Pennsylvania: VotePA: Reliance on Voting Machine Batteries Ill-advised in Wake of Sandy | Keystone Politics

With millions of customers in multiple states out of electricity following Superstorm Sandy, VotesPA is asking how electronic voting machines will operate in the event some polling places in Pennsylvania and other states do not have power restored in time for next Tuesday’s Presidential Election. VotePA today announced a warning that, should this become a problem next week, the answer is not to rely on batteries to run voting machines for all or even a substantial part of Election Day. … VotePA Executive Director Marybeth Kuznik says that “officials in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, other states affected by Sandy have been quoted in the press as saying that batteries could potentially run their equipment through the day”

Pennsylvania: Poll workers: Voter ID to cause longer lines, chaos | PA Independent

Marybeth Kuznik, a judge of elections in Penn Township, has a recurring nightmare. “I think about the horror of if my mother, whom I obviously know, comes to vote and I have to turn her away because she doesn’t have the proper identification,” Kuznik said. “I think about my poll workers who may have to turn away their priest, pastor or neighbor whom they’ve known all their lives and how that may affect their relationships.” While Kuznik said those scenarios may not play out exactly, another bad dream she has because of the pending new voter ID bill is expected to occur. “It’s going to be chaos at the polls. The lines will be long, and those who don’t have ID will have to be issued a provisional ballot,” Kuznik said. “Issuing a provisional ballot takes time, because you need the poll worker, the judge of elections and one other person to take the time to confirm the provisional ballot and then the voter must sign affidavits as well.”

Voting Blogs: ES&S Attempts to Block Pennsylvania County’s Independent Audit of Failed Touch-Screens | BradBlog

Despite failing to object for months prior, the nation’s largest electronic voting system vendor, ES&S, is now attempting to stop a landmark independent examination of their e-voting systems in a Pennsylvania county dead in its tracks.

An October letter from the company, obtained by The BRAD BLOG, charges that Venango County, PA is in violation of their contract agreements with the Omaha-based e-voting Goliath, even as two volunteer Carnegie Mellon computer scientists are in the midst of a forensic audit of the county’s May 17 primary election. The county’s investigation comes on the heels of apparent failures of the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system during their recent primary and several other recent elections in Venango.

The 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic system has failed in a number of elections nationwide, but is still widely used across the country and slated for use once again in more than a dozen states in next year’s Presidential election.

Voting Blogs: Pennsylvania County Begins Exam of Failed ES&S Touch-Screen Systems; Will Vote on Paper Instead in November | The Brad Blog

“What is a vote worth?” Venango County, PA Election Board Chairman Craig Adams asked last week. “If the vote is counted it is priceless. If it is not counted, I don’t care what it costs. Let’s get a right.”

“After months of legal wrangling,” Marybeth Kuznik of the non-partisan Election Integrity advocacy group VotePA told The BRAD BLOG last week, Venango County’s landmark independent forensic examination of the notoriously unreliable and 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, most often touch-screen) e-voting system finally got under way. Kuznik explained that the study comes in the wake of the county having experienced “numerous reports of vote-flipping, candidates missing from screens, write-ins missing, and high undervote rates in their May 17 Primary.”