Arkansas: Jefferson County election chief urges inquiry at courthouse; access to voting machines by one campaign reported | Arkansas Online

At least one campaign in Tuesday’s runoff elections in Jefferson County had access to voting machines and voting records at the Jefferson County Courthouse after hours Monday evening, according to the election commission chairman. Michael Adam, chairman of the Jefferson County Election Commission, called for Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Kyle Hunter to review courthouse surveillance footage after it was reported that workers for Jefferson County judge candidate Henry “Hank” Wilkins IV’s campaign “went places in the courthouse they weren’t supposed to be.” Adam said it wasn’t clear whether the workers would have been able to manipulate voting records, but he said they could have accessed voter sign-in sheets and voting machines.

District of Columbia: Old machines and missing dollars. Is D.C. ready for an election? | The Washington Post

Elections in the District have been handicapped by faulty voting machines, inadequate polling staff, inaccessible polling stations and delays in vote tallying. And yet it is unclear whether any of those problems will have been remedied by the time the District holds its next major election in six months. These are the concerns held by D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie and a handful of other close observers of the city’s election process who say the D.C. Board of Elections appears to have made no clear progress toward fixing its long-standing problems ahead of the June ­primary contests or addressed how the board has managed millions of dollars in federal funds. As of last week, a full month after board members testified before the D.C. Council that they were unaware of how much new voting machines would cost, the board still had not determined whether it can afford to purchase new ones or whether it will lease them. The potential lengthiness of the city’s procurement process also raises the question of ­whether the board will have enough time to test the machines and train election workers, if it does acquire new ones.

South Carolina: Busy election year will test aging voting machines | Independent Mail

Millions of ballots will be cast in South Carolina next year on voting machines that are wearing out after a decade of use. Anderson County voters will use 464 of the machines at 80 polling places in presidential primaries in February, state primaries in June and the November general election. Some of the iVotronic machines have needed new touch screens and batteries, said Katy Smith, Anderson County’s elections director. It’s also getting harder to find replacement parts for the machines, which are no longer manufactured, she said.

District of Columbia: No Leader, Old Voting Machines: D.C.’s Election Agency Faces Multiple Challenges | WAMU

With only seven months left until D.C. voters cast ballots in the 2016 primary, the agency in charge of running the city’s elections remains without top leadership — and on Wednesday struggled to explain whether it has the money to buy new voting machines it says it needs. The issues were at the forefront of a hearing in a D.C. Council committee, where Council member Kenyan McDuffie expressed frustration with the challenges facing the D.C. Board of Elections as the city enters an election year. “This is too precarious a situation,” McDuffie said. “I remain concerned about the board’s direction.” Some of the issues aren’t new, and in the past have resulted in technical glitches that delayed the reporting of election results — most recently in the April 2014 mayoral primary. But one board-watcher said Wednesday that they may be getting worse.

South Carolina: New Voting Machines in Possibly by 2017 | WSPA

South Carolina voters could be using new voting machines by 2017. The Voting System Research Committee met at the state house today to talk about the issue. The Director of the South Carolina State Elections Commission, Marci Andino, says it could cost around $40 million to replace all the machines in the state. That’s about $3,000.00 per machine.

Press Release: Trending in Ohio: Electronic Pollbooks | Election Systems & Software

The hot elections topic in Ohio can be summed up in two words: electronic pollbooks. With the recent state-provided funding for the purpose of upgrading and automating voter check-in with electronic pollbook solutions, many counties are now evaluating their options. The ExpressPoll from Election Systems & Software provides a proven solution— meeting county’s voter validation needs. With the ExpressPoll system already implemented in 27 counties (and counting) ES&S isn’t a newcomer to the Ohio elections sphere. Richland County for example, has used the ExpressPoll electronic pollbook family of products for eight years. When asked, their Director of Elections, Paulette Hankins had the following to say about the ExpressPoll:

“We have used the Express Poll Book system in Richland County for the past eight years with great success. It was a very easy process to train our Poll Workers, and we were especially pleased with the elimination of any poll worker error in determining which ballot style to issue to the voters. The Express Poll system creates the correct ballot style according to the voters’ registration records.”

For 30 years, ES&S has been providing voting solutions for the State of Ohio. Our existing, experienced service and support structure makes us a valuable asset for Ohio counties when implementing new pollbook technology. The eight Ohio residents we employ are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of jurisdictions and their constituents, being a part of the voting public themselves. These individuals also have the full support of our 400 employee strong company, ensuring their attention can be focused on local customers and their needs.

South Carolina: Old voting machines could slow voting | WBTW

A new study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found that 43 states, including South Carolina, have voting machines that are at least 10 years old, past their life expectancy, and that’s likely to lengthen voting lines on Election Day. South Carolina has been using its current voting machines since 2004. “How many people out there are using 11-, 12-year-old laptops? Probably not too many, and that’s because they reach the end of life cycle and become obsolete,” says Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the South Carolina Election Commission. He says the state’s voting machines are not obsolete, though, even though they are old.

South Carolina: Age isn’t a virtue when it comes to voting machines | Post and Courier

South Carolina is just beginning to shop for new voting machines — and a new report found many other states should do the same. New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice released a report last week saying when Americans head to the polls for next year’s presidential election, 43 states, including South Carolina, will be using electronic voting machines that are at least a decade old. The cost of updating them could exceed $1 billion. Many of the increasingly outdated machines were bought with federal money not long after the infamous “hanging chad” controversy in Florida helped determine the 2000 presidential election. “No one expects a laptop to last for 10 years. How can we expect these machines, many of which were designed and engineered in the 1990s, to keep running without increased failures?” said Lawrence Norden, deputy director of the Center’s Democracy Program and co-author of the study.

Kansas: Wichita State mathematician says Kansas voting machines need audit | Associated Press

A mathematician at Wichita State University who wanted to check the accuracy of some Kansas voting machines after finding odd patterns in election returns said she is finding out how difficult it can be to get government officials to turn over public documents. Beth Clarkson, a certified quality engineer with a doctorate in statistics, said her calculations from the November election showed enough patterns to suspect that “some voting systems were being sabotaged.” Sedgwick County election officials refused to allow the computer records to be part of a recount and told her that to get paper recordings of votes, she would have to go to court and fight for them, said Clarkson, who is also the chief statistician for WSU’s National Institute for Aviation Research.

Editorials: South Carolina’s new voting system must be secure | Walt McLeod/The State

When I cast my first ballot, I voted on a paper ballot for Daniel R. McLeod, who was elected attorney general and served for the next 24 years. At that time, voting machines in South Carolina were limited to several urban counties. As I recall, election security consisted of a padlocked plywood ballot box, the key to which was attached to a modest chain connected to the padlock. I did not give much thought to the mechanics of elections, or how the poll managers tabulated the election results from the paper ballots cast. Though no election is perfectly conducted, most of us engage in faith-based voting, meaning that we as voters have faith that, for the most part, our election procedures work properly. We have faith that when we cast our ballots, our votes are recorded as intended. Sometimes, we must stop to examine that faith. Recently, I viewed a documentary film titled “I Voted?” by filmmaker Jason Grant Smith. His film opened my eyes to our systemic voting challenges.

Pennsylvania: Programming error affects voting in Palmyra Borough Council race | Lebanon Daily News

Voters in Palmyra Borough ran into a problem casting their ballots in a Primary Election council race Tuesday morning. Three candidates – Scott Mazzocca, Carissa Mellinger, and Ralph Watts – are seeking the Republican nomination to two seats carrying two-year terms, but the electronic voting machines in the borough’s three precincts only allowed voters to select one candidate. The programming malfunction was caused by human error and was noticed about an hour after the polls had opened at 7 a.m. and roughly 30 ballots had been cast, said county administrator Jamie Wolgemuth, who sits on the Lebanon County Board of Elections. Once the problem was detected, poll workers began giving voters an emergency ballot to select a second candidate, Wolgemuth said.

North Carolina: Machines limit 2016 early voting options | Winston-Salem Journal

With its current equipment inventory, the Forsyth County Board of Elections would have to make a tough choice for the 2016 general election: offer fewer early voting sites than it did in 2012 or offer fewer electronic voting machines at each site. Steve Hines, elections director for Forsyth County, presented those scenarios to election board members on Tuesday as part of his pitch for new equipment. He put in a budget request this year for about $1.4 million to replace the county’s voting equipment, which is about 10 years old. County commissioners will decide in the next few months whether to approve the request. In the 2012 general election, Forsyth County had 15 early voting sites, Hines said.

North Carolina: Forsyth County officials get look at elections equipment | Winston-Salem Journal

Forsyth County election officials got a close-up look Wednesday at elections equipment that they are interested in buying. Representatives from Printelect, a supplier of Election Systems & Software equipment, set up equipment for demonstrations at the county government center. Mac Beeson, regional sales manager for ES&S, demonstrated how the equipment works. Steve Hines, Forsyth County’s elections director, put in a budget request this year for about $1.4 million to replace the county’s voting equipment, which is about 10 years old. County commissioners will decide this spring whether to approve the request. Elections administrators from several other counties in the region also stopped by to see the demonstrations on Wednesday.

North Carolina: Law change could cost counties | The News Herald

Come 2018, the county could have to cough up more than half a million dollars for new voting equipment and it could go back to paper ballots. Kim Strach, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a letter sent to local elections offices that most voting equipment in the state is nearing the end of its lifespan. She said counties will need to plan for large expenditures to buy new voting equipment. In her letter, Strach said direct record electronic voting equipment will need to be replaced because the machines will be decertified in January 2018. She said a law change will require a paper ballot for all certified voting systems. The state board of elections will have to approve any new voting equipment, she said.

North Carolina: Forsyth County elections office wants to replace equipment; proposal could cost about $1.4M | Winston-Salem Journal

The Forsyth County elections office wants to buy new elections equipment this year, but the county commissioners will have to decide whether to fund the request. Steve Hines, director of elections for Forsyth County, said his office is asking to replace all of its voting equipment – including the optical scanners that record paper ballots at precincts and the larger tabulator used at the elections office. Hines said his office is still in talks with the vendor for Election Systems & Software equipment, but has a rough cost estimate of about $1.4 million. Hines said he hates to ask for that much. “But I’d hate to go through what we went through this past year on a presidential scale,” Hines said. The elections office dealt with a number of hiccups in the general election last November, including breakdowns of vote-counting machines at precincts and the elections office. The equipment is about a decade old. … The county uses paper ballots on Election Day, but it uses iVotronic touch-screen machines for early voting and Election Day handicap-accessible voting. The county will no longer be able to use those machines as of 2018 because they don’t print a ballot.

Kansas: Malfunction results in missing votes | Salina Journal

A malfunction of electronic voting equipment left 5,207 votes out of the original Nov. 4 Saline County vote total, but no election outcomes were affected, according to the Saline County Clerk’s Office. What was affected was a change in the percent of voter turnout, from 35.47 to 50.47 percent, and the total number of votes, 17,532 out of 34,735 registered voters. “That’s a huge difference,” county Chairman Randy Duncan said when notified by the Journal of the error. “That’s scary. That makes me wonder about voting machines. Should we go back to paper ballots?” Saline County Clerk Don Merriman said after the meeting that four of the 34 PEBs, or Personal Electronic Ballots, were not reading correctly on election night, which left the votes out of the original count. The problem has been fixed, he said. He said the missing votes weren’t discovered until after votes were canvassed on Nov. 10. Merriman said he learned of the error during a “triple check” with flash cards from the PEBs.

North Carolina: Voting machine problems do not change election outcome | WRAL

Supreme Court Associate Justice Cheri Beasley won her re-election campaign against Forsyth County lawyer Mike Robinson despite vote tabulation errors discovered in several counties throughout the state. Beasley won by more than 5,000 votes in a race where more than 2.4 million votes were cast. Recount results, which the State Board of Elections certified during a teleconference meeting Tuesday, showed Robinson picked up a net of 17 votes across the state. Robinson has told State Board of Elections officials that he has conceded and will not seek a further recount. While the overall vote swing was not enough to make a meaningful dent in the election total, changes in Davidson, Lenoir and Wilson counties, all of which use touch-screen voting equipment, involved eye-catching totals of several hundred votes each. In Davidson County, Beasley picked up 520 votes and Robinson gained 884 votes since the time county elections officials originally canvassed votes. The problem, elections officials there say, was a faulty media card used to store and transfer votes from a touch-screen machine.  “It did not affect any of the outcomes of local races at all,” said Donna Zappala, who handles information technology issues for the Davidson County Board of Elections. The county was able to recover the votes from a backup system, she said.

Texas: Jefferson County Clerk blames faulty voting equipment for delay | KBMT

Jefferson County Clerk Carolyn Guidry seemed pleased at voter turnout for the 2014 mid-term elections in Jefferson County. She says 37% of the county’s 146,039 registered voters cast ballots, that’s 53,710 voters who participated. However Guidry, who won re-election herself, was not pleased at how the county’s electronic voting system performed. Malfunctions caused the vote count to be delayed, and final results were not available until 4:00 a.m. the day after the elections. Guidry said, “It’s very frustrating when I have employees working 24 hours on elections, because of the flaws of a system.” Guidry blames ES&S voting equipment the county purchased in 2006.  Tuesday’s flaw was with the scanner that counts mail-in ballots, forcing Guidry to call for a technician to fix it, the closest one was in Tyler. It would take until 4 a.m. the next day to count all 3900 mail-in ballots, and when they were all counted some Republicans who had been in the lead, ended up losing.  Guidry says that’s because two-thirds of the mail-in ballots favored Democrats. But the mail-in ballot scanner was not the only problem of the night, not all voting machines had been shut down which made it impossible for votes in those machines to be counted.

Texas: ES&S acknowledges Bexar ballot glitch that omitted Greg Abbott’s name | San Antonio Express-News

The company that supplies Bexar County with iVotronic ballot machines acknowledged Wednesday that a glitch caused an electronic ballot to display the wrong name for the Republican candidate in the race for Texas governor. A written statement from Election Systems & Software said a faulty memory card appeared to be the reason why GOP candidate Greg Abbott’s name was missing from the ballot. In his place was Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. “I’m happy they were able to find the glitch,” said San Antonio voter Jade Stanford, who took two cell phone photos of the error that immediately went viral on the Internet. “It wasn’t Photoshop, it wasn’t botched, it was real.” Stanford said she and Bexar County voters deserved an apology from Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen, who said yesterday she believed the photos had been doctored. “It’s her job to protect the voters,” she said.

Arkansas: State Representative Wants Answers On Washington County Ballot Glitch | KXNW

A local state representative says he wants answers to how candidates’ party affiliations were left off of Washington County digital ballots Monday, the first day of early voting for the November general elections. Rep. Justin Harris (R – West Fork) is afraid some voters’ voices may not be properly heard because of the electronic ballot glitch. Harris said he may file an official complaint if election officials do not remedy the issue. County election commissioners met Tuesday morning to address concerns over the ballot problem, after voters and officials noticed Monday morning electronic voting machines did not include party affiliations. The problem was noticed within the first few voters, and officials temporarily fixed the situation by placing paper ballots, which included parties, next to electronic voting machines for reference, said Jennifer Price, Washington County election coordinator. She said the problem was fixed in time for the second day of early voting Tuesday.

Arkansas: Election commission meeting reveals ballot error | Baxter Bulletin

The Baxter County Election Committee held an emergency meeting Thursday morning to discuss an error discovered after testing voting machines earlier this week. In its findings, the commission found paper ballots to be correct. However, after testing, touch screen voting machines for three precincts, 8-1, 6-2 and 6-3, left the state representative race for District 100 between Democrat Willa Mae Tilley and Republican Nelda Speaks off the ballot. The three precincts in question represent a total of 1,705 registered voters. … By state law, the election commission had to hold a public meeting concerning the ballot error, but was unable to give public notice due to time constraints, as cited by the commission. According to the law, the election commission either has to correct the error immediately or show why the correction should not be done.

District of Columbia: Elections Board Says All Voting Machines Need To Be Replaced | WAMU

The D.C. Board of Elections says that the city’s voting machines are outdated and in need of replacement, an admission that comes only weeks before what could be a close mayoral election. In a report on the Apr. 1 primary published last week, the board said that a majority of the city’s touch-screen and optical scanner voting machines are outdated, exceeding the recommended 10 years of use. As such, they will be difficult to maintain for future elections. “The District of Columbia’s mechanical and digital voting and tabulation system… is in need of replacement,” says the report. “The BOE’s voting systems are over a decade old and are reaching the end of their operational life.” In the report, which was supposed to have been published in July but was delayed by three months, the board says that a large number of the city’s voting machines are refurbished units purchased “at a steep discount” in 2009. Given that they were in use before being purchased by D.C., the report says that the machines are older than what a federal election assistance commission recommends for use by local jurisdictions.

South Carolina: Richland County Elections Board chairwoman: ‘I am not confident’ in voting machine security | ColaDaily.com

The first meeting of the new Richland County Elections and Voter Registration Board on Tuesday included confusion over rules and a dispute over the security of the county’s voting machines. The meeting opened with state Sen. John Scott swearing in the board’s four new members, appointed by legislators after a recent shake-up. The board then elected new member Marjorie Johnson as chairwoman in a 4-0 vote with the other nominee, Pete Kennedy, abstaining. The board’s lone veteran, Adell Adams, was elected vice chairwoman in a 3-2 vote after a motion by Jane Dreher Emerson to postpone that vote was defeated. Johnson initially abstained in the vote for a vice chairperson, and confusion ensued over whether the chairwoman should always vote or if she should vote only when needed to break a tie. Adams said the chairwoman always voted and was not allowed to abstain. When Johnson questioned this, Adams said, “We have five votes. We always vote.” Johnson then voted for Adams as vice chairwoman, breaking the tie. The board did not consult any rules or bylaws concerning the powers of the chairwoman.

District of Columbia: Elections officials ‘cannot guarantee’ a smooth Nov. 4 general election | The Washington Post

Top D.C. election officials said Thursday they have fixed problems with computer switches and servers that caused a four-hour delay in reporting results of the city’s April 1 primary. But in sometimes contentious testimony before a D.C. Council committee , the city’s elections chief said he cannot ensure a smooth night on Nov. 4. “While we have resolved the technical issues . . . I cannot guarantee” there won’t be “more glitches,” said Clifford D. Tatum, executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections. Tatum also refused to make any promises about what time the vote tallying would be finished after the close of polls in the city’s general election. “We will plan for every reasonable contingency,” Tatum said, “but we cannot make any guarantees to when the election night process will be complete.” Tatum said that on Nov. 4 the board would have 45 “roving technicians” to deal with any issues that arise at polling places.

Texas: Wichita County Commissioners Approve New Election Equipment | Texoma

Wichita County Commissioners are saying yes to the purchase of new election equipment, and for a high price. The commissioners voted to spend $1 million dollars on the equipment, which will include 210 new voting machines. This comes after county officials learned last month the new election equipment system would operate on more current Windows operating systems. While it comes at a high price, commissioners feel the county needs that equipment before election season. Wichita County has used it’s current election equipment, by the company Election Systems and Software for 10 years. This system operates on Windows XP and Microsoft no longer provides security updates for that operating system, which is why commissioners have decided the county needs a change. “The security could be compromised. It’s not as secure, there’s not security patches being put into it. And it’s on the internet, so we had had some vulnerability to it, and it didn’t work very well for us,” Judge Woody Gossom says.

Texas: Hidalgo council candidates drop election contest | Brownsville Herald

An election contest from losing candidates of the Hidalgo City Council election will end quietly after investigators found no evidence of abuse in county voting machines, a plaintiff said this week. The contest, from former mayoral candidate Guillermo Ramirez and council contenders Guillermo Cienfuegos Jr. and Mario Degollado, centered around the same argument as contests filed in the Hidalgo County Democratic primaries — that someone had tampered with voting machines.

South Carolina: Twice in a row, Aiken County hit with election difficulties | Aiken Standard

The almost three-hour waiting game that resulted in no final vote tally in Aiken County during South Carolina’s primaries on Tuesday was what one person called a “worst-case scenario.” Aiken County was the only county that did not report to the State Election Commission by Wednesday morning. Only by 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday were unofficial partial votes tabulated for the state to report. “The worst that can happen has already happened – you having a delay in reporting your complete county results,” Chris Whitmire, State Election Commission spokesman, said. A State Election Commission technician was sent to the Aiken County Government Center early on Wednesday to troubleshoot why candidates, the press and residents were unable to view any tabulated voting results – both absentee and electronic – until almost 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

South Carolina: New election day, more problems in Richland County | Myrtle Beach Online

So much for the smooth start to primary election day in Richland County: Voting machines weren’t working at Ward 14 at Sims Park in Shandon when the polls opened, and voters tweeted that the Mallet Hill precinct at Polo Road Elementary wasn’t open as of 7:40 a.m. Amanda Loveday, former executive director of the state Democratic Party and now spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Clyburn, said voters at Ward 14 were told they weren’t allowed to use paper ballots and would have to wait for the machines to be repaired. Voters reported the machines were up and running by 8 a.m.

District of Columbia: Fixing election night delays could cost millions | WTOP

Potential remedies for election night delays in D.C. might cost millions of dollars, according to elections leaders who spoke at a public hearing Tuesday. Most recently, there was an hours-long delay in tallying votes after polls closed in the April 1 Democratic primary in D.C. The public and the media waited well into the night to learn that D.C. council member Muriel Bowser had defeated Mayor Vince Gray. Earlier this month, D.C. elections officials said some problems with electronic voting machines may have led to the delay in reporting results.

District of Columbia: Elections officials change story on lags in April 1 primary tally, say big upgrade is needed | The Washington Post

D.C. elections officials offered an entirely new explanation Tuesday for the major vote-counting delays that plagued the city’s April 1 Democratic primary: The issue was not five mishandled electronic voting machines, but a broad computer network failure. The network failure was a mystery to elections officials as it unfolded, said Clifford D. Tatum, executive director of the Board of Elections. But its effect was abundantly clear to all involved on election night, when vote-counting — including ballots the city had accumulated during weeks of early voting — did not begin until almost 10.  Deborah Nichols, chairwoman of the elections board, said that at least $2 million in new electronic voting machines and server upgrades — and perhaps another $2 million in computers and other office improvements — would be needed to ensure timely reporting of results in future citywide elections.