Where’s My Ballot? There’s Still Time for Overseas Voters in 2010…Report Voter Fraud: There’s an App for that…Comprehensive Map of US Voting Equipment Released…Routt County Colorado must copy mailed ballots after error..There’s an iPhone app to report voter fraud, how about one to report voting machine failures or voter disenfranchisement?…Internet Voting — A Real Possibility? Podcast with Jeremy Epstein, Senior Computer Scientist…
All this and more in today’s voting news below…
AZ: U.S. District Court in Arizona Grants Injunctive Relief, Lets Voter Wear a Tea Party T-Shirt http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/10/21/u-s-district-court-in-arizona-grants-injunctive-relief-lets-voter-wear-a-tea-party-t-shirt/
CO: Ballots Disqualified After Voting System Glitch*
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/25464786/detail.html
Thousands Affected During Early Voting In Routt County
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — An encryption error resulted in thousands of ballots in Routt County to be null and void during the early voting period for November’s general election.
Kay Weinland, Routt County Clerk and Recorder, said her department has fixed the problem but as a result, 5,772 ballots that were mailed out to voters are no longer good.
“We have 3 ECM keys, which are the encryption code keys,” she said. “We broke one of them. While we were working on fixing that, we then discovered the other two had basically been corrupted.”
Weinland said that the voting system itself was not damaged, and there wasn’t a problem with the ballots mailed out. However the computer glitch caused the Clerk and Recorder office to lose its voting database.
The problem was spotted in the middle of last week.
The office worked on remedying the problem before coming to the conclusion that the early ballots were no longer good.
“Because we had to re-create the database,” Weinland said. “The system will not recognize the ballots we initially scanned.”
CO: Routt County must copy mailed ballots after error*
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2010/oct/20/error-causes-security-issue-mail-ballots/?breaking Steamboat Springs — A coding error in the Routt County Clerk and Recorder’s Office means the 5,773 ballots mailed to voters before Tuesday will not be recognized by election databases and will have to be replicated by election judges who will work in teams of four under video camera surveillance.
…
The 5,773 ballots mailed to all voters who had requested mail-in ballots no longer will be recognized by the election database.
Every completed ballot already mailed back to the county — about 500, Weinland said — will be counted for the election. But they will be copied onto a new ballot first.
CO: Marks appeals court ruling in Aspen election suit
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20101021/NEWS/101029964/1077&ParentProfile=1058
DENVER — Local elections activist Marilyn Marks sent her lawsuit against the city of Aspen over its refusal to release ballot images from the May 2009 election to the Colorado Court of Appeals, just short of Tuesday night’s deadline.
CO: Fight for election transparency
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/letter-editor/143182
Secretary of State Buescher, the current Democratic SoS candidate, and the state’s top election official, has recently issued opinions to attempt prevent such public and press efforts, proclaiming, as Aspen city officials do, that our region’s voted ballots are “secrets” to be known only by local government officials and hand-picked Republican and Democrat election judges.
IL: Some preprinted absentee ballot forms inaccurate* (request forms)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-absenteeballotpro,0,5499569.story
this week’s Chicago Reader is aimed at encouraging younger city voters to fill out a preprinted, mail-in request for an absentee ballot. But the form contained the wrong address for the Chicago Board of Elections.
IL: No evidence of big overseas military problem in Illinois, despite GOP claims
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/10/no_evidence_of_big_overseas_mi.html
IL: Illinois Absentee Voters Only Get One-day Extension
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/20/illinois-absentee-voters-only-get-one-day-extension-0
NC: Run-off system draws fire
http://www.yourdailyjournal.com/view/full_story_news_sports_opinion/9986842/article-Run-off–system-draws-fire?instance=newssecondary_stories_left_column
NY: Absentee Ballot Deadline for Military/Overseas Voters Extended
http://www.madisoncountycourier.com/veterans-corner/absentee-ballot-deadline-for-militaryoverseas-voters-extended-19313/
OH: Election expert weighs in on good, bad, ugly of 2010 elections in Ohio, nation
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6791
But some problems still require fixing. Among them, Hoke said is that a majority of Ohio voters still cast ballots on insecure DREs [Direct Recording Equipment].
…
While other states are dabbling in expanding absentee voting by mail, Hoke argues that doing so raises the prospects of vote buying and fraud, and increases the possibilities of duress and coercion within the home or nursing homes.
PA: Pennsylvania Minor Parties File Brief in 3rd Circuit
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/10/20/pennsylvania-minor-parties-file-brief-in-3rd-circuit/ On October 20, the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties of Pennsylvania filed this 39-page brief in the Third Circuit…The issues are the Pennsylvania challenge system that subjects minor parties and independent candidates to the risk of paying up to $100,000 if they submit a petition that is insufficient;
TN: KETRON: Military voting act working
http://www.tennessean.com/article/D4/20101022/NEWS01/101022001/KETRON++Military+voting+act+working
Tennessee’s new law authorizes county election commissions to e-mail ballots to members of the armed forces and other citizens temporarily living outside the United States who are entitled to vote and who have submitted valid applications for ballots.
Internet Voting Watch
Internet Voting — A Real Possibility? (Podcast)
Speaker: Jeremy Epstein, Senior Computer Scientist, SRI International
http://sri.com/news/podcasts/podcast_Epstein.html What is Internet voting – and where has it been successfully used? And if we can bank and shop online, why isn’t it as easy to vote online? In this podcast, hear about important issues relating to online voting
D.C. hacking raises questions about future of online voting
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=522635
the state of Arizona and eight counties in West Virginia aren’t giving up plans to go ahead with their own online voting experiments on November 2.
National
Comprehensive Map of US Voting Equipment Released
http://blog.verifiedvoting.org/2010/10/20/1145
Voter-marked paper ballots dominate among U.S. voting methods, but one fourth of voters still depend on unverifiable equipment
Volunteer Discusses the High School Voter Registration Project
http://www.projectvote.org/component/content/article/598-volunteer-discusses-the-high-school-voter-registration-project.html
“Not many other people are talking to young adults about voting and what it means to them and their country,” says LWV volunteer Raymundo Estrada in the video. “It feels good to be that person in their lives.”
The Bottom Line: Absentee Voting
http://www.dodlive.mil/index.php/2010/10/the-bottom-line-absentee-voting/
Now the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program is making it easier by providing an online absentee voting wizard.
Where’s My Ballot? There’s Still Time for Overseas Voters in 2010
http://www.banderasnews.com/1010/nw-ovf19.htm
You requested your ballot but didn’t receive it yet? Or maybe you just procrastinated? Fortunately, you still have time to vote in 2010 if you remember one little acronym: FWAB
…
The OVF online tools make using the FWAB easy. Enter your voting address and the FWAB wizard will automatically list the candidates running in your Congressional district. Want to know more about a particular candidate? Look up his or her bio in the OVF Candidate Finder which is powered by Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan resource for information about candidates.
Midterm Worries: Election Laws Good and Bad
http://www.ideasactionblog.org/2010/10/midterm-worries-election-laws-good-and.html
Report Voter Fraud: There’s an App for that
http://pawatercooler.com/?p=21124
Election 2010: Facebook friends show off their ballots
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_16400875
International
Canada: Lack of ballots leaves some Calgary voters disappointed
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Lack+ballots+leaves+voters+disappointed/3698347/story.html Ward 14 station ran out hour before polls closed
Voting News by Joyce McCloy.Archives here at http://votingnews.blogspot.com/
Also on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/VotingNews and
at Twitter http://twitter.com/VotingNews
Subscribe to Voting News at this link: http://tinyurl.com/votingnews
To assist with Daily Voting News,
please send links to news articles to us at votingnews@earthlink.net
=============================================
“The Voting News is a free service made possible in part by support from Verified Voting Foundation. You can help support the Voting News by sending a check to Verified Voting Foundation, PO Box 4104, Carlsbad, CA 92018. Be sure to note “for Voting News” in the memo line of your check! Your contribution is tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.”
Donate online at this link: http://tinyurl.com/donate-vn
Disclaimer: Articles and commentary included in “Voting News” do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors of Voting News,or its allied organizations. Articles are selected for inclusion to inform subscribers’ability to draw their own conclusions based on noteworthy and credible news,research, legislation, and debate bearing on the integrity of elections.