Editorials: Digging deeper into the 2012 Scytl vote count controversy | Examiner.com

The news story being circulated around the alternative media concerning the Spanish company SCYTL and its contracts with 900 U.S. voter jurisdictions is a complicated one. And it is one that has tended to lend itself to broad generalizations and, in some cases, misinformation. Digging deeper into the vote tabulation controversy should help separate fact from fiction.  First, it is important to consider what has been discovered to be either fiction or at the very least unconfirmed speculation. Rumors, innuendo, and opinions that cannot be verified by the paper trail cannot be considered fact, although there may be some kernel of truth within them. A perfect example is the oft repeated claim that George Soros owns SCYTL. There is no evidence that the Leftwing billionaire has any financial stake in the company. SCYTL is funded by three sources, venture capital corporations that specialize in investing in privately owned companies. Those three sources are Balderton Capital, Nauta Capital, and Spinnaker SCR. SCYTL’s board of directors and information concerning its founder can be found at the corporate website. Information on the company’s management team can be found here. However, all attempts to discover who exactly owns SCYTL have come up empty. The company is listed in all official profiles as a “privately owned corporation,” but no information is given as to the identities of the private owners.

US Virgin Islands: Senate committee endorses paper ballots | Virgin Islands Daily News

The Senate Government Operations, Energy and Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted to forward three elections bills to the Rules Committee and tabled two others. The bills that moved out of committee were: a bill allowing paper ballots under the elections laws of the territory, a bill pushing up the date for primary elections so the territory would be in compliance with the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, and a bill changing the way senators are elected to a combination of island seats and at-large seats. Senators said they plan to amend all of the forwarded bills while they are in the Rules Committee. The bill about paper ballots, sponsored by Sen. Neville James and co-sponsored by Sen. Celestino White Sr., would allow voters to choose whether they wanted to vote by machine or by paper ballot. As written, it also requires that all paper ballots be counted after the closing of the polls, at the same time that electronic ballots are counted on election night.

Missouri: St. Louis County voting snafu on ES&S iVotronics led to uncounted ballots | ksdk.com

When the votes were counted in Tuesday’s election in St. Louis County, hundreds were missing. Poll workers did not properly close out several voting machines. NewsChannel5 learned there were 595 votes that weren’t counted Tuesday night when election board workers went home around midnight. Election officials say those votes are now in, and part of the current unofficial totals. Rita Heard Days is the county’s director of elections and says five electronic voting machines were not properly closed out by poll workers Tuesday night. “This morning we went out and got the machines that had the questionable closures and brought them in and captured those votes,” said Days. … Days says all the missed votes were added to the unofficial election totals Wednesday.

Canada: Halifax Mayor Kelly concerned by NDP e-voting problems – will use same Spanish company in municipal election | CBC

The Halifax Regional Municipality will take a close look at the e-voting problems experienced at the federal NDP leadership convention because it is planning to use the same Spanish company in the October municipal election. Mayor Peter Kelly said ensuring the integrity of the vote in the Halifax region is of the utmost importance. “We take the voting aspect very, very seriously and I think to be fair to all parties we have to make sure there is a thorough review and investigation of this situation,”he said Sunday. “Then if there is a threat of this in the upcoming election, then we need to take that very seriously and determine the best way forward.” Scytl Secure Electronic Voting, from Spain, won the contract after underbidding Intelivote Systems Inc. of Dartmouth by more than $300,000. Intelivote provided online and telephone voting for the previous two municipal elections.

Canada: Cyber-attack holds up cross-Canada voting for next leader of NDP | Medicine Hat News

An attempted cyber-attack on the NDP’s electronic voting system Saturday forced party officials to delay the process of choosing the next federal New Democrat leader for several hours, frustrating voters both at the convention in Toronto and across the country. Party officials insisted the integrity of the voting system was not compromised, but acknowledged that the would-be hacker managed to “mess” it up enough to cause lengthy delays. “The system has not been compromised,” said Brad Lavigne, a former party national director who was dispatched to explain the problem to reporters. “The system was not hacked. It was never even close to being hacked.” Lavigne said someone outside the party tried to get access to the system, triggering alarms that caused the system to shut down. “The analogy that can be used is that somebody was trying to break into our house and the alarm went off and the robbers were scared away.” He stopped short of suggesting someone was deliberately trying to sabotage the NDP leadership process.

Hawaii: $1.2M to settle Hawaii election machine dispute | CanadianBusiness.com

The Hawaii Attorney General’s Office is requesting $1.2 million to settle a 2008 protest filed over a contract for electronic voting machines. Attorney General David Louie’s office says former Chief Election Officer Kevin Cronin violated state procurement code when he awarded a multi-term contract for voting equipment without conducting the required analysis of the proposals. Cronin abruptly resigned at the end of 2009. Hart InterCivic Inc. was awarded a $43.3 million contract for new electronic voting machines through the 2016 elections, with an option to extend to 2018. Another vendor submitted a competing bid of $18 million.

Voting Blogs: New Florida Data Suggests HAVA’s Approach to Disabled Voters Isn’t Working | Election Academy

The latest Election Data Dispatch from Pew finds that in the recent GOP primary in Florida, only 49 voters (or 0.03%) used the disabled-accessible voting machines in Miami-Dade and Orange counties, two of the state’s largest. Accessible machines for disabled voters – one per polling place – were one of the federal mandates on state and local election offices included in the Help America Vote Act. Inclusion of this provision was widely seen a victory for the advocates for disabled voters, given the perceived failure of previous efforts to make voting more accessible such as the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act (VAEHA). Post-HAVA, however, the preferred technology for this mandate – direct recording electronic (DRE) machines, known popularly as touchscreen machines – became the focus of a fierce debate about the security and transparency of electronic voting. Indeed, in the early years of the debate advocates for the disabled and advocates for verifiable voting often found themselves on opposite sides of the argument or even opposing sides in a courtroom.

Florida: Wellington election results tossed out, but legal ground uncertain | Palm Beach Post

In Palm Beach County’s latest voting embarrassment, Wellington decided Tuesday to toss out its tainted March 13 election results while Secretary of State Ken Detzner pledged to find answers and County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher continued to blame a computer software glitch for the tabulating turmoil. After a Monday recount showed the elections office had declared the wrong winners in two of three races, Wellington’s canvassing board voted to scrap the results and scheduled a decision for Tuesday on whether to instead accept the revised vote tallies. That would allow John Greene in Council Seat 1 and Matt Willhite in Seat 4 to be sworn in after it appeared they lost their races last week. But the decision to consider the recount numbers did little to clear confusion surrounding the race and how to resolve it.

Florida: Lawsuits brewing as all four candidates in Wellington recount stand their ground | Palm Beach Post

The Wellington council candidates wrongly named winners during last week’s election aren’t convinced Monday’s vote retabulation was accurate, nor will they give up their seats to the apparent winners. But the winners, whom Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said were denied victory because of a software glitch, have no doubt Monday’s count was correct, and one has taken legal action. “It’s my responsibility to make sure the village of Wellington voters are heard. I’m filing it on their behalf,” said Vice Mayor Matt Willhite, who filed a complaint Tuesday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court against Wellington’s canvassing board and whose campaign declared him a “decisive” winner. The county elections office mistakenly named candidates Al Paglia and Shauna Hostetler winners in two council races and certified the March 13 results to the state on Friday. But a routine audit on Monday revealed that Willhite had easily defeated Paglia, while John Greene had edged past Hostetler. On Tuesday, the Wellington canvassing board that oversees election results tossed out the March 13 numbers and scheduled a meeting March 27 to decide whether to certify Monday’s retabulated numbers instead. But confusion and emotion were running high on Tuesday.

Alabama: Mobile County ballot problems caused by tiny printing error | al.com

A printing mistake on some Mobile County ballots in Tuesday’s election caused electronic voting machines to reject them — forcing poll workers to count roughly 3,000 ballots by hand into the early morning hours, Probate Court officials said today. “This little white dot,” said Probate Judge Don Davis, pointing to a white, donut-shaped mark barely one-tenth of an inch wide. The tiny error, though, ended up in an important spot, on the security markings that let the electronic machines know whether to count it. The markings look like a bar code stretching along the side of the ballot.
The faulty marks appeared only on Republican primary ballots for precincts within the contested Mobile County Commission District 3. Not all of the District 3 ballots were affected, officials said. Poll workers at 12 precincts on Tuesday noticed that machines were rejecting some ballots as they were scanned in.

Australia: Victorians to vote online next year | SC Magazine Australia

Some Victorians may get the chance to vote over the internet next year as the state electoral commission trials a new system it hopes will replace paper polling. The new system would be trialled in by-elections due to be held in 2013, before being made available to 10,000 eligible voters identified as remote or disadvantaged during wider station elections in 2014. It was expected online voting would provide an alternative to current paper systems for remote, overseas and postal voters which are deemed more at risk than those cast at the polling station, as they are handled by people outside the electoral commission.  The system — and indeed all voting platforms — was not imprevious to hacking. Rather, it was designed to meet or improve on the current level of risk experienced by remote and disadvantaged voters. Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) electronic voting manager, Craig Burton, said the system was designed to return an accuracy rating of 99.35 per cent or higher chance of detecting any fraudulent, missing or damaged votes. By comparison, he estimated online banking would have an accuracy of no more than 95 per cent.  However, internet banking was markedly different to online voting as financial transactions could be validated and possibly contested after the fact, whereas votes could no longer be accessed by the voter once cast.

National: Questions linger in US on high-tech voting | physorg.com

As many as 25 percent of Americans are expected to use paperless electronic voting machines in the upcoming November elections, according to the Verified Voting Foundation, but confidence has been eroded by incidents showing vulnerabilities. The foundation, which seeks more reliable election systems, contends that voting machines in 11 states are all-electronic, with no paper systems for recounts, and that many other jurisdictions have some of these systems in place. … Pamela Smith of the Verified Voting Foundation said these incidents highlight the fact “that you can have insider challenges as well as outsider hacks. It points out that you have to be able to check the system.”
Election security and technology has been an issue in the United States since the 2000 president election marred by “hanging chads” in Florida that muddled the result.

Canada: Yarmouth Nova Scotia opts for October e-vote | The Chronicle Herald

Voters in Yarmouth won’t be filling out paper ballots or using polling booths in this year’s municipal election. Yarmouth town council voted late last week to do away with paper and conduct the October vote entirely by computer and telephone. Some communities that have chosen electronic voting have also opted for a paper ballot backup system, but the Town of Yarmouth is not one of them, said Mayor Phil Mooney. If folks don’t want to vote from their living rooms or the front seats of their cars using a smartphone, they can still come to town hall and use equipment set up there, said Mooney. “There’s going to be one central poll,” he said Saturday.

National: Wireless voting still has a long way to go | Computerworld

With the widespread adoption of smartphones and the use of mobile tactics in U.S. presidential campaigns, could there come a day when Americans might vote wirelessly? That question was posed to a panel of mobile campaign experts at the Brookings Institution during a webcast Tuesday. The prevailing view was that wireless voting in the U.S. is a long way off. Considering that much voting in the U.S. is still done with paper ballots, electronic voting over a wireless device such as a smartphone is “a long ways away,” said Katie Harbath, associate manager of policy for Facebook. She noted that delegates to the Iowa Republican Caucus in February still voted with pen and paper.

Colorado: Opponents of Colorado proposal to relax oversight of electronic voting want to strengthen safeguards, not reduce them | Pueblo Chieftain

Opponents of Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s proposal to relax oversight of electronic voting machines testified Tuesday that now is the time to strengthen safeguards, not reduce them. Gessler and Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz countered during a rule-making hearing that they believe sufficient protections against voter fraud still would exist under the proposed rule change. In its present form the change would reduce the required number of seals designed to prevent tampering with voting machines, end the continuous video surveillance of the machines that is presently required before and after elections and leave investigations of suspicious incidents involving the machines to county officials rather than Gessler’s office. Mandatory inspection of the machines by the secretary of state’s office also would be eliminated under the proposed rule.

India: EVMs must have ‘no-vote’ option: Citizens | The Times of India

During first two phases of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, over 300 voters chose not to vote for any candidate and exercised the “Section 49-o” option available to them under Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961. However, lakhs of others who did not find any contestant “suitable” preferred to skip voting by staying at home. Citizens now want that ‘no-vote’ option must be available on Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and number of such voters should be counted. During 2009 Lok Sabha (LS) and assembly polls, many exercised the Section 49-o They, however, had to face nightmares at polling booths as officers were completely unaware of this provision.

India: Possibility of tampering with electronic voting machines cannot be ruled out: Lagoo | Indian Express

fter some electronic voting machines (EVMs) were found defective in Sangli, Kolhapur and Beed districts during the zilla parishad elections, activists are now raising serious doubts about the accuracy of the machines. Pune-based civil engineer and social activist Mukund Lagoo, who is also an accused in the EVM theft case registered with Mumbai Police, said EVMs can be tampered with in a span of two-and-a-half minutes or it could have technical errors and in such a condition if you press any button the vote could be directed to a particular candidate. Speaking to The Indian Express, Lagoo said there have been several cases in different parts of the country where EVMs had problems, hampering the election process.

New Hampshire: Ballot inspection bill likely to die in House | NEWS06

An attempt to allow citizens to inspect ballots is likely to be killed today by the House. House Bill 1548 would repeal the right-to-know exemption for ballots passed in 2003 after groups began asking the Secretary of State’s Office to review ballots when the retention period ended but before they were destroyed. Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said, “After we started getting requests like that, the Legislature passed the exemption to place in statute what had been long-standing policy.” Ballots were always considered private after an election, he said. Ballots were always sealed and held and only opened for a recount or a court order, Scanlan said.

India: No No-Vote option on electronic voting machine not this time, says poll panel | DNA

The ‘No-Vote’ option would not be available in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) for the civic polls, the Central Election Commission (CEC) and State Election Commission (SEC) informed the Bombay high court on Monday. A division bench of justice DD Sinha and justice VK Tahilramani was hearing a PIL filed by Thane doctor Mahesh Bedekar, seeking to maintain the privacy of people choosing not to vote for any candidate. An affidavit filed by chief electoral officer Debasish Chakrabarty before the high court stating that the Election Commission of India had considered the issue of providing a separate ‘None of the above’ panel in the EVMs.

Colombia: Colombia to introduce electronic voting in 2014 | Colombia Reports

The Colombian government plans to implement an electronic voting system for the 2014 elections,reports newspaper Vanguardia. Government officials made the announcement in collaboration with the Interior Ministry Sunday. A forum led by Senator Juan Manuel Galan Pachon outlined a number of implementations that would improve Colombia‘s electoral system, including electronic voting, a fingerprinting system, and voter registration. Pachon said that modernizing the electoral system would combat crimes like buying of votes, impersonation, identity theft, and ‘transhumance’ — a method of electoral manipulation where voters move to cities other than their place of residence in order to vote for a particular candidate.

India: `None of Above’ can’t be installed for coming elections | The Economic Times

The Election Commission of India (ECI) and State Election Commission (SEC) today informed the Bombay High Court that it would not be possible to install a `No Vote’ panel on the Electronic Voting Machines to be used in the municipal and Zilla Parishad elections in Maharashtra, to be held this month. The division bench headed by Justice D D Sinha was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Thane-based Dr Mahesh Bedekar, seeking no-vote option in EVMs, as the present system does not guard the secrecy of the voter casting a negative vote.

Editorials: Need for a paper trail | Daily Pioneer

It’s not fair to impose electronic voting machines as a substitute for paper ballots because there’s no way voters can verify which way their vote went. The Election Commission may have won the legal battle vis-à-vis the efficacy of electronic voting machines in view of the recent judgement of the Delhi High Court, but it has a lot of work to do if it wishes to remove the prevailing scepticism about these machines. Though Justice AK Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, who heard Mr Subramanian Swamy’s petition, said they could not issue a mandamus directing the Election Commission to introduce the system of paper trail, they had advised it to take note of the apprehensions that EVMs may be vulnerable to fraud and that there could be security issues.

Canada: Vancouver voting machine ticks trouble losing mayoral candidate | Vancouver Courier

Troubles with voting machines during the 2011 civic election revealed through a Freedom of Information request are another reason to reform civic elections, says an unsuccessful mayoral candidate. Randy Helten of Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver received 226 pages about preventive maintenance and repairs of the City of Vancouver’s 160 AccuVote-OS machines. Records show the units were tested in late February and early March 2011, but a document titled AccuVote Call Sheet lists 37 malfunction incidents between Nov. 9 and 19. “The [Nov. 23] staff report from the chief election officer made absolutely no mention of any problem at all,” Helten said. “This is worthy of further discussion. This leads to the need for discussion about is it appropriate for employees of the city to be chief election officer?”

Indiana: Recount prompts vote center questions – County won’t use vote centers in this year because of privacy concerns | Palladium-Item

Vote centers might go statewide in this election year after a multi-year pilot test by Wayne and two other counties and a law change last year that allows it. Fayette County, though, is abandoning vote centers in 2012, after its first experience during the 2011 city election, an election that went to a recount. Fayette County Clerk Melinda Sudhoff said the Fayette County Election Board agreed late last week not to use vote centers for this year’s presidential elections. The idea will be revisited in 2014, she said. Vote centers eliminate precinct voting and allow voters to vote at any of several locations before or on Election Day. The system reduces the number of polling places, equipment and workers, which cuts costs. Vote centers also make voting more convenient for some voters, but when they vote early at the centers, voters are actually casting absentee ballots, according to the law.

Voting Blogs: Paper ballots are expensive, so faulty electronic voting machines are fine. Right, EC? | ET Blogs

On January 17, the Delhi High Court ruled that although the highly tom-tommed Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) used in our elections are NOT tamperproof, it is still not in a position to issue any directive to the Election Commission (EC). However, it added that since EVMs are the backbone of our election process, needful should be done to dispel doubts. I am no technology expert but if one goes through the arguments made by Subramanian Swamy and the defence put up by the EC, they both seem to have a point. While Swami, and indeed experts all over, have been able to prove that EVMs can be tampered with, and it is for that reason that several technologically more advanced nations are loathe to try them out, EC too made it quite clear that tampering is extremely difficult and almost impractical to make any material difference to the final result.

Ireland: The Celtic Tiger’s white elephant | Enniscourthyguardian.ie

So it looks like ‘our stupid aul pencils’ got the last laugh. With Ireland’s 7,500 e-voting machines now up for sale or waste disposal if they can’t be sold, the end is finally in sight for a costly saga going back some 13 years. Following research and trial runs the machines were eventually purchased in 2002 for €50 million as the Fianna Fail led government sought to push ahead with their introduction. However, amid serious concerns surrounding the accuracy and security of the machines the government was eventually forced to set up an independent commission to look into these concerns. The commission found the concerns were justified and plans to use them in the 2004 elections were scrapped just a month before people voted in June. Since then, it has cost the stage a whopping €3.5m to store Ireland’s e- voting machines.

Ireland: €55m e-vote machines may be too old to sell | Independent.ie

The €55m e-voting fiasco could become even more expensive because the machines may now be too old to sell. The Government last night admitted it might be forced to pay someone to dispose of 7,500 machines languishing in storage for the past decade. The reason is because the machines are so out of date that finding a buyer may be impossible and they would have to be disposed of at great expense. The Department of the Environment yesterday sought expressions of interest for the ‘sale or recovery’ of 7,500 machines and associated equipment including cases, storage trolleys and tables.

United Kingdom: Scottish local election: UK ministers ‘silent’ over vote power plea | BBC

Westminster has been “silent” in response to calls for Holyrood to have the power to run all Scottish elections, an SNP minister has claimed. Derek Mackay said the Scottish government had asked UK ministers to devolve these responsibilities. But he said it had received no response from the UK government. Transferring powers to run local council and Holyrood elections was a recommendations of the Gould report into the 2007 election fiasco. In May of that year, voters were left confused because of the design and number of the ballot papers. There were also failings in the electronic counting system which saw thousands of ballot papers for the Scottish and local elections rejected.

Canada: Halifax: Not ready for electronic voting | Truro Daily News

Municipal elections are just nine months away and, perhaps not surprisingly, electronic voting has been a recent subject of discussion for local councils.
Truro Town Council received a pitch from a Halifax-based company lauding the virtues of electronic voting and tabled it for further discussion. Colchester County Council, meanwhile, rejected the idea outright. At the risk of sounding ridiculously old-fashioned, we concur with the go-slow or no-go approach to electronic voting. At least for the time being.

Botswana: Electronic voting may be introduced | The Botswana Gazette

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is floating the idea of introducing electronic voting system in the next elections. The IEC principal public relations officer, Osupile Maroba, revealed that the commission was exploring the possibility of benchmarking on countries that have the same voting system as Botswana. The IEC has been conducting workshops with relevant stakeholders, gathering views on how to prepare for future general elections and come up with ways of encouraging people to register and vote in large numbers.