Touchscreen vote flips 'a known class of problems..' New Dan Rather e-vote report

'Dan Rather Reports' new investigative report on E-Voting Tues Oct. 26th @ 8pm...Tech-Savvy College Students wanted as Poll Workers..Early voting by itself depresses the vote?...Texas E-Voting Suit Reveals Frailties of the Ballot Box..CNN asks Does Your Vote Count?.. Vote flipping: "This is a known class of problems with touch screen voting machines." ~ Alex Halderman, computer scientist @ U. of Michigan...

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

Find us on internet at http://votingnews.blogspot.com

CA: Bowen defends cautious approach to elections technology*
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/25/3128929/bowen-defends-cautious-approach.html
Bowen also warns against jumping headfirst into online or mobile voter registration without certainty that signatures sent electronically could be verified against handwritten signatures on initiative petitions or vote-by-mail ballots.

CO: Daily News endorsements: Do away with IRV
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/columnist/143275

DC: Adrian Fenty Volunteers Are Handing Out Rubber Stamps to Facilitate Write-in Votes http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/10/25/adrian-fenty-volunteers-are-handing-out-rubber-stamps-to-facilitate-write-in-votes/

FL: Sarasota Democratic chair calls early vote glitch ‘voter suppression’ (Sarasota)
http://floridaindependent.com/11485/sarasota-democratic-chair-calls-early-vote-glitch-voter-suppression ...Ferrandino can’t say how many at the rally actually attempted to vote, but says that “mysteriously, the computers went down right when the voters went in.”

FL: Machine glitch delays early voting after Meek rally (Sarasota)
http://floridaindependent.com/11442/machine-glitch-delays-early-voting-after-kendrick-meek-rally Dent says the library lost “connectivity” with her office, meaning poll workers couldn’t look up voters’ information to provide them with their correct precinct ballots...Dent says, adding that as far as she knows, “everybody was able to vote” by 4:50 p.m., 40 minutes after the original failure.

IL: Green Party to discuss botched ballots at Monday event
www.detnews.com/article/20101024/POLITICS02/10240320/1409/METRO08
Detroit - The Green Party plans to take advantage Monday of a mistake that left off the November ballot two of its candidates for Wayne County Commission.
...
The county notified local and state officials of the error and new ballots are to be printed and mailed to every absentee voter in the 5th and 6th districts, including those who already mailed in their completed ballots. If a new ballot isn't returned, clerks will count the first ballot, said West, who wasn't certain how much the new printing and mailing will cost.

IL: Cook County Clerk: Voter Fraud Fears 'Totally Blown Out Of Whack'
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/cook_county_clerk_voter_
fraud_fears_totally_blown.php http://tinyurl.com/33p4ybm

IL: Illinois GOP seeks to block DOJ consent decree
http://electionlawcenter.com/2010/10/22/illinois-gop-seeks-to-block-doj-consent-decree.aspx?ref=rss They want more than a one day extension of the deadline in Illinois.

IN: Randolph County to be reimbursed for first electronic voting machines
http://www.winchesternewsgazette.com/articles/2010/10/25/news/doc4c
c5a4bd584e4826819484.txt http://tinyurl.com/3y7fyse
Randolph is one of four Indiana counties to purchase electronic voting machines from Voting Technologies International (VTI) which closed its doors in 2007, leaving its customers without software updates or technical guidance.(Also Boone, Cass & Parke)

MA: Report faults voter registration system
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1273025804/Report-faults-voter-registration-system More than 2 million eligible voters will stay home next Tuesday, with some skipping the election because voter registration is inconvenient and outdated, according to a MassVOTE report disputed by the state’s top elections official

NC: Voting Machine Demonstration For Skeptical Voters
http://www.wcti12.com/news/25508020/detail.html
Republican Party Chairman Chuck Tyson says he would like to see the county go back to paper ballots for early voting. Democrat Party Chairman Rachel Parnell believes the problems have been solved and sees no problem with the machines.

ND: Judge orders reservation polling sites open
http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/121781/
A federal judge has ruled that Benson County must open two polling sites on the Spirit Lake reservation for the Nov. 2 election.
...
“It’s my view that no one in our state should be making it harder for people to vote,” Dorgan added. “I support voting by mail, but it should not be a reason to shut down polling locations on Election Day..."

NV: Tea Party ballot mistake could throw small wrench in election
http://www.rgj.com/article/20101024/NEWS19/10240338/1321/news
In the newsprint portion of the voter's guide, the party abbreviation for Tea Party of Nevada candidate Scott Ashjian is erroneously listed as TPA. But the Tea Party of Nevada is correctly listed as TPN on the sample ballot itself..

OH: Cast ballot early for election, free ride to polls on Election Day
http://www.toledoonthemove.com/news/story.aspx?id=530315

OR: Ore. parties send attorneys to watch vote count
http://www.katu.com/news/politics/105592288.html

OR: About 1,000 NE PDX voters receive wrong ballot* (NE Portland, Multnomah Co)
http://northeastportland.katu.com/content/about-1000-ne-pdx-voters-receive-wrong-ballot Scott said if people vote with the wrong ballot, those ballots will be flagged. He said the county will wait to see if the second, correct ballot eventually comes in. If not, they’ll count every vote they can from the first ballot.

PA: Behind the Scenes of DOJ’s Black Panther Case
http://volokh.com/2010/10/24/behind-the-scenes-of-dojs-black-panther-case/

TX: E-Voting Suit Reveals Frailties of the Ballot Box
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/texas-political-news/e-voting-suit-reveals-frailties-of-the-ballot-box/
Without a way to independently audit votes, DRE systems are especially vulnerable to malfunction or tampering, according to Rice University professor Dan Wallach,

TX: The Future of Voting in Travis County
http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/10914/the-future-of-voting-in-travis-county
[See the report that led to Travis Co report recommending switch to optical scan)

TX: Electric touch screen glitch caught on tape* (podcast available)
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/25/am-electric-touch-screen-glitch-caught-on-tape/ When Don Relyea, a Dallas area computer programmer, attempted to vote on an electronic touch screen machine, he got a bit of a surprise. The machine changed his vote.
...
However, Alex Halderman, a computer scientist at the University of Michigan who has spent years studying voting machines, was surprised by Sherbert's reaction. "This is a known class of problems with touch screen voting machines."

TX: Ector Co. Election Officials Address Voting Issue
http://www.cbs7kosa.com/news/details.asp?ID=22126 It’s a problem that could derail the $68.5 Million Odessa College Bond Election and it has election officials taking action.
...
"There have been a few concerns saying that they didn't think they voted on it or they just missed it", says Ector County Elections Administrator, Mitzi Scheible.

TX: Voting snafus can be avoided* (wrong ballot issued in super precincts)
http://galvestondailynews.com/story/185834
Montgomery isn’t the first — and likely not the last — voter to get the wrong ballot during an election in Galveston County. While there are lots of advantages to the county’s super precinct system used during early voting, the possibility of a voter being given the wrong ballot is there.

US Virgin Islands: Testing on voting machines begins
http://virginislandsdailynews.com/news/testing-on-voting-machines-begins-1.1053752
The Shouptronic voting machines used in the Virgin Islands were build in 1984 and have no way to be connected to the internet or accessed remotely.

WA: Ballots go missing in Franklin County
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/10/22/1392236/ballots-go-missing-in-franklin.html
Auditor Zona Lenhart said the office hasn't determined yet if the ballots went missing at the printer or during the mailing process.

WA: 2010 General Election: Live video feed from Ballot Opening Area
http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/aboutus/webcam.aspx

Internet Voting Watch

US. Analysis: Professor exposes more voting system flaws
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/25/voting.system.flaws/index.html
"While we were in control of these systems we observed other attack attempts originating from computers in Iran and China. These attackers were attempting to guess the same master password that we did. And since it was only four letters long, they would likely have soon succeeded."

Canada: Voting glitch in Port Hope*
http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2806669
PORT HOPE - ...there was a 25-minute period during which people weren't able to electronically vote Tuesday morning.

A problem with a server controlled by the firm that looks after the software and voting program for the town, Dominion Voting, is cited as the culprit.
...
She said people voting at the time would not have their vote counted but would if they tried later.

National


Trailer: HDNet's 'Dan Rather Reports' to Run Another Investigative Report on E-Voting Tuesday http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8145 The premiere showing will be Tuesday, Oct. 26th @ 8pm (video)

CNN: Does Your Vote Count? (video)
http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/does-your-vote-count/ After Florida's hanging chad fiasco in the 2000 Presidential Election, you think we would have gotten it right by now. Think again

OFFER TO DONATE AN "ELECTION INCIDENTS HOTSHEET" (Press release)
http://ballot-integrity.org/hotsheet-offer-press-release.pdf
An Election Incident Hotsheet is an Internet "bullhorn." It's a central outlet where citizens can directly alert fellow citizens to problems occurring at the polls.
...
We're now offering to clone our Hotsheet by other groups--at absolutely no cost.

Election Officials Eye Tech-Savvy College Students to Serve as Poll Workers
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/election-officials-eye-tech-savvy-college-students-to-serve-as-poll-workers-105445868.html Election officials cite many reasons for targeting college students, such as their flexibility, energy, and enthusiasm for public service, but the reason they most often give is students' comfort level and experience with technology.

NetFlix-for-Voting Startup Tries to Make Democracy Easy
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/netflix-for-voting-startup-tries-to-make-democracy-easy/65113/

Voting Early, but Not So Often
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25mayer.html?_r=2&th&emc=th
...But a thorough look at the data shows that the opposite is true: early voting depresses turnout by several percentage points.
...
...there is a way to improve turnout and keep the convenience of early voting. Our research shows that when early voting is combined with same-day registration — that is, you can register to vote and cast an early ballot on the same day — the depressive effect of early voting disappears.

MORE BREATHLESS (MIS)INTERPRETATION OF EARLY EARLY VOTING NUMBERS
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/?p=3367

The EAC has published a new map showing which US states are using federally qualified voting systems at http://www.eac.gov/testing_and_certification/default.aspx

The Lawyer’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Election Protection seeks lawyers, paralegals and law students to volunteer on Election Day, November 2 (and November 1 in some locations) to staff the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline and volunteer in the field to monitor polling places and address issues as they arise.
http://signup.lawyerscommittee.org/t/5631/signUp.jsp?key=2983

Calling All Hackers And IT Specialists: $20,000 Reward For Information About Vote Tabulation Manipulation In 2010 Election
http://protectourelections.org/index.php?q=node/57

Engaging Students in the Election -- 45 Ways Faculty and Administrators Can Still Make a Difference
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/engaging-students-in-the_b_768284.html

International

Philippines: Same problems dog barangay polls
Voters complain about long lines, missing names
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20101026-299766/Same-problems-dog-barangay-polls


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