Perry Co KY candidates report voting machine probs: voters would push button & wrong name lit up..John Sebes of TrustTheVote.org on flakey voting machines: “North Carolina Voting Machines Lessons Learned,Part Two” (not just NC)…Expert Jeremy Epstein on Virginia’s paperless voting: “What happens when there’s no recount possible?”…Veterans Day & the MOVE Act…Audio reveals Afghan election fraud…Election night probs for 33 Canadian munis using internet voting..Think internet voting is a good idea? See video of V for Vendetta Hacker hits WSU…
All this and more in today’s voting news below…
Like voting news? Please tell a friend…
AK: Judge Denies Joe Miller’s Request to Halt Write-In Ballot Counting
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/11/judge-denies-joe-millers-request-to-halt-write-in-ballot-counting.html
AK: The Election that Won’t End
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/11/election-wont-end
Alaska officials had anticipated three days of counting
ballots, but now they say they’ll be tallying write-in votes through the end of
next week. Welcome to Alaska elections.
Officials hope to finish counting all the votes cast at
precincts on Election Day by Sunday afternoon. But then they’ll start counting
15,000 early votes, more than 30,000 absentee votes and over 10,000 challenge
ballots. They won’t certify this election until after Thanksgiving.
CA: RIVERSIDE COUNTY: Officials pledge accurate final vote count
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_vote11.46daf35.html
CA: Quan is mayor-elect, Perata considers lawsuit
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=76832
CA: Garcia: Ranked-choice voting an undemocratic nightmare (opinion)
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/columns/ken_garcia/Ranked-choice-voting-an-undemocratic-nightmare-107126493.html
CA: More than a week after the election, San Leandro has a mayor: Stephen Cassidy
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16578745?nclick_check=1
FL: Supervisor of Elections finds box of 500 uncounted absentee ballots*
Discovery could skew School Board, Lake Worth Commission, Riviera Beach marina votes
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-11-10/news/fl-palm-ballots-found-20101110_1_ballots-local-races-results
In a county known for hanging chads, slow recounts and chaotic elections, the marathon recount for the Palm Beach County School Board District 6 seat has started to carve its own place in history.
KY: Candidate says voting machines may have been tampered with* (Shouptronic 1242)
http://www.wkyt.com/wymtnews/headlines/Candidate_says_voting_machines_may_have
_been_tampered_with_107074553.html http://tinyurl.com/25fct95 Perry County. However, on Monday, he says several candidates who lost their races came to his office and told him some voting machines may have been rigged.
“That the light would light up for a different candidate, or they would have to push a button several times for the candidate they wanted to vote for, the light would shine up beside of that,” said David Sandlin, Perry County PVA candidate.
MD: Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint in Maryland robocall case seeks $168 million penalty http://politicalactivitylaw.com/2010/11/11/telephone-consumer-protection-act-complaint-in-maryland-robocall-case-seeks-168-million-penalty/
“The conduct that occurred here was an attempt to suppress voter turnout,”
NC: North Carolina Voting Machines Lessons Learned, Part Two
http://www.trustthevote.org/north-carolina-voting-machines-lessons-learned-part-two
When I say “flakey voting machine” I simply mean that the machine in question is prone to mis-behavior that leaves the voter with low confidence that their votes were recorded correctly.
…
“This is not your typical iPhone running an award-winning iPhone app…but rather a somewhat hastily-assembled system created about 8 years ago to cheaply and quickly get to market to be the first to soak up HAVA funding.”
NC: On Veterans Day, thanking N Carolina State Board of Elections for helping troops vote http://ncvoters.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-veterans-day-thanking-n-carolina_11.html
NY: Suffolk elections workers review ballots
http://riverheadlocal.com/local-news-content/1093-suffolk-elections-workers-review-ballots
State law requires county elections boards to compare the paper ballots with machine tallies for 3 percent of voting machines in the county, chosen at random, to verify the accuracy of the machine counts.
NY: New York City Council Survey Shows New York Ballot Design is Voters’ Number One Complaint http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/11/11/new-york-city-council-survey-shows-new-york-ballot-design-is-voters-number-one-complaint/
TX: Ortiz recount request hits a snag
http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=539079
The Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade said his request for a recount was not correct and the deposit filed to cover expenses was not sufficient
OR: Lingering doubts about vote-by-mail (LTE)
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/lingering_doubts_about_vote-by.html
A recent legislative action allows ballots to be opened seven days before Election Day. The reasoning, I guess, is that the final count can be available sooner. But I don’t like the idea…
VA: What happens when there’s no recount possible?
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/jeremyepstein/what-happens-when-theres-no-recount-possible
…The Washington Post reports that Fimian has decided not to seek a recount. Why? Well, there’s the official reason, but the real reason is two-fold.
First, a large majority of the votes in the 11th district race were cast on paperless DREs
…
For optical scans, you reprogram the optical scanner to count just the race in question, retest it, rerun the ballots, and use the total tape to add to the DRE total tape. If the scanner rejects any ballots (e.g., for write-ins), you can examine those by hand – but you can’t examine any that the scanner accepts, again without a judge’s order.
WA: Vote Bot
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000086796981
Yo! Did your ballot count? Do you know for sure? A ton of ballots are challenged each year because of signatures not lining up exactly. Check here to make sure yours is counted, and if it isn’t, to get the next steps towards making it count.
http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/OSOS/VoterVault/Pages/MyVote.aspx
Internet Voting Watch
Canada: Election night was an adventure for South Frontenac staff
http://www.emcfrontenac.ca/20101111/news/Election+night+was+an+adventure+
for+South+Frontenac+staff http://tinyurl.com/26wtmpp
All 33 municipalities that used the Intelivote telephone/internet voting system this year had problems on election night, CAO/Clerk Wayne Orr told South Frontenac Council in a report at the regular Council meeting last week in Sydenham.
Canada: City explores online versus in-line to boost voter turnout (Kingston)
http://www.emckingston.ca/20101111/news/City+explores+online+versus+in-line+to+boost+voter+turnout Coun. Steve Garrison says computers can be hacked and the results altered.
“Should we trust a computer chip?” he asked. “If the computer messes up we have no way of tracing it.”
V for Vendetta Hacker Strikes at Washington State University (with Video)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/v-for-vendetta-hacker-strikes-at-washington-state-university/ The hacker’s website advised university staff that the messages would stop automatically at the end of the day, but referred them to a batch file left on the AV servers that would also reverse the hack. “This script will cleanly remove and reverse all modifications made to the systems.”
National
Veterans Day and the MOVE Act
http://nonprofitvote.blogspot.com/2010/11/veterans-day-and-move-act.html
ELECTION ADMINISTRATION, VOTER REGISTRATION, AND MOBILITY
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/?p=3582 The question of how provisional voting changed between 2006 and 2010 is one that should be studied after the 2010 election data are all in. In addition, these changes in mobility suggest that thinking about voter registration modernization means thinking about how to best keep everyone accurately registered
International
Afghanistan: Audio reveals Afghan election fraud
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/2010-11-11-election-fraud_N.htm
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan election commission said Thursday that it had opened an investigation into allegations that a top government official pressured an election worker to rig the results of the parliamentary ballot in western Afghanistan.
…
The Afghan election commission said it had received an audio recording of a more than 20-minute telephone call purportedly between an election worker in Kabul and Ismail Khan, the Afghan minister of energy of water and the former powerful governor of Herat province in western Afghanistan.
UK: Watchdog concerned about repeat of election vote chaos
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11728543 “We are disappointed that the UK government has not taken the opportunity of this bill to implement our recommendation to change the law, so that returning officers can issue ballot papers to anyone who is at a polling station, but has not yet voted, when polling closes,” Jenny Watson, chair of the Electoral Commission, said.
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.