Dominion buys Premier-Diebold. US experts hack India EVM. Smartmatic flaw stuns officials

WPBS radio interviews Kim Alexander of CalVoter...Michigan Atty Gen: "Voted ballots...are public records.."..Revolving door in PA swings toward Internet Voting..Anti-Trust: Dominion acquires Diebold assets from ES&S...San Francisco unsure how many wrong ballots issued...Delaware City ends "poll tax"...US experts 'hack' India e-voting machines...Philippines Rep. Locsin blows top over Smartmatic election return flaws... The Philippines is ordering investigation of poll fraud..Which UK polls disenfranchised voters?.

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

AL: Alabama: still disfranchising the arrested and convicted
http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/006383.html
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: With just one day left to register for the June 1 primary, the issue of prisoner and felon voting is once again in the spotlight, and at least one community organizer is concerned that a lack of knowledge and confusion over the issue could disenfranchise thousands of people who are eligible to vote this year.

AR: Suit alleges machine changed votes* (ES&S iVotronic w/VVPAT)
http://www.lovelycitizen.com/story/1636013.html
BERRYVILLE -- In a lawsuit filed Friday, F. Owen Kendrick, a candidate for Carroll County clerk, alleges that early votes cast for him on an electronic voting machine in the Berryville courthouse were registered as votes for his opponent in the Democratic primary, incumbent County Clerk Jamie Correia. Early voting takes place in the county clerk's office

AR: Arkansas Green Party Trial Set (week of June 28-July 2)
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/05/19/arkansas-green-party-trial-set/
The issue is the state’s requirement that parties must poll 3% of the vote for President, in presidential years, or be removed from the ballot.

CA: California Voting: 58 Counties, 58 Procedures (radio interview)
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/may/19/california-voting-58-counties-58-procedures/
MAUREEN CAVANAUGH at KPBS interviews Kim Alexander, president, California Voter Foundation and Deborah Seiler, San Diego County Registrar of Voters

CA: New mail-in ballots may be sent out after blunder*
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/New-mail-in-ballots-may-be-sent-out-after-blunder-94363109.html
A blunder has left thousands of San Francisco voters holding the wrong mail-in ballot for the June 8 election, in which pivotal primaries for statewide offices are at stake, along with the outcomes of local and state propositions.

CA: PROP. 14, California's Top Two Ballot Measure, Leades 60-27 in Public Opinion Polling: Expect a lawsuit after it passes http://electionlawblog.org/archives/016018.html

CA: Irked supervisors will be asked to fund special elections
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/05/19/1147063/irked-supervisors-will-be-asked.html

CT: Anti-Trust: Dominion acquires Diebold assets from ES&S
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=3201
This acquisition would seem to increase the alternatives available to Connecticut and LHS, with a greater chance that the equipment will continue to be supported and enhanced.

CO: Michigan's Ballots are Pubilc Documents---why not Aspen's?
http://www.glassballotbox.org/journal/2010/5/18/michigans-ballots-are-pubilc-documents-why-not-aspens.html If Michigan citizens can look at their ballots? Minnesotans' theirs, Floridians theirs, why not Aspen?
If Longmont, Colorado citizens can be involved in post elections using real ballots why are Aspen's ballots secret?

DE: Delaware City ends election rule
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100519/NEWS02/5190337/Delaware-City-ends-election-rule Delinquent taxpayers OK to vote, but some now want new election

FL: Clay elections office oversees first mail balloting (Tues, June 2)
http://www.claytodayonline.com/content/2287_1.php

KY: Incumbent voting machines get the boot
http://www.incontextmag.com/article/Incumbent-voting-machines-get-the-boot
..obsolete machines are being replaced by an interesting mix of technology and paper.

KY: Heavy turnout causes some polling locations to run out of ballots
Jefferson County. http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=12511512
...
Some voters were forced to use the touch screen voting machines meant for the disabled.
...
the county clerk office said they are taking extra steps to make lack of ballots will not be an issue for the November elections.

KY: Kentucky attorney general's office gets fewer election-fraud complaints
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/19/1271857/kentucky-attorney-generals-office.html
There were far fewer calls to a state election-fraud hotline Tuesday than during the last election with county offices on the ballot...

MI: May 13, 2010 MIKE COX, ATTORNEY GENERAL Opinion
http://www.glassballotbox.org/storage/MichiganCase.pdf (pdf doc of opinion)
Access to ballots voted at an election under the Freedom of Information Act
Voted ballots, which are not traceable to the individual voter, are public records

MI: Election Activist Mike LaBonte Comments on Michigan's Public Access to Ballots
http://aspenelectionreview.blogspot.com/2010/05/election-activisit-mike-labonte.html
...Laws regarding freedom of access to voted ballots are often fuzzy at best, and seem downright restrictive at worst.

MI: Michigan's E-polling aims to shorten voter wait
http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20100519/News01/5190356/1130
More than 450 cities and townships, including 30 in Berrien, Cass and St. Joseph counties, will use new electronic pollbook software...

NC: Independent Candidate for North Carolina Legislature Loses Lawsuit Over Retention for Independent Candidates
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/05/20/independent-candidate-for-north-carolina-legislature-loses-lawsuit-over-retention-for-independent-candidates/

NY: Hadley-Luzerne pledges to use more voting machines in future (video available)
http://poststar.com/news/local/article_e4415ffe-63c3-11df-be21-001cc4c03286.html
Some voters had to wait 3 hours to vote

AKE LUZERNE - The Hadley-Luzerne school district will use three voting machines and open the polls earlier in the day from now on, after Tuesday’ night’s fiasco...

OR: Frisky Oregonians top 41 percent turnout
http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2010/05/frisky-oregonians-top-41-percent-turnout/

PA: Report ordered on Fayette ballot mix-up*
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/dailycourier/s_682079.html
...to determine the proper number of votes cast for candidates in the special election in the 12th Congressional District and to determine if some votes were duplicated with paper ballots.

PA: Recount possible in race for lieutenant governor
http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base
/news/127431960711520.xml&coll=1 http://bit.ly/bdbN4y
The race remains too close to call and could trigger an automatic statewide recount

SC: Legislators race clock to agree on voting changes
Photo ID, early voting sore spots
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2913450657991572365&postID=6892717172784475819 In order to salvage the bill

SC: Bill requiring voter ID and early voting faces tough critics
http://charleston.thedigitel.com/politics/bill-requiring-voter-id-and-early-voting-faces-tou-21259-0519 about 178,000 registered voters have no state photo ID card. ...the next step will be to assure all state residents have proper identification.

TN: Attorney General says proof of citizenship bill would violate law
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100520/NEWS0201/
5200347/1009/NEWS http://bit.ly/9AyKjk
NASHVILLE - Legislation that requires new voters to show proof of citizenship when they register would violate a federal law meant to get more people to vote, the state attorney general said in an opinion released Wednesday.

UT: No contested races? Call off the election?
http://www.sltrib.com/D=g/ci_15120070
Utah legislators considered a change Wednesday that would allow cities to forgo balloting for candidates who face no opposition a month before the general election.

WV: Lincoln official says dead cast absentee votes
http://www.dailymail.com/News/201005190953

Internet Voting Watch

Revolving door in PA swings toward Internet Voting
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=3204
Some revolutions are good, some questionable. Pennsylvania’s election revolution resulted in many expensive paperless, unauditable, hackable voting machines – not much different than providing overseas and military voters with expensive, paperless, unauditable, insecure internet voting.

Citizens United

Rep. Susan Davis to Offer Amendment to Strengthen DISCLOSE Act
http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/05/20/rep-susan-davis-to-offer-amendment-to-strengthen-disclose-act/ ...The Davis amendment, which will be offered at today’s markup of the bill in the Committee on House Administration, would require any mandatory disclosure reports to be filed electronically with the FEC so that they can be immediately searched and sorted on the FEC’s website.

National

ES&S/Premier Merger News: Dominion Acquires Former Diebold Product Line
http://blog.verifiedvoting.org/2010/05/20/559 Dominion Voting Systems, a Canadian voting machine firm that recently entered the American voting system market with the sale of equipment to most of the counties in New York State, announced on Wednesday that it has purchased the product line of Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) from Election Systems and Software (ES&S).

“Address Unknown” Podcast Episode #1 - transcripts included
http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/news/20100520/podcast1/
Prison-Based Gerrymandering: a podcast about keeping the Census Bureau’s prison count from harming our democracy. [Justin Levitt of Brennan Ct for Just interviewed]

Sunlight Foundation's amazing transparency tools
http://sunlightfoundation.com/resources/
"You'll be amazed what is possible"

Internet Vote Watch

EDITORIAL: States slow-playing move to accept Internet voting
http://it.tmcnet.com/news/2010/05/10/4779129.htm
Using the Web for voting sounds good and convenient but security experts warn it could be a disaster just waiting for a place to happen. Voting websites could be hacked. E-mail ballots could be intercepted and their secrecy compromised.

NYT on E-mail Voting - John Sebes blogs about it at TrustTheVote
http://www.trustthevote.org/nyt-on-e-mail-voting ...I recommend reading it for a number of reasons, but especially because of the large number of rather nuanced issues

International

India EVMs: Redeem your prestige, Mr. Navin Chawla: An open Letter to the CEC
http://www.indianevm.com/blogs/?p=132

Philippines: Rep. Locsin blows top during House hearing
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/191421/teddyboy-loses-cool-during-house-poll-fraud-hearing
"Do you realize what fools you have made of legislators who pushed for this law? Your assurance was that if fraud is committed, we will be able to trace it...Now you’re telling me this?". (Philippines rep Locsin)

The argument ensued after former Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, who lost his mayoralty bid in Manila, reported cases of wrong times and dates printed on ERs produced by automated counting machines in some of the city’s precincts last May 10.

"Manila is still in a state of shock... This only shows that election returns were manufactured somewhere else and just read by the machine on election day,"...

Philippines: Probe ordered on poll fraud; party-list proclamation delayed
http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=11331
THE COMMISSION on Elections (Comelec) has deputized the Philippine National Police (PNP) in probing reported poll irregularities, while admitting that a parallel congressional probe is delaying the proclamation of winning party-list groups.

UK: The polling stations where election 2010 voters couldn't vote
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/20/polling-station-electoral-commission Electoral Commission data out today pinpoints the polling stations where voters couldn't cast their ballots or had problems on election night. Find out where they were

US scientists 'hack' India electronic voting machines
http://www.voteraction.org/news-article/2010/us-scientists-hack-india-electronic-voting-machines
After connecting a home-made device to a machine, University of Michigan researchers were able to change results by sending text messages from a mobile.

Voting News by Joyce McCloy.Archives here at http://votingnews.blogspot.com/
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