Voting Blogs: Did New Jersey election officials fail to respect court order to improve security of elections? | Freedom to Tinker

The Gusciora case was filed in 2004 by the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic on behalf of Reed Gusciora and other public-interest plaintiffs. The Plaintiffs sought to end the use of paperless direct-recording electronic voting machines, which are very vulnerable to fraud and manipulation via replacement of their software. The defendant was the Governor of New Jersey, and as governors came and went it was variously titledGusciora v. McGreevey, Gusciora v. Corzine, Guscioria v. Christie.

In 2010 Judge Linda Feinberg issued an Opinion. She did not ban the machines, but ordered the State to implement several kinds of security measures: some to improve the security of the computers on which ballots are programmed (and results are tabulated), and some to improve the security of the computers inside the voting machines themselves.

Voting Blogs: New Jersey election cover-up | Andrew Appel/Freedom to Tinker

During the June 2011 New Jersey primary election, something went wrong in Cumberland County, which uses Sequoia AVC Advantage direct-recording electronic voting computers. From this we learned several things:

  1. New Jersey court-ordered election-security measures have not been effectively implemented.
  2. There is a reason to believe that New Jersey election officials have destroyed evidence in a pending court case, perhaps to cover up the noncompliance with these measures or to cover up irregularities in this election. There is enough evidence of a cover-up that a Superior Court judge has referred the matter to the State prosecutor’s office.
  3. Like any DRE voting machine, the AVC Advantage is vulnerable to software-based vote stealing by replacing the internal vote-counting firmware. That kind of fraud probably did not occur in this case. But even without replacing the internal firmware, the AVC Advantage voting machine is vulnerable to the accidental or deliberate swapping of vote-totals between candidates. It is clear that the machine misreported votes in this election, and both technical and procedural safeguards proved ineffective to fully correct the error.

Mississippi: Democrat contests primary result in House race | The Clarion-Ledger

The loser in the Hinds County House District 73 Democratic primary is formally contesting the results. Terry resident Gay Polk said she hand-delivered a notice of contest Thursday afternoon to Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee chairman Claude McInnis. She lost by 90 votes to attorney Brad Oberhousen, also of Terry.

Polk, a registered nurse, wants a review and recount of all ballots – paper, electronic, affidavit, absentee and disqualified – plus poll books, sign-in registries and signature counts in the 13 precincts that are part of District 73.

While several other candidates have complained about election irregularities in the Democratic primary in Hinds County, none has taken the same step as Polk. Polk’s notice puts into motion what could end up as a court challenge.

New Jersey: Supreme Court reverses decision in Atlantic Beach Town Council election | TheSunNews.com

The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that two write-in candidates for seats on the Atlantic Beach Town Council may begin serving their terms as council members, saying there “was a direct attempt by the [Atlantic Beach Municipal Election Commission] to interfere with the full and fair expression of the voters’ choice.”

In the opinion, the state Supreme Court justices reversed a circuit court ruling that upheld the town election commission’s decision to overturn election results. Former town manager Carolyn Cole and the Rev. Windy Price were thedeclared winners in the town’s municipal election in November 2009.

Texas: Officials confirm irregularity in Rowlett special election | dallasnews.com

Elections officials confirmed Wednesday that there was an opening-day glitch in the early voting process for the July 16 special election. The glitch involved voters in Rowlett, which straddles Dallas and Rockwall counties.

A voter who lives in the Rockwall County part of Rowlett, Nicholas Kreekon, went to vote at about 12:15 p.m. on June 29 and was turned away. He was told only the Dallas County portion of Rowlett was eligible.

Kyrgyzstan: MP indignant at unfair election of Kyrgyzstan Central Election Commission’s members | eng.24.kg

Parliament member of Kyrgyzstan is indignant at unfair approach used during election of members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) by the presidential quota. Mrs. Galina Skripkina stated.

She said when the parliamentary quota of 8 persons was approved MPs voted for them through general ticket. “Now we are offered to vote for each four candidates separately. This is unfair. Tomorrow we can be accused of bias. We have to elect them through general ticket,” said Mrs. Skripkina.

Colorado: No indictments issued in Saguache election | Valley Courier

The grand jury report on the Saguache County 2010 General Election was released Tuesday afternoon by the State Attorney General’s Office but no indictments were returned in the investigation.

The report relates that Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers did admit during her testimony that she failed to follow the Secretary of State (SOS) rules during the election.

In commentary submitted to the grand jury following its decision, Myers stated that she was “encouraged to see the conclusions so well explained and hope that we can finally put this election to rest.”

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: Computer snag delays Montclair NJ Primary Election vote tally | NorthJersey.com

Due to a computer-software glitch, Montclair still didn’t have its Primary Election results as of Wednesday afternoon, and was doubtful about having them by the end of yesterday.

“A nightmare. Never had this happen before,” Township Deputy Clerk Carla Horowitz said Tuesday night as the township was struggling to tally the local results after a computer program went awry.

Late Wednesday morning, the Clerk’s Office still wasn’t able to get an accurate count of Montclair’s votes and the municipal Information Technology officer was away, so he couldn’t help.

“We worked on it this morning,” Horowitz said. “The program seems to be working a little bit better.”

Pennsylvania: South Greensburg PA councilwoman refuses to concede primary | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

South Greensburg Councilwoman Linda Iezzi on Wednesday refused to concede in her race to secure one of two Democratic nominations for Westmoreland County commissioner. “I have to talk to my lawyer,” Iezzi said as she weighed a potential recount of votes cast in the May 17 primary.

The county Elections Board yesterday preliminarily certified the results of the race, declaring incumbent Commissioner Ted Kopas of Hempfield and Mt. Pleasant Mayor Gerald Lucia as winners of the Democratic primary for county commissioner. Lucia, the long-time mayor of Mt. Pleasant Borough and its fire chief, finished 74 votes ahead of Iezzi.

Voting Blogs: Kloppenburg Concedes Wisconsin Supreme Court Election, Cites ‘Widespread Irregularities’, Says Problems Found During ‘Recount Should be Wake-Up Call’ | The Brad Blog

Citing a “cascade of irregularities”, thousands of tabulation errors discovered during the statewide “recount”, and tens of thousands of ballots found to be unverifiable or otherwise having been in violation of the secure chain of custody, Wisconsin’s independent Asst. AG JoAnne Kloppenburg conceded the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election for a 10-year term on the bench to Republican incumbent Justice David Prosser this afternoon at a press conference held in Madison.

“Over 150 ballot bags containing tens of thousands of votes were found open, unsealed or torn. Waukesha County had twice as many torn, open or unsealed bags as every other county in the state combined. In many cases, municipal clerks in Waukesha testified the bags weren’t torn when they left cities, towns and villages so the security breaches occurred sometime when the bags were in Waukesha County’s custody.”

Voting Blogs: State Election Board Failed to Review Minutes from Waukesha County ‘Recount’ Before Certifying Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Results | The Brad Blog

Last Monday, May 23rd, Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state’s top election agency, officially certified [PDF] the controversial results of the extraordinarily close April 5th statewide Supreme Court election and its subsequent “recount”.

However, as The BRAD BLOG has learned, the agency certified those results without reviewing hundreds of official exhibits documenting wholesale ballot irregularities, on-the-record objections from the attorneys of the candidate who filed for the “recount”, and thousands of pages of official transcripts and minutes documenting the entire “recount” process from the election’s most controversial county.

Wisconsin: Colleagues see Nickolaus as insular, hardworking | JSOnline

Kathy Nickolaus, the county clerk at the center of the state Supreme Court election controversy and the focus of an ongoing state elections investigation, has been described by colleagues and acquaintances as headstrong and insular, hardworking and independent. She came to local public office, where constituents are the boss, from a staff job at the…

Texas: Corpus Christi Texas Councilwoman asks for recount, investigation after 3 votes force runoff | Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Councilwoman Priscilla Leal wants a recount of Saturday’s election results and a state investigation into alleged voting problems in her district. Leal, who is seeking her fourth term as the District 3 representative, was forced into a runoff by three votes. She received 1,016 votes to challenger Roland Barrera’s 921 and Rose Marie Soto’s 99, according…

Wisconsin: City of Brookfield Ballot Bags Found “Wide Open” in Waukesha County, Wisconsin | Truthout

Five out of six bags of bal­lots from first batch to be co­un­ted out of the City of Brook­field in Waukes­ha Co­un­ty, Wis­consin today were dis­covered “al­most wide open” dur­ing Day 9 of the statewide Sup­reme Court elec­tion “re­count.” The bags were open and un­sealed, ac­cord­ing to both photog­raphic evi­d­ence and an eye-witnesses ac­count from…

Wisconsin: JoAnne Kloppenburg says anomalies were widespread during the state Supreme Court race | PolitiFact Wisconsin

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory on election night when preliminary, unofficial returns put her 204 votes ahead of Justice David Prosser. Fifteen days later, she sought a statewide recount after the official county-by-county returns showed her trailing by more than 7,300 votes out of 1.5 million cast. In explaining her decision, Kloppenburg told…

Wisconsin: Democrat on Waukesha County vote panel speaks out | JSOnline

The Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers who was widely quoted as endorsing the county clerk’s official ballot count that flipped the state Supreme Court winner last week said Monday that she was never told about more than 14,000 missing votes from the city of Brookfield until shortly before a Thursday news conference.…