Virus in NY voting machines, Myrtle SC's missing 260 votes found, ACORN ?

Hot story today: VIRUS found in the VOTING MACHINES Tainted Results in NY-23...Myrtle Beach's missing 260 votes "found" when "correct" memory card put into machine to gather votes, voters will just have to trust the delayed digital count since there are no paper ballots - does that inspire confidence?...Benton County Arkansas officials do their citizens a disservice by proposing to ditch paper ballot voting systems, the officials claim this will save money, but cost studies show otherwise! Arkansas has a paper ballot law that grandfathered paperless voting in some counties....Indiana County PA officials are "irked" that they had to do a real recount and not just read off the voting machine tape like PA's paperless counties do...PPP survey finds that 52% of GOP believe Acorn stole the election for President Obama...Readers, we apologize that for two days in a row feedburner did not send you the voting news. You can find those missing editions at http://votingnews.blogspot.com/ and we are working on a backup plan to avoid this happening again....

All this and more in today's voting news below....

AR: Paper Voting Ballots Could Be A Thing Of The Past
Election Commission Looks To Make Changes
November 19, 2009. Should the Benton County Quorum Court approve the expenditure of $360,000 for the Election Commission to purchase 200 new electronic voting machines, paper ballots could soon be a thing of the past.

“Right now, it is an idea that is open for discussion,” Bill Williams, chairman of the election commission, said.
http://www.nwanews.com/news/2009/nov/19/paper-voting-ballots-could-be-thing-past/

Paper ballot voting cost less than all electronic voting
Voting System Cost Studies and Reports
http://www.votersunite.org/info/CostStudies.asp

NY: VIRUS in the VOTING MACHINES: Tainted Results in NY-23
GOUVERNEUR, NY - The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus - tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.

Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the "virus" was fixed by a Technical Support representative from Dominion, the manufacturer. The Dominion/Sequoia Voting Systems representative "reprogrammed" their machines in time for them to use in the Nov. 3rd Special Election. None of the machines (from the same manufacturer) used in the other counties within the 23rd district were looked at nor were they recertified after the "reprogramming" that occurred in Hamilton County
...
At least one County official thus far has raised concern that it's possible that ALL of the machines used in the NY-23 election had the 'virus' but only a few malfunctioned as a result. The counts from any district that used the ImageCast machines are suspect due to "the virus" discovered in Hamilton County, last-minute "reprogramming" by Dominion workers, and security flaws in the systems themselves. A manual paper-ballot recount of the vote could resolve computer vote accuracy questions.

http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8144:virus-in-the-voting-machines-tainted-results-in-ny-23&catid=60:st-lawrence-news&Itemid=175

PA: Vote recount irks commissioner; tallies remain virtually unchanged
November 19, 2009 The recount Wednesday of Indiana County votes for Pennsylvania Superior Court judges resulted in no change in the total for one candidate, and changes ranging from one to six votes for other candidates.
http://online.indianagazette.com/articles/2009/11/19/news/10028636.txt

SC: No changes as Myrtle Beach election results are certified * (update from missing 260 votes)Nov 19. ... This morning the hand-held counter was placed back into its voting machine birth and the totals were printed out and certified with the rest of the votes.

After the polls closed Tuesday, people began questioning the unofficial vote totals from the Dunes precinct, which has 1,619 registered voters.

Horry County Voter Registration and Elections Director Sandy Martin, whose office handles the voting machines, reviewed the machine printouts from Tuesday night and confirmed that one machine's votes did not get counted.
http://www.thesunnews.com/news/breaking_news/story/1175247.html

SC: Voting machine error reported in Myrtle Beach *
Nov 18...A poll worker accidentally used the wrong hand-held vote counter to close a voting machine at the Dunes 1 voting precinct in Myrtle Beach on Tuesday, leaving about 260 votes uncounted.

But it appears that, along with the 23 failsafe, challenged and late-arriving absentee ballots still to be certified Thursday, cannot change the outcome of the election.

Horry County Voter Registration and Elections Director Sandy Martin said the hand-held counter will be placed back into its voting machine at 10 a.m. Thursday, and the machines' totals printed out and certified along with the rest of the votes cast.
http://www.thesunnews.com/news/local/story/1173528.html

National

Majority of GOP voters think ACORN stole 2008 vote
... PPP's newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately
http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2009/11/acorn.html

International

Winnipeg shopping for voting machines
November 19, 2009 The city of Winnipeg is shopping around for a large number of new voting machines to be used in next year's municipal election.

More than $1 million has been set aside to purchase 230 cutting-edge ballot counters, which officials said will cut down on voter fraud and make casting a ballot easier for visually impaired people.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/11/19/mb-voting-machines-winnipeg.html


Voting News by Joyce McCloy.
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