McHenry Co. IL. Clerk Kathy Schultz discovered that a state mandated software “undervote warning fix” can sometimes cause the county’s voting machines to forget all the preceding votes they’d recorded…
New Jersey judge orders re-evaluation of voting machines by experts, says disconnect machines and tabulators from internet as well, but stops short of decommissioning them….Pam Smith, President of Verified Voting has an overview of this ruling and says that NJ’s voting systems “cannot be audited, there’s no way to check for accuracy.”…
Safe or not, e-mail voting headed to Washington State Senate. About Washington State’s House Bill 2483 and Senate Bill 6238, Holly Jacobson of Voter Action says: “Washington state should not implement a system that the Pentagon rejected as fundamentally insecure”. Voter Action is monitoring Ivoting legislation in the US…
All this and much more in today’s voting news below….
CA: Los Angeles Times Editorializes Against Petition Privacy
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/02/01/los-angeles-times-editorializes-against-petition-privacy/
CT: Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition – Nov 09 Election Observation Report – Improvement, Yet Still Unsatisfactory
Coalition Finds Unsatisfactory Improvement In Election Audits Across The State
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=2855
Citizen observation and analysis show the need for more attention to detail by officials, improvement in counting methods, and ballot chain-of-custody
IL: County Clerk To Defy Election Board * (software “fix” creates problems)
http://www.firstelectricnewspaper.com/2010/01/county-clerk-defies-election-board.html#links
McHenry Co…The law Schultz is going to break is one that says she has to rejigger the County’s voting machines to warn people they’ve failed to vote for someone, that is anyone at all, in a race, a common voter practice. Schultz is afraid if she “fixes” the machines, under certain circumstances they could forget all the preceding votes they’d recorded. She said Thursday she’s already made them do it in tests.
IL: Grass-roots reporting of election problems in Illinois
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Grass-roots-reporting-of-e-by-Roy-Lipscomb-100201-985.html
IL: New ballot rules tested in Tuesday’s primary election (Cook County)
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/02/new-ballot-rules-tested-in-tuesdays-primary-election.html
IL: Election fraud teams to be out in force
http://www.herald-review.com/news/local/0e44ea15-5ff1-548b-b8b8-200a3a6ddee3.html
IL: Some Illinois voters could get a surprise in Tuesday’s primary: a rejected ballot.
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/wire/chi-ap-il-ballotalerts,0,5085784.story
IL: Homer Township election judge maced, arrested, fired
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/02/homer-township-election-judge-sprayed-with-mace-fired.html
MD: Strong Brief Filed in 4th Circuit in Case Over Invalidation of Signatures due to Omission of Middle Initials, Etc.
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/02/01/strong-brief-filed-in-4th-circuit-in-case-over-invalidation-of-signatures-due-to-omission-of-middle-initials-etc/
NJ: Ruling Issued in Rutgers–Newark Law School’s Constitutional Litigation Clinic Challenge to NJ’s Electronic Voting Machines
Judge Orders Re-evaluation of 11,000 Machines by Panel of Computer Experts Within 120Days
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6747
Unlike the panel that currently evaluates voting machines, the new panel must have requisite knowledge of computers and computer security.
Judge Feinberg also ordered that all voting machines and vote tally transmitting systems be disconnected from the Internet immediately.
NJ: Judge Orders Expert Review of Voting Machines in New Jersey
http://blog.verifiedvoting.org/2010/02/02/396
February 2, 2010 By Pamela Smith, Verified Voting
“…until New Jersey deploys voter-verified paper ballots systems statewide, and initiates the routine conduct of robust post-election manual audits, its election officials cannot prove that the votes are being counted properly.”
NJ: Congressman Rush Holt’s statement about the ruling:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/nj12_holt/febvoting.html
NJ: Judge’s ruling could cause New Jersey to scrap 11,000 voting machines
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/judges-ruling-could-cause-new-jersey-to-scrap-11000-voting-machines
NJ: N.J. judge says state’s voting machings safe, reliable
http://tinyurl.com/yg9terh
NY: Village may use lever voting machines in March
http://adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/511045.html?nav=5008
February 1, 2010 …If for some reason the village doesn’t get that approval, village Clerk Kareen Tyler says voters will have to use paper ballots that would be counted by hand.
OH: Miamisburg voters notified of new polling locations for Tuesday’s vote
http://bit.ly/dt4xxv
VT: Burlington group rallies support for IRV
http://bit.ly/arFOSw
WA: Overseas voting (LTE in Seattle Times by Holly Jacobson of Voter Action)
http://tinyurl.com/ivnotsecure
Internet transmission of ballots insecure
WA: Safe or not, e-mail voting headed to Senate
Legislature: Security risk small, Reed says
http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/1123236.html
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Barbara Simons, a San Francisco computer scientist who is retired from IBM Research and has studied voting technology, “because we really don’t want to make it easy for people to rig our elections.”
WA: milvoteoverseas WA State battle over security of voted ballots returned by email. Issues being deliberated from several sides now http://ow.ly/136F3
National
Should former government employees be allowed to work for companies they used to regulate? (vote)
http://www.helium.com/debates/106043-should-former-government-employees-be-allowed-to-work-for-companies-they-used-to/side_by_side
…Former California Secretary of State Bill Jones Shoved forced through legislation to have California’s old voting machines tossed out and successfully pushed for $200 million for all new high tech voting machines. Sounds ok, right? Not when you consider that Jones then left public office and went to work for Sequoia Voting Systems…
US Govt to transfer much of Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) budget over to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/oia.pdf
Voter Action: Track Internet Voting Legislation in Your State (resource)
http://voteraction.org/news-article/2009/track-internet-voting-legislation-your-state
Voter Action is monitoring internet voting legislation across the country that threatens our democracy by introducing a voting system that creates serious election vulnerabilities.
Obama’s antitrust policy is toothless (ES&S monopoly)
http://bit.ly/8WZLEZ
…Now sources tell The Post that the feds are more likely to simply require one of the companies to relinquish a license.
Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said the agency’s investigation into ES&S continues and that “no decision has been made.”
“Poll Workers, Election Administration, and the Problem of Implicit Bias”
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/015185.html
Citizens United wordless editorial in Tuscon Times (hat-tip to Rick Hassen at ElectionLawBlog) http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport/2010/02/02/wordless-editorial/
Cartoon
International
Ireland ponders how to dispose of its voting machines
http://bit.ly/bapg45
Ireland jumped into the electronic voting arena, acquiring 52 million euros worth of equipment… and then determined the risk of using them was too high. So now they’re stuck.
Philippines: COMELEC WORRIED RE CELL PHONE JAMMERS / BALLOT BOXES CONTRACT INKED
http://www.newsflash.org/2004/02/hl/hl109396.htm
MANILA, FEBRUARY 2, 2010 (STAR) – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday expressed concern over the reported arrival in the country of some 5,000 jammers of mobile phone signals
Comelec, Smartmatic ink P243-million contract for ballot boxes
http://www.newsflash.org/2004/02/hl/hl109396.htm
Voting News by Joyce McCloy.
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