Tennessee: Local advocates push for paper ballots in Shelby County | Kirstin Garriss/Cox Media Group

Some voters and elected officials are pushing for a more secure voting machine system in Shelby County. The group known as SAVE or “Shelby Advocates for Valid Elections” want paper ballots for future elections. Members of SAVE said Chattanooga/ Hamilton County already uses this same hand marked paper ballot system. It’s similar to filling out a scan-tron like you do for the SAT. But Shelby County election officials said what works in a smaller county may not work here and the risk for error increases with this system. 2020 is a big election year and members of SAVE want to make sure voting is as secure as possible.

Tennessee: Hand-marked paper ballots for elections get new push in Shelby County | Bill Dries/The Daily Memphian

Shelby County Commissioner Reginald Milton says when commissioners discuss a new voting system next week for local elections, he will advocate for hand-marked paper ballots to replace the touch-screen machines used in Shelby County elections. Milton recalls his first bid for elected office ended with a loss by 26 votes. While he didn’t seek to overturn the results in Chancery Court, Milton is among a lot of candidates in close races who want to see some data before they decide if it is worth it to go to court. “That took an entire month to resolve that issue. That was unnecessary,” he said. “It could have been done instantly.” The county has already allocated $2.5 million in funding for a new voting system the election commission hopes to debut this election year. Milton specifically favors printed ballots voters mark by hand that are then run through an optical scanner. The scanner results and the marked ballots, he and other advocates contend, offer two ways of verifying results.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting’s Policy on DREs and BMDs

Download VerifiedVoting’s Policy on Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines and Ballot Marking Devices On November 21, 2019 we revised Verified Voting’s Policy on Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines and Ballot Marking Devices to remove a reference to parallel testing on page 8 of the original document. Although the concept of parallel testing has been discussed…

Philippines: Comelec suggests use of direct-recording electronic voting machines in 2016 | InterAksyon

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has recommended to Congress and Malacanang the use direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines for the 2016 presidential elections in order to speed up the casting and canvassing of votes. In an exclusive interview after attending the hearing on electoral reforms in the Senate, Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr., said that the idea was one of the three alternatives discussed with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Electoral Reforms. “We have submitted to Congress some alternatives, kasi puwede naman namin gamitin ang DRE, ang Direct-recording Electronic voting machine, pero magastos,” Brillantes said. Brillantes said the machine will cost the government about P60 billion. “KungDRE (Direct-Recording Electronic) system, P60 billion, kaya ba natin ibigay iyon?”

Virginia: Touch-screen voting machines get reprieve | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginia localities may continue to use touch-screen voting machines at the polls beyond the 2014 election. A proposal that would have forced precincts to replace the touch-screen machines, formally known as direct recording electronic machines, with optical scan tabulators by November was defeated this morning in the House Privileges and Elections Committee. Several panel members voiced concern with the financial burden. Some lawmakers prefer optical scan machines because they preserve a paper record of the ballots. The measure, sponsored by Del. David Ramadan, R-Loudoun, would have created a fund to help localities cover half of the cost of new tabulators. Under current law, local electoral boards are not permitted to replace old DREs with new equipment but they are allowed to use their old machines as long as they keep them operating.

Congo: Election Results Delayed Again | VoA News

Election officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have again delayed the results of presidential and legislative elections.  Opposition supporters are rejecting partial returns that show President Joseph Kabila heading for reelection.

Electoral Commission head Daniel Ngoy-Mulunda says results will be postponed for a third day because officials have not completed comparing vote totals sent electronically with those recorded on tally sheets at each polling station.  He said it is a huge job that must be done right to assure the credibility of the totals announced. Results from last month’s presidential and legislative elections were to be announced on Tuesday.  That was postponed until Thursday and has now been pushed back to Friday.

National: Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control | Salon.com

It could be one of the most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date.

Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

“We believe these man-in-the-middle attacks are potentially possible on a wide variety of electronic voting machines,” said Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team “We think we can do similar things on pretty much every electronic voting machine.”

New Jersey: Malfunctioning Voting Machines Delay Primary Results in Somerset County NJ | Basking Ridge, NJ Patch

Somerset County’s primary election polls may have closed Tuesday night at 8 p.m., but the results were not posted online until Wednesday morning.

With several county districts experiencing malfunctioning machines and a few close races (including a nine-vote difference in a Branchburg race), County Clerk Brett Radi explained, “I didn’t post them because we still had some ballots that needed to be added. I didn’t want to have results that didn’t reflect what was really going on.”

“We just didn’t do a final update, because we didn’t have the ‘emergencies’ [emergency ballots used when machines malfunction],” he noted.

New Jersey: Faulty parts delay election results in Middlesex County NJ | MyCentralJersey.com

It was late Tuesday night — hours after the polls closed for the primary elections — and some candidates still had yet to learn the final vote tally. That’s because municipal clerks in Monroe, Plainsboro, South River and Woodbridge, many of whom started their day at 5 a.m., clocked out without ever learning the unofficial results because of an issue with some of the voting machines.

“To work those kind of hours and not be able to give the candidates their results is frustrating,” Monroe Township Clerk Sharon Doerfler said.

In Monroe, four of the voting machines were printing illegible numbers that ran over the top of one another. Like every other municipality, Monroe’s poll workers received an emergency number to call in the event of a malfunctioning voter machine.

New Jersey: Technical glitch shakes up Sussex County New Jersey election results – ES&S iVotronic DRE | New Jersey Herald

Past Cinderella’s curfew and beyond the target deadline for the Sussex County Board of Elections, a small gathering including Freeholder Rich Vohden, freeholder candidate Dennis Mudrick, acting County Clerk Jeffrey Parrott, Sheriff Michael Strada and two of Franklin Mayor Paul Crowley’s children waited for results of the Tuesday primary election. The unofficial results that never came.

Numbers appeared to be coming in smoothly for the first half of the evening. However, as charts displaying unofficial results flashed on the wall via a projector, watchers noticed the number of reporting districts changed, and not always in an upwards direction. According to the results, the number of districts reporting numbers were decreasing, and the number of Walpack votes totaled   61, though only 22 registered voters reside in the community.