New York Military ballots at risk, Tenn. voting issue drags on, ES&S-Diebold monopoly game cont'd

Kenneth Blackwell of Ohio 04 fame wants a BIG overhaul of US.voter registration. system..Early voting makes candidates work harder, spend more in ST.Petersburg FL... NY voting system tests, Final day finds bug.. New York's military votes at risk but help available from Overseas Vote Foundation. Tennessee courts may trump lawmakers in Tennessee voting machine decision. Texas Vote Centers a "model for the future" or "model for risk"? Russian media cites US' voting machine monopoly.. Corporations are not people - are they? Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United v FEC may give corporations more say in elections.

All of that and more in today's Voting News below...

FL. Early voting reshapes campaigning in St. Petersburg elections
October 4. The growing numbers of people voting by mail has changed the strategies and timing of campaigns for mayor and City Council in St. Petersburg. More than half of the 37,360 ballots cast in the Sept. 1 primary were done by mail ballot.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/early-voting-reshapes-campaigning-in-st-petersburg-elections/1040813

NY. Report on the final day of New York State voting machine testing now posted *
at http://www.bolipari.com/boblog, including notes on a DS200 EMS user interface bug that turned up...Here a problem popped up on the DS200 EMS, which refused to import the election data from the scanner cards. This took some time to figure out, but eventually some careful troubleshooting revealed that the problem was that the order of the candidate names in the EMS database was not set up correctly.
http://www.bolipari.com/boblog/2009/10/day-5-of-nys-voting-machine-tests/

NY. Overseas Vote Foundation tweet:
Voters from NY-23: ballot time line will be tight. Story today Syracuse.com: http://ow.ly/sBEc - Use Fed Write-in Ballot http://ow.ly/sBED

NY. Military ballots at risk in New York's special election
October 04, 2009
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/military_ballots_at_risk_in_ne.html

NY. Update: Absentee ballots running late for 23rd Congressional District *
October 02, 2009 FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) — Military and election officials insist that hundreds of deployed Fort Drum soldiers will have enough time to return their absentee ballots in next month’s special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, even though they won’t be mailed out for another two weeks...For this election, county boards will accept ballots until Nov. 16, although they still must be postmarked by Nov. 2, elections officials said.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/update_absentee_ballots_runnin.html

TN. Election issue heats up
Time of the essence in resolving voting machine dispute
NASHVILLE - A dispute over the voting machines Tennesseans will use in the 2010 elections moved from the Legislature into the partisan political arena during the summer and is now the subject of a lawsuit that brings the court system into play as well.
The convoluted situation raises the possibility of creating confusion in the election system during an election year unless the courts or the Legislature can resolve it in reasonably short order.
Resolution of the dispute - at least outside the political arena - could also boil down to whether a court ruling comes before legislative action
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/oct/05/election-issue-heats-up/

TX. Countywide 'vote centers' could be election model for the future
Collin County will participate in a pilot program in November that could become the model for Texas elections. The county plans to allow Election Day voters to cast a ballot at any county polling location, just like they can during early voting
http://www.star-telegram.com/texas/story/1659094.html#

National

Voter Registration Modernization
Time for a big overhaul
Reform could help rid system of manipulators
OpEd By Ken Blackwell (of Ohio 2004 election fame)
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/05/time-for-a-big-overhaul/

Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission

Corporations are not people
October 2, 2009 To The Editor: The Supreme Court of our country is considering setting aside 100 years of precedent with a ruling that would dramatically increase the amount of corporate money in politics and elections, as if we do not already have enough money-for-influence...A corporation is not, nor has ever been, a person with voting rights.
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20091004/NEWS/910029927?Title=Corporations-are-not-people


ES&S Diebold Monopoly

Voting Machine Variety: Virtual Monopoly Dangerous
October 5, 2009 When an important product is under the control of a virtual monopoly, it rarely gets better. And make no mistake: U.S. voting technology needs to improve.
That cause is not likely to be helped by the recent merger of ES&S (the dominant Election Systems & Software) and Premier Election Solutions (formerly a subsidiary of Diebold). Together, they will serve nearly 70 percent of the nation's voting precincts
http://www.theledger.com/article/20091005/NEWS/910055006/1036?Title=Voting-Machine-Variety-Virtual-Monopoly-Dangerous


Monopolized elections opposed in the US
A US advocacy group, Voter Action, has asked the Justice Department in Washington to undo the sale of a company which makes voting machines. Voter Action says the sale to a larger competitor would create a monopoly which may affect US election results.
http://russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-10-03/monopolized-elections-opposed-us.html

Voting News by Joyce McCloy.
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