GA voting case moves to Valdosta, EAC oks 3rd ballot scanner, AL internet voting bill, Google hacked

Alabama House considers military internet voting bill today. Meanwhile Google disclosed significant attacks on their servers...Project Vote’s releasing election recommendations for 11 states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada,New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia... Should voter history be private or public information?...EAC Certifies Third Optical-Scan Voting System....Election tension mounts as Ukraine PM cries foul

Dr Barbara Simons on Voter Registration...Government of Sri Lanka Condemns Election Violence

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


AL: Alabama House committee reviews 4 election bills today (includes internet voting for military) http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/006347.html

CA: Wall Street Journal Article in San Francisco Green Party
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/01/13/wall-street-journal-article-in-san-francisco-green-party/
January 13th, 2010 The two articles are not the same, although they both emphasize that by some indicators, the party is weaker than it was in the past.

CA: California ACORN breaks off into new nonprofit group
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-acorn13-2010jan13,0,7260819.story
The community organization group will keep the same mission and many of the same staffers, but will not belong to the troubled national alliance.

GA: GA voting case moves to Valdosta (where Ray Lemme ended up)
http://bit.ly/5LgcZg January 12.
I am going to Valdosta this week to provide expert witness testimony in the bizarre case against Laura Gallegos that will be heard on Thursday January 14th at the Lowndes County Courthouse.

In this case, a known voting machine defect allowed 947 test votes to be included in the 2008 Lowndes County certified election results.

IL: Illinois and the Law of Unintended Consequences
http://bit.ly/5dBM2i
January 12, 2010 In Illinois, now home of the nation's earliest primary elections for federal offices, early voting has begun.
...
So the Illinois legislature never got around to amending the law and changing the date of its primary elections back to the traditional March date.

NC: Maker of fake Cary political Web site comes forward
http://www.carynews.com/news/story/15502.html
The legislature has made no laws regulating campaign Web sites, Ragan said, so the elections board would have no jurisdiction over the content of any site.

NE: Nebraska online voter registration might be possible
http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=11806528
Jan 13, 2010 - It might soon be possible to register online to vote in Nebraska. A bill (LB 875) State Sen. Bob Giese of South Sioux City introduced Monday would require the development of an online voter registration system. KNTV. Read More

NH: N.H. voters suprised by special election poll hours
http://bit.ly/6TN092
Jan 13, 2010 - Any early risers who planned to cast a vote yesterday were in for a surprise. Polls in the three Manchester wards that hosted a special primary election weren't open for business until 11 a.m. Mark Hayward, Union Leader

PA: Rep. Wolf Takes Voter Intimidation Case to Judiciary Committee
http://bit.ly/8ZhOaw
January 12, 2010 Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) continues to try get answers from the Obama Justice Department about a voter intimidation case in Philadelphia. The incident which occurred during the 2008 presidential election was summarily dismissed by Eric Holder's office

TN: State senate delays paper trail for voting
http://www.wsmv.com/politics/22215960/detail.html
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to delay a law requiring a paper trail on voting machines until the 2012 election cycle. Tuesday, January 12, 2010. ... As much as $37 million in federal funding is available under the Help America Vote Act

VA: Voter Privacy and the Know Campaign
http://electls.blogs.wm.edu/2010/01/13/voter-privacy-and-the-know-campaign/
January 13, 2010 ...“Below is a partial list of your recent voting history — public information obtained from the Virginia State Board of Elections…We have sent you this information as a public service because we believe that democracy only works when you vote.”

What if this mailing also contained information about my neighbor’s voting history in order for me to encourage/shame him into voting in the upcoming election?

VA: Virginia Governor Tim Kaine Has the Power to Issue an Executive Order that Would Restore Voting Rights to People With Felony Convictions
Advancement Project alert: Click on the link below and take the Washington Post survey and vote “yes,” you think Governor Kaine should issue a blanket restoration order to people who have paid their debt to society:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/12/AR2010011203386.html

National

GOOGLE: Internet Attacked; Activists Targeted; Freedom To Be Restored
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=2771
January 13, 2010 Google disclosed significant attacks on their servers and GMail, along with attacks on other corporations. They will change their policy limiting the freedom of Chinese citizens. Another demonstration that the risk to democracy posed by Internet voting is not just a possibility voiced by computer scientists and security experts

EAC Certifies Third Optical-Scan Voting System
http://www.eac.gov/News/press/eac-certifies-third-optical-scan-voting-system/base_view
Unisyn OpenElect 1.0 meets 2005 federal voting system standard

New Memos Assess Election Laws in 11 States
http://www.projectvote.org/blog/?p=109
In preparation for the 2010 legislative season...
...
These state-specific memos assess current state election laws in six key areas: (1)Voter Registration; (2) List Maintenance; (3) Early Voting and Same-Day Registration; (4) Voter Intimidation and Suppression; (5) Public Agency Registration; and (6) Provisional Voting, identifying opportunities for states to improve the fairness and overall quality of their election processes.

Barbara Simons on Voter Registration
http://www.trustthevote.org/barbara-simons-on-voter-registration
...an excellent account of part of the story about where voter registration came from, and why it is controversial that U.S. citizens must proactively request permission to vote, and then pass muster w.r.t. eligibility requirements as evaluated by an election official.

Yes: security is hard
http://www.trustthevote.org/yes-security-is-hard
Jan 10th, 2010 I came across this article, “NIST-certified USB Flash drives with hardware encryption cracked.”.
...
I was quite intrigued by this article given that we talk blithely about using encrypted, write-once media to transfer information between various components of a voting system.


Why the “Christmas Day Intelligence Failure” might be of interest to election scholars and administrators
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/?p=3052

Peer reviewers wanted
http://www.eac.gov/blog-postings/peer-reviewers-wanted-1
EAC seeks peer reviewers to help review the commission's competitive grant applications. For more information about these paid, temporary opportunities, go here.

International

Canada: Township investigates electronic voting
http://www.recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2257666
Elizabethtown- Kitley Township voters may get the chance to cast their votes electronically this coming election.
...
Many municipalities have starting using alternative voting methods of mail, telephone and Internet. In this region, Edwardsburgh-Cardinal and Augusta Townships used a combination of electronic and paper ballots during the 2006 election.

North Grenville Township has already approved Internet and telephone voting for the upcoming election. An estimate established by North Grenville put the cost at approximately $40,000.

Sri Lanka: Government of Sri Lanka Condemns Election Violence
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/government-of-sri-lanka-condemns-election-violence-81253062.html

Ukraine: Election tension mounts as Ukraine PM cries foul
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60C0PD20100113
PM accuses rival of planning "monstrous" election fraud
...
"A conscious disruption of the election process is going on," Tymoshenko told a government meeting, saying that Yanukovich's party was organising mass fraud in the east of the country, his main power base. "Such monstrous falsification didn't even happen in 2004," she said.


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