In favor of paper ballots,recounts. Internet Voting is 'an affront to democracy'

Bo Lipari on "Pulling the Lever for Paper"..Virginia needs paper ballots by 2012 to avoid fiasco: "It's been a few years since Fairfax County got through an entire election cycle without a piece of voting equipment breaking down, a handful of votes vaporizing or an election result being delayed."..Internet voting is "an affront to democracy..It does not fulfill the requirement of one person, one vote and a guarantee of a secret ballot..it excludes people who are intimidated by it."~Stratford,Canada.."The Great Cyberheist": our security on the web is an illusion...

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

National: Undecided Race Round Up: Nine Still Hang in the Balance
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/16/undecided-race-round-nine-still-hang-balance

AK: Sitkan sees no wrongdoing in Fairbanks precinct*(ballot jammed in Accuvote)
http://kcaw.org/modules/local_news/index.php?op=centerBlock&ID=1012
A poll watcher for the Democratic Party in Fairbanks says he too was concerned by a malfunctioning voting machine in his precinct on election day, but saw no wrongdoing.
...
Kreiss-Tomkins arrived at the Tanana Valley Fairgrounds precinct a little after 7 AM to find poll workers struggling with an Accuvote machine that wasn’t feeding properly. They had opened the machine up, and were extracting a jammed ballot.

AK: Murkowski passes Miller in vote count
http://www.adn.com/2010/11/15/1555926/murkowski-passes-miller-in-vote.html
Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said he still thinks the court challenge could get enough votes thrown out for Miller to win.
...
Miller was hoping to get a boost from absentee ballots. But Monday was the last big count of absentees and there turned out to be more write-ins than Miller votes.

AK: AFN seeks to intervene in Senate voting lawsuit
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/nov/15/afn-seeks-to-intervene-in-senate-voting-lawsuit/
Alaska's largest Native organization on Monday sought to intervene in a lawsuit filed against election officials by GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller, claiming he seeks to disenfranchise Alaska Natives by invalidating their votes if they do not spell another candidate's name perfectly.

AK: State allowed spelling mistakes in 1998 on write-in ballots, news reports say
http://newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?blog-entry-State+allowed+spelling+mistakes+in+1998+on+write-in+ballots-+news+reports+say%20&id=10321605&instance=blogs_editors_desk

AZ: Arizona Prop. 112 recount triggered
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/
11/16/20101116arizona-prop-112-recount.html http://tinyurl.com/2wbe2gg
Measure to move up deadline to file citizen petitions failed by 123 votes

CA: Nevada County Election Results Update Nov.15
http://yubanet.com/regional/Nevada-County-Election-Results-Update-Nov-15.php
All absentee ballots for the 2010 General Election have been counted. Only a few provisional ballots remain to be incorporated, if they are deemed to be valid.

CA: The Ranked-Choice Voting Debate
http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2010/11/16/rankechoicevoting/

CO: HD-61 hand counts happening today
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/143718 Election officials from Glenwood Springs to Gunnison are sorting through undervoted ballots in the House District 61 race (hand count of undervotes for write-ins only)

CT: Bridgeport Ballot Issues To Be Discussed At Meeting
Panel To Review Polling Issues In City http://www.wfsb.com/politics/25807914/detail.html

CT: 86 Voting Precincts to Be Audited
http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/86_voting_
precincts_to_be_audited/ http://tinyurl.com/395egpl In addition to the dozen Bridgeport voting precincts, which were allowed to stay open until 10 p.m. based on a judge’s order, 74 voting precincts throughout the state will be audited before Nov. 22.

CT: Post-Election Audits Announced
http://wtic.cbslocal.com/2010/11/15/post-election-audits-announced/
Connecticut’s tight race for governor, which came under close scrutiny after Bridgeport poll workers ran out of ballots on Election Day, has been selected as one of several state races that will undergo a post-election audit
...
Bysiewicz said she supports proposed legislation that would require every municipality to order at least enough ballots for every registered voter
...
Lesley Mara, the deputy secretary of the state, said she’s not aware of any other state with optical scan voting machines that requires cities and towns to order a certain percentage of ballots.

FL: Palm Beach County elections office had wrong results on website most of Monday*
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/palm-beach-county-elections-office-had-wrong-results-1050132.html WEST PALM BEACH — After days spent trying to ensure that Palm Beach County's final election results were perfect, the county Division of Elections put online "official results" that were neither final nor official.

Instead, they closely resembled the numbers posted 10 days earlier - before the completion of exhausting recounts and the surprise discovery of 500 extra uncounted ballots a week after Election Day

MI: Election results still uncertified, Genesee County clerk says absentee ballot problem could prevent recount in district court election
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/11/county_election.html
County election officials have come close but haven't been able to match the number of paper absentee ballots they have from Flint with the ballots other city election records show should have been cast in the election.

MN: Editorial: The case for a lower recount threshold
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/108257194.html
Scanners' accuracy makes 0.5 percent seem too high.

MN: Hennepin County post-election review shows voting machines are pretty good
http://www.minnpost.com/politicalagenda/2010/11/15/23416/hennepin_county_post-election_review_shows_voting_machines_are_pretty_good After hand-counting about 14,000 votes from 13 randomly chosen Hennepin County precincts today, the results from the machine tally and the human hand tally were pretty darn close.
...
of the 14,000 votes counted today, DFLer Mark Dayton picked up three on his side of the ledger, and Republican candidate Tom Emmer lost two votes.

MN: Counties agree to give Emmer election information
http://capitolchat.areavoices.com/2010/11/16/counties-agree-to-give-emmer-election-information/
St. Louis and Pine county officials will give the Republican Party and governor candidate Tom Emmer most information they sought from the Nov. 2 election by Friday.

The Emmer campaign Tuesday released letters to the counties confirming the Friday deadline for most information, although some may not be ready by then.

NC: New Hanover Co. Commissioners vote to keep Airlie Gardens open to the public, election chairman addresses Election Day 2010 http://www.wwaytv3.com/new_hanover_co_commissioners_vote_keep_
airlie_gardens_open_public_election_chairman_addresses_
election_day_2010/11/2010 http://tinyurl.com/3x6ytg6 The board admitted Monday it sent the wrong ballots to two precints and not enough ballots to a third.
...
"It's been said that some people feel we don't take things seriously," said New Hanover County Board of Elections Director Bonnie Williams. "You lose sleep over it, you stop eating over it and you take it pretty seriously."

NC: State GOP seeks photo ID to vote
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2010/11/15/1031683?sac=Home

NY: PULLING THE LEVER FOR PAPER
http://www.bolipari.com/boblog/2010/11/pulling-the-lever-for-paper/
...Perhaps it's because New York isn't yet used to having an
actual paper record of votes, so we don't yet understand the value of a
recount. When outcomes are uncertain or disputed, recounting paper ballots
is the best way there is to find out who really won an election.

NY: Voting watchdog: Don’t blame the recounts on machines
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/34465/voting-watchdog-dont-blame-the-recounts-on-machines/ a leading ballot technology watchdog is stressing that such recounts have long been a fact of life during close elections, even with the old lever machines.

NY: 60th SD may be headed for a hand count X2 * (memory sticks not readable)
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/34449/60th-sd-may-be-headed-for-a-hand-count/ Erie County....That’s according to Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran who says a computer failure in western New York’s hotly contested 60th Senate District means they may have to do a manual recount.

When they tried to read votes recorded on the memory sticks, Shafran said, election workers received files that said they weren’t readable.

NY: Democrats may seek hand count in Thompson-Grisanti race (Erie County)
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/politics/article254889.ece
Shafran said when the memory sticks for the new electronic machines were pulled Monday, technicians received a computer message that the files "were not readable."
...
A source today said the "chain of custody" has also may have been breached when data from the machines was sent from Erie County to the machine manufacturer in an attempt to try to resolve the computer problem uncovered yesterday.

NY: New voting scanner voids thrill of the lever
http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/New-voting-scanner-voids-thrill-of-the-lever-809441.php Unlike going into a private booth, clicking levers and pulling the curtains open, this new method of voting is void of excitement.

NY: New voting system questioned in tight NY contests
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP0d26ffb131b042a4b61a85dd248d3778.html
And the state's new electronic voting system, where optical scanners and paper ballots replaced lever machines, has emerged in each case as both the solution and the scapegoat.

NY: New York State Ranks Last for Voter Turnout
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/new-york-state-ranks-last-for-voter-turnout/ New York ranked lowest, just below Texas and Utah. Minnesota recorded the highest turnout (55.4 percent), one of six states in which more than half the eligible population voted.

TX: Controversy still going with Cameron County Judges race
http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=541447
It was at around8:30 p.m. that unofficial results state that Cascos was still ahead by 50 votes.

However, someone noticed an oversight an uncounted tally sheet for precinct 54.
Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz was notified and according to sources the discrepancy was found.
A retabulation then showed Wood was ahead by 5 votes.

VA: Making every vote count
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/cms/story.php?id=2521 It's been a few years since Fairfax County got through an entire election cycle without a piece of voting equipment breaking down, a handful of votes vaporizing or an election result being delayed.
...
Yes, processing 100,000 votes on paper ballots is more expensive than the electronic alternative, but it pales in comparison to having a three-day wait to determine the next Sully District supervisor or Mason District School Board member.

VA: LTE - Election Day glitch was inexcusable* (E-pollbooks failure)
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/letters/wb/266885
The recent election in Montgomery County garnered attention because electronic poll books failed to work in a third of the precincts.
...
Before the election, the decision was made to provide paper backup copies of the electronic poll books in some, but not all, of the 21 precincts.
...
If it was suspected that there might be problems at some of the precincts, why was a paper backup not provided at all precincts?

Internet Voting Watch

Canada: E-voting an affront to democracy (Stratford LTE)
http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2848261
...It would make no difference if the electronic voting system had worked perfectly and no citi-zen had encountered the myriad of problems that they did. This system should not be used again.

New Guidelines On E-Voting
http://humanrightseurope.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-guidelines-on-e-voting.html
New Council of Europe guidelines on electronic voting will be published on 17 November..the publication does not argue either for or against the introduction of e-voting

The Great Cyberheist
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/magazine/14Hacker-t.html
"This is the he single largest and most complex identity-theft case ever
charged in this country, but this story of a brilliant hacker who worked
with and betrayed the Secret Service is chilling because it happened,
and it demonstrates that our security on the web is an illusion. This is
a fascinating, almost unbelievable story."

Clues Suggest Stuxnet Virus Was Built for Subtle Nuclear Sabotage
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/stuxnet-clues/ Stuxnet was designed to hide itself from detection so that even if administrators at a targeted facility noticed that something in the facility’s process had changed, they wouldn’t be able to see Stuxnet on their system intercepting and altering commands

National

EAC Newsline: November 16, 2010
http://idevmail.americaneagle.com/message.aspx?d=237&m=631&e=jmc27106@earthlink.net&r=44898&f=HTML

EAC seeks public comments on proposed changes to its regulations pertaining to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Comments are due by Nov 23, 2010
http://www.eac.gov/national_voter_registration_act/comment_on
_proposed_changes_to_nvra_regulations_.aspx http://tinyurl.com/23uwac5


GRITtv: Chloe Angyal: Voting Rights and Responsibilities (great video)
http://grittv.blip.tv/file/4375227/ Where I come from, voting is compulsory. If you don’t show up on Election Day, you’re fined $20. I’m from Australia, where voting, like paying taxes, is a part of being an adult and being a citizen. I’m also a citizen of the United States, where voting is not compulsory, and where voter turn-out, with a few exceptions, gets thinner with every election cycle.

International

UK: Nick Clegg: 'Missing millions' will get right to vote
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/nick-clegg/8135243/Nick-Clegg-Missing-millions-will-get-right-to-vote.html Millions of people currently "missing" from the electoral system will be given the right to vote, Nick Clegg will promise today.
...
The new system will see voters registered as individuals and not as part of a household.

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