Mississippi: Lowndes County to buy new voting machine system | The Commercial Appeal

Lowndes County supervisors plan to seek bids to buy new voting machine system that scans paper ballots. Supervisors on Monday approved a request by county purchasing clerk Terry Thompson to solicit bids, The Commercial Dispatch newspaper reported. The equipment would replace a TSX electronic voting system that has been used since 2005 to process votes digitally. Mississippi received federal funding in 2005 for TSX systems as well as maintenance and technical support. County circuit clerk Haley Salazar said in September that money for support and upkeep will not be provided after this year and that going back to paper ballots would be more efficient for voters, poll workers and election commissioners.

Australia: Time to kill paper ballots? First, let’s look at the alternatives | The Conversation

The Australian Electoral Commission’s (AEC) loss of 1,375 ballot papers for the West Australian Senate count was an unfortunate failure from an agency that already faced growing public pressure to do away with paper and pencil voting. Even before the ballots disappeared, newly minted MP Clive Palmer was loudly calling for the introduction of US-style electronic voting machines. Meanwhile, an experiment with internet voting for people with disabilities in New South Wales in 2011 caused many to question why we all can’t vote from home. But before we pulp the paper ballots, it’s worth considering what — if anything — is actually wrong with the system as it stands, as well as what the pros and cons of the alternatives may be. Australia’s current procedures for recording and counting votes have essentially remained unchanged since federation. Voters are given a piece of paper and a pencil with which to record their voting preference, and the completed ballot papers are then placed in a sealed box.

Maine: New tech for Election Day; state unveils new voting machines | Sun Journal

It’s voting 2.0. This Election Day, Maine will roll out 428 new voting machines with digital scanners and stepped-up tech in 228 municipalities. Most voters will still exit their polling booths and head toward the ballot clerks, but now they’ll insert their paper ballot into a slot below a digital screen, pause, then get the machine’s OK to walk away. The devices are smart enough to detect too many votes — such as voting yes and no on Question 1 — as well as detecting questions with no responses. The machines will offer to kick those ballots back for do-overs. Seventeen new machines arrived in Lewiston in August inside locked, black cases that looked like something out of James Bond. Staff joked about needing launch codes. They’ve been tested and retested with dummy ballots. City Clerk Kathy Montejo anticipates a smooth day Tuesday. Lewiston is using machines to tally both state and local results. “The beauty of the machine is that it can be programmed to ignore other write-ins (that aren’t for pre-approved candidates),” she said. “Sometimes that would add an hour or two at the end of election night. The workers are extremely happy.”

Ohio: Tuscarawas County to buy 55 voting machines | The Times-Reporter

Before the year ends, the Tuscarawas County Board of Elections has to purchase 55 voting machines to be in compliance with state law. Monday the Tuscarawas County Commissioners approved more than $35,000 in transfers from various funds to cover the cost. Sarah Kneuss, the board’s deputy director, said the machines will be ready and available in 2014 in time for the  gubernatorial election. She said it isn’t necessary to have them in time for next week’s election. Kneuss said the county made big purchases in 2005, purchasing several electronic machines to be compliant with the law.  “We have to have one machine for every 175 registered voters in a precinct,” she explained.

California: Alameda County Can’t Dismiss Suit From Blind Voters | News Service

Blind voters in California can advance claims that the voting machines meant for them in Alameda County malfunctioned and violated their rights, a federal judge ruled. The California Council of the Blind and five individual voters sued Alameda County because the accessible voting machines for the blind failed to work properly, forcing them to vote with the help of another person. The county has Sequoia AVC Edge voting machines at each of its polling places. Using voice prompts, headphones and a tactile keypad, a blind person can vote independently. But the machines allegedly malfunctioned several times on Election Day, and the plaintiffs say they endured long delays as poll workers failed to get the machines working. More than one plaintiff said they were shuttled to another voting site, only to discover that the machine there did not work either.

Voting Blogs: Paper Trail: South Carolina’s Problematic DRE Voting Machines | State of Elections

Last November, Richland County residents seeking to participate in local elections encountered an unanticipated hindrance at polling stations: stagnant lines of voters unable to cast their ballots because of malfunctioning voting machines. The lines reportedly were so outrageous that some residents had to wait upwards of seven hours to vote. Many voters grew impatient and left polling stations without submitting a ballot. Moreover, the disarray was hardly confined to election day. In the week after polls closed, a court-ordered recount of the election results sparked a back-and-forth legal battle between Democrats and Republicans over whether a local or statewide election agency should be tasked with tallying the votes in the recount. The dispute was not settled until the South Carolina Supreme Court intervened, and nearly two weeks elapsed before the election results were finalized. In 2004, the South Carolina State Election Commission (SEC) purchased roughly twelve thousand iVotronic voting machines for around $34 million. At the time of their purchase, the iVotronic systems were considered ultramodern direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting technology. Like most DRE models, the iVotronic enables voters to cast their vote via an electronic touch-screen without handling a paper ballot. Once a voter has electronically submitted his choice, the machine stores the selection in an internal memory device. Upon an election’s conclusion, the iVotronic machine prints a tape displaying the total number of votes cast for each office as well as the total number of votes cast for each candidate. In theory, DRE systems such as iVotronic provide a modern solution to antiquated election problems. In practice, however, DRE systems do not always function so smoothly.

Editorials: Tennessee’s Voting Machines | Memphis Flyer

On the political scene, growing numbers of observers have been worrying out loud about the vulnerability of our voting devices, especially those — like the ESS-manufactured machines in use in Shelby County — which depend so heavily on the computerized processing of results. Opponents, like local investigator Joe Weinberg, contend that both the hardware and software of these machines, and electronic devices like them, are inherently unreliable and subject to being hacked. Anybody who has looked into the fruits of Weinberg’s researches will realize, at the very least, how complicated these mechanisms are and how complex the potential problems they present. Rich Holden, the current administrator of the Shelby County Election Commission, has insisted that the margin for error of these election machines is infinitesimally small, and he contends that, as instruments for measuring the vote, they are far more efficient, less time-consuming, and more accurate by far than the old practice of voting via paper ballots. He sees that method as retrograde and believes that a return to it is the true goal of those who criticize the now-prevailing method.

Editorials: Supreme Court of India – Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails Must Be Used | James Tyre/EFF

Three years ago, I wrote of the controversy surrounding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in India. A study by 2010 EFF Pioneer Award winner Hari Prasad and others showed that the EVMs could be hacked. For his troubles, Prasad was charged criminally for alleged theft of the EVM that was studied. The charges against Prasad have long since been dropped, but the controversy surrounding India’s electronic voting machines continues. Some have advocated that the EVMs be abandoned completely, and that India should go back to using old fashioned paper ballots. Others have claimed that the EVMs can be made more secure, but only if a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is added. For a significant time, the Election Commission of India continued to maintain that the EVMs were tamper proof. However, a number of different lawsuits were brought challenging the use of EVMs without VVPATs. The most significant was a public interest litigation action brought byDr. Subramanian Swamy. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favor of Dr. Swamy, reversing an earlier ruling by the High Court of Delhi.

India: Supreme Court orders Election Commission to add ‘paper trail’ to e-voting machines | Computerworld

India’s Supreme Court has directed the country’s Election Commission to introduce a paper backup of votes cast through electronic voting machines, but allowed the commission to introduce it in stages during general elections next year. Political and civil rights groups in India have been demanding that the EVMs should be equipped with the facility to print the running record of the votes for the purpose of verification, particularly after some researchers claimed that the machines could be hacked. The court, overruling a decision by a lower court, described the paper backup or paper trail as an “indispensable requirement of free and fair elections.” As the commission has to handle 1 million polling booths during a general election, the court permitted it to introduce the facility “in gradual stages or geographical-wise” at voting booths of its choice. The commission submitted in the court that the machines could not be tampered with, but was still planning to introduce a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail system, and had tested the systems in smaller elections.

India: Election Commission agrees in principle to voting machines with printouts | IBN

The Election Commission on Friday told the Supreme Court that it was in principle ready to introduce voting machines which give a printed record to voters once they exercise their franchise. The election panel said it had placed an order for 20,000 machines with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) facility and these will be introduced in a phased manner. The apex court bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi accepted the commission’s stand on limitations in procurement of the new machines and said: “You try. We realise your problem. You can’t implement it in entire country (in one go).”

Michigan: Judge won’t block Detroit City Clerk from mailing absentee ballots | Detroit Free Press

A Wayne County Circuit judge denied a request today to stop the Detroit City Clerk’s office from sending out absentee ballots. Judge Patricia Fresard heard arguments today in response to a challenge filed by city clerk candidate D. Etta Wilcoxon, the group Citizens United Against Corrupt Government and activist Robert Davis. They argued that the Detroit Election Commission should have held an open meeting to approve the absentee ballots for the November election after they were printed and before Winfrey’s office put them in the mail. The group on Tuesday filed a request for a temporary restraining order halting the process, which Fresard denied. Fresard noted that there was no claim that anything was actually incorrect on the ballots. Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey explained that she started mailing out the bulk of the 30,000 absentee ballots on Friday. She said the commission approved the names on the ballots prior to the primary in August, and she began printing them around Sept. 17 to ensure those in the military received them in time to vote.

New Jersey: Appeals court orders more review of voting machines | Associated Press

A state appeals court on Monday upheld New Jersey’s use of electronic voting machines, but the judges expressed serious concerns about possible human error and ordered further review of the state’s safeguards. Monday’s ruling, which upheld a lower court decision, is the latest in a legal battle dating back to 2004 when state Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and others sued over the state’s use of the machines. The lawsuit claimed the touch-screen systems, called direct recording electronic voting machines, were unreliable because they didn’t produce a paper backup and were susceptible to hacking. Then-Gov. Jon Corzine signed legislation in 2005 that would have required all machines to be retrofitted with a paper backup system by January 2008, but that deadline wasn’t met and in 2009 lawmakers suspended it indefinitely over a lack of funding.

New York: Mayoral race narrows as Thompson cedes to De Blasio | Los Angeles Times

The race to become New York City’s next mayor narrowed Monday as the runner-up in last week’s Democratic primary ended his campaign and endorsed Bill de Blasio, the liberal public advocate who has cast himself as the anti-Michael Bloomberg. But Bill Thompson, who captured just over 26% of the vote in the Sept. 10 primary, did not go out with a whimper as he announced his withdrawal at a news conference outside City Hall. Thompson, facing his second failed attempt at the mayor’s office, lashed out at the Board of Elections for taking days to count all the primary ballots, saying it made it impossible to campaign for what might have been a Thompson-De Blasio runoff on Oct. 1. “In the greatest city in the world, in the greatest democracy on Earth, we ought to be able to count all the votes,” said Thompson, who ran against Bloomberg in 2009. Tens of thousands of votes — including absentee ballots and paper ballots cast by voters who encountered malfunctioning voting machines — have not been counted and are not expected to be tallied until next week.

Editorials: Thompson Bows Out – Calls NYC Board of Elections a “Disgrace,” Needs Replacement with Professionals | New York Times

William Thompson Jr. made a gracious exit from the race for mayor of New York on Monday, throwing his support to Bill de Blasio, who probably got slightly more than 40 percent of the vote in last Tuesday’s Democratic primary, which he needed to avoid a runoff with Mr. Thompson. We say probably because the New York City Board of Elections hasn’t finished counting the votes. For the last week, Mr. Thompson has been in the awkward position of hanging around to see whether Mr. de Blasio’s unofficial 40.3 percent holds up. Mr. Thompson, who got 26.2 percent of the vote, saw that his odds were very long, and got on with his life. In leaving the race, Mr. Thompson called the board’s failure to deliver official results nearly a week after the vote a “disgrace.” He’s right, though its incompetence is hardly a surprise.

New York: BOE: 78K Paper Ballots To Be Counted In Democratic Mayoral Primary | CBS New York

The Board of Elections says there are 78,000 paper ballots across the five boroughs that still need to be counted from Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Bipartisan teams across the city are unsealing and opening more than 5,000 lever voting machines Friday. BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan said the process is expected to wrap up by Sunday. “There’s always the potential for human error and that’s why New York has one of the most extensive recanvassing procedures in the country, to make sure that every vote is counted and every vote is counted accurate,” Ryan said. Bill de Blasio has slightly more than the 40 percent of the vote needed to avoid an Oct. 1 runoff. If de Blasio dips under 40 percent, he’ll face runner-up Bill Thompson. The outstanding ballots make up more than 11 percent of votes cast.

New York: Election Math Works in Favor of de Blasio | New York Times

It is not rocket science. The odds favor Bill de Blasio. With tens of thousands of votes from the Democratic mayoral primary still to be counted, Mr. de Blasio needs only about one in three of them to remain above the 40 percent threshold he passed in the unofficial count to avoid a runoff against the second-place finisher,William C. Thompson Jr., on Oct. 1. The math will not be lost on Mr. Thompson as he mulls whether to remain in the race. Based on the preliminary count from lever voting machines and emergency ballots cast where machines were not working, about 645,000 votes were cast in the election on Tuesday. Mr. de Blasio received 260,000 votes, or about 2,100 more than he needed to surpass 40 percent.

Editorials: Elections fixes for the next mayor | New York Daily News

The Election Day scene on Tuesday was all too familiar to lots of New Yorkers. Just one example among many: Early morning, voters at a downtown Brooklyn polling site were told they would have to cast their votes on paper ballots because its voting machines were broken. “We’re going back to paper ballot? You’re kidding,” said one disbelieving voter at the site — who just happened to be Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota. Over the years, many New Yorkers have suffered problem-plagued elections, with broken machines, long lines, chaotic poll sites and inadequately trained polling inspectors who unintentionally disenfranchise voters.

Editorials: Electronic voting is the wrong answer to the right question | Chris Duckett/ZDNet

It’s nice to see that Australia’s new digital minister is looking to technology to solve the issues plaguing the nation, but moving towards a system of electronic voting is a needless and expensive solution to a problem in process. On ABC News Breakfast this morning, Malcolm Turnbull floated the idea of electronic voting machines to reduce the number of informal votes cast at last weekend’s election. “About 6 percent of Australians voted informally in the House of Representatives,” Turnbull said. “The overwhelming majority of them, what scrutineers have told me over the years is 90 percent plus, have voted informal either because they have just marked ‘1’ against a candidate who they favour and not filled in the other boxes, or they have filled in the other boxes incorrectly. “I think this is a very big issue, and one of the ways that can be dealt with is if we consider electronic voting.” Oh, dear. For a man who Prime Minister-Elect Abbott claimed “virtually invented the internet” in Australia, I would have expected a longer memory on the issue of electronic voting.

New York: Mayoral primary plagued by voting machine problems | Associated Press

As New York City’s contentious primary campaign drew to a close Tuesday, some voters – including one leading mayoral candidate – encountered problems with the city’s decades-old voting machines. Turnout appeared light, but the city’s complaint line received several thousand voting-related calls. Many reported jams and breakdowns in the antiquated lever machines, which were hauled out of retirement to replace much-maligned electronic devices. In some sites, the broken machines forced voters to use pen and paper to cast their ballot. Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota presumably wrote his own name when his machine broke at his Brooklyn polling place.

New York: The return of the lever pull: To prepare for runoff, BOE goes Lo-Fi | AMNewYork

Voters will experience a blast from the not-too- distant past Tuesday when they use the old lever voting machines to cast their primary ballots. The city Board of Elections pushed for the one-time use of the retro devices, which were last used in the 2009 election, primarily because they are better suited to a two-person runoff. “It’s a much more shorter time process to change it to a two-person contest,” BOE spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez said. But not everyone is convinced the old ways are the best. City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, the chair of the governmental operations committee and a candidate for Manhattan borough president, said she is concerned that voters will be confused by the temporary change. “I think it’s weird for 21st century to be available and then go to the lever machines,” she said. “I’m not hopeful, but I might be wrong.”

New York: Elections Board Rings In the Old, as Lever Machines Replace Scanners | New York Times

Dented, dinged and dated, New York’s battleship-gray lever voting machines have been hauled out of retirement because the city can’t seem to get the hang of electronic voting.Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. The board is using the lever machines for the coming primary elections because of their quicker turnaround. About 5,100 old machines, each weighing more than 800 pounds and made of 20,000 parts, have been lubricated, and the names of candidates from 2009 (Michael R. Bloomberg, anyone?) have been removed and replaced with those of this year’s contenders. But there is a question no one can answer for sure: Will they work? “I’m very nervous about it,” said Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer, who leads a City Council panel that monitors the Board of Elections. Ms. Brewer’s interest is personal as well — she is one of four candidates in a hotly contested Democratic primary for Manhattan borough president. The lever machines to be used on Tuesday were acquired in the 1960s. In 2010, they were replaced with a $95 million electronic system that uses optical scanners to read paper ballots. But after long lines and chaotic polling scenes in 2012, as well as problems producing complete election results, the State Legislature this year authorized the return of the lever machines for the primary and any ensuing runoff, though it insisted that the city make the electronic machines work for the November general election.

National: Federal panel urged to reform election rules | Philadelphia Inquirer

Ellen Kaplan delivered a blunt message Wednesday to members of a presidential blue-ribbon panel on election reform. The 2012 vote in Philadelphia was a “national embarrassment” spoiled by massive confusion, partisanship, and mismanagement, said Kaplan, policy director of the watchdog group Committee of Seventy. She pointed to numbers such as the 26,986 provisional ballots cast, more than 12,000 of them by registered voters who should have been allowed to use voting machines, and almost 100 Republican poll inspectors who “were not permitted to sit” by their Democratic counterparts and had to get court orders. “Perhaps,” she added, in what could be a touch of overstatement, “the worst-run election in the city’s history.”

Alabama: Dollars And Votes: Breaking Down The Cost Of The September 10th Special Election | WHNT

We’re just a week away from Madison County’s special election to decide on combining the tax collector and tax assessor offices into a revenue commissioner position.Proponents say it will save money, but the price tag for the special election alone is pretty steep. Madison County Probate Judge Tommy Ragland says this special election should cost around $300,000. Getting all those voting machines out there costs money.  For one, Ragland notes the county doesn’t own them.  The machines have to be rented from a private company, the ballots purchased from them as well.

Tennessee: County vets voting machines | Polk County News

Polk County’s Election Commission is continuing to look at new voting machines. At a meeting last Thursday, they heard a presentation from Dominion Voting Sytems. Mike Beckstram of Dominion showed the commission a paper-based digital optical scan system. He said the system was currently being used in Hamilton County, but the company served voting needs all over the country and was the oldest company in the US and had more than 100,000 units in the field. According to Beckstram, once a voter has marked their ballot, it is scanned into a reader. The reader stores the scanned images, which can be compared to the hard copy if questions are ever raised. If chosen, this system will also alert voters if they have missed any categories or if their vote was not read, enabling them to have a second chance if a mistake was made. Beckstram said the machine would not accept an ambiguous vote, and the commission could set the machines so that a certain percentage of the circle would have to be filled out in order for the machine to read it. If the machine cannot read the mark it will alert the voter.

Indiana: New voting machine purchase put on hold in Montgomery County | Journal Review

Montgomery County Commissioners tabled a request Monday from Montgomery County Clerk Jennifer Bentley for the purchase of new voting machines to be used in future voting centers. Cost of the machines is $231,140, and commissioners requested Bentley to approach the Montgomery County Council on Sept. 3 to see if they are willing to fund the acquisition. “I don’t see any reason for us to approve this request until we know the county council is willing to spend the money,” Commissioner Jim Fulwider said. Bentley responded by saying she has approximately $140,000 she can use to pay for the machines, but would need approval from the council for the other approximately $90,000.

South Carolina: Richland County Elections Director Concerned About Voting Machine Storage | wltx.com

The new director of elections in Richland County has yet to case a vote, but says his storage space for voting machines could hurt his ability to do so. “The county has done a good job of repairing the warehouse, however, it still leaks. There’s still insulation hanging from the roof,” said Howard Jackson.  “So, it’s not very good working conditions.” Jackson spoke about the conditions during an elections board meeting Tuesday.  He said members of county council and the County Administrator have toured the warehouse recently. The board didn’t advertise the location of the warehouse, saying security there is cause for concern.

China: Entrepreneur sells electronic voting machines to dispel distrust in politics | The Asahi Shimbun

Although he brought success to his once-dying business, money is not the only thing driving Gao Haiyan. The young Chinese entrepreneur was moved by the sight of day laborers drawing rickshaws and being turned away at a local government office. Gao, 35, is now attempting to spread electronic voting systems to a populace long distrustful of politics. China remains governed under the one-party rule of the Communist Party and always ranks low on the Democracy Index, which measures the state of democracy in 167 countries. The Chinese government has not moved forward with political reform to realize free, democratic elections. But Gao, founder of a Shanghai-based company that develops and sells electronic voting systems using mark sense cards under the Quan Hui Tong brand, noted that many elections are held in China. “More than 100 million people are estimated to vote in residents’ committee elections each year across China,” he told a planning meeting of a major appliance maker.

Indonesia: Touch-screen voting initiated in Bali | khabarsoutheastasia.com

On a bright Monday morning on July 29th, residents of Mendoyo Dangin Tukad, in Jembrana, Bali, lined up to choose their next village chief. Most wore traditional Balinese attire – batik sarongs– with kebaya for the women and a headscarf (destar) for the men. The election voting was far from traditional, as election officials said it was the most technologically advanced ever held in Indonesia, using touch-screen devices that verify voters’ identity via their national ID cards. Implementation of the e-voting system was a collaborative effort by the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) and the Jembrana regional administration. BPPT provided the four e-voting devices, each worth about Rp 10 million ($1,000). The new technology is a breakthrough for Indonesia, which plans to implement it in other parts of the country, according to the head of BPPT, Marzan Iskandar.

Editorials: Discard Electronic Voting Machines, save Indian democracy | India Tribune

Many in India still have not come to grips the serious consequences of the status quo that the Election Commis-sion (EC) is maintaining by buying hundreds of thousands of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) that are easily manipulatable. Most constituencies in India are won by thin margins. In current election scenarios where no party has absolute majority, this can have a very drastic  effect.  Just take this scenario: Let us say without any EVM manipulation (say paper ballots), Party-1 would have secured 175 seats and Party-2 secured 145 seats. Now, how can this election results be manipulated. Let us identify 15 constituencies where seats are known to have been won by thin margins. Now all it takes is to manipulate as small as 5 percent of EVMs (or even much less) in these 15 constituencies to tilt the favor from Party-1 to Party-2. Each party now have 160 seats and neither has majority! So, we changed the whole power scenario by manipulating just a tiny portion of the EVMs in a handful of constituencies.

New York: The New York City Mayoral Election Nightmare Scenario | TPM

On Tuesday, Bill de Blasio became the latest frontrunner in New York City’s mayoral election, a race which has seen several major shifts in polling. Whoever emerges victorious in the first round of the Democratic primary next month, almost all of the polling indicates he or she will be headed to a runoff against the second place finisher three weeks later. This might be a problem. The Big Apple’s recent history of elections have included legal battles, chaotic lines at the polls, and vote counts that seem to never end. Adding to those headaches next month are the return of the city’s aging lever-pull voting machines and the possibility of a close finish for that number two spot, opening the door for a nightmare scenario where the results are still in dispute as the date of the final runoff approaches. “I can’t even think about that, the concept is too stressful,” one mayoral campaign staffer, who asked not to be named, said after TPM asked about how the potential Election Day chaos could complicate the tightly scheduled race.