in a Fox News appearance to harshly criticize his Democratic opponent, Mark C. Poloncarz. Poloncarz, in turn, blasted Collins.

The alleged tampering centers around at least 10 ballots mailed to absentee voters in Lackawanna who complained the ballots were already marked for Collins on either the Republican or Independence lines.

The investigation is focused on a Democratic clerk at the Erie County Board of Elections, but county sheriff’s investigators have emphasized that they do not suspect the tampering was linked in any way to the campaigns of either Collins or Poloncarz.

New York: Off-Year Election Still Costs NYC $17 Million | NY1.com

Next month’s general election will cost the city $17 million, even though the so-called “off-year election” has almost no contests. NY1’s Courtney Gross filed the following report. There might be something missing from the ballot next month — an actual race. The thousands of voters that could head to the polls next month might be even more disappointed than typical off-year elections.

Citywide, only three of the 12 judicial contests are contested. Of the three district attorney races, only one incumbent, Dan Donovan on Staten Island, is seeing a challenge.

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown have secured every party line.

Nonetheless, every polling place will be open for business.

New York: State counted only 74% of military, overseas ballots | The Journal News

New York had the poorest showing in the country when it came to counting overseas and military ballots last November, a new report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found. The national average for ballots counted was 93.2 percent. But in New York, 73.9 percent of the 22,303 ballots cast were counted.

State Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin said New York’s numbers may have been skewed because boards of election counted every ballot, including those that were returned as undeliverable, toward the total number returned. It appears other states may not have included undeliverable ballots in their overall total, he explained. Returned ballots can be rejected for a variety of reasons, such as they are mailed too late or there is a problem with the voter’s signature.

New York: Port Chester faces new legal bill in failed voting rights case | The Journal News

The village’s short-lived bid to appeal its voting rights case — undertaken despite a taxpayer outcry — has added $75,000 in legal bills to the million-dollar cost of fighting the Justice Department’s 2006 lawsuit.

The village also owes $125,000 in legal expenses for plaintiff Cesar Ruiz and an undetermined amount for his legal expenses during the appellate phase.

A divided village Board of Trustees hired the law firm Jones Day in February to appeal the 2008 decision that deemed Port Chester’s former trustee election system in violation of the Voting Rights Act. A judge had found the old system — at-large voting for two trustees per year — prevented the Hispanic minority from electing their preferred candidates to the board.

New York: Ballot fraud case testimony continues | Times Union

A city councilman and the leader of the Rensselaer County Working Families Party were among a parade of witnesses who testified Thursday before a special county grand jury investigating absentee-ballot fraud.

Councilman Kevin McGrath and WFP County Chairman Jim Welch testified about allegations that voters’ signatures were forged on absentee ballots and ballot applications for the 2009 WFP primary. “It’s inappropriate for me to comment,” McGrath said as he strode in. Welch declined to comment after testifying.

For both, it was the second appearance before a grand jury probing the allegations of ballot fraud. They testified before an initial grand jury in December 2010. That panel indicted two Democratic officials.

New York: Ballot Security, an Issue in Consultant’s Trial, Has a Dark Past | NYTimes.com

The charge being weighed by a Manhattan jury in the case of the Republican campaign consultant John Haggerty Jr. is whether he took $1.1 million of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s money to guard against election fraud, and then spent most of it on a house instead.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg leaving the voting booth in November 2005. Both Bloomberg and Rudolph W. Giuliani faced criticism over their stationing of off-duty law enforcement officers at polling sites. But another question, unlikely to be resolved at Mr. Haggerty’s criminal trial, is why the mayor felt compelled to spend what most people consider a sweet fortune on campaign surveillance in the first place.

On the witness stand Monday, Mr. Bloomberg defended such operations as standard practice. “It’s traditional, I’m told, to provide ballot security,” he testified. “The security is a process to make sure that people that want to vote have the right to vote and don’t get pushed aside or denied the access to vote.”