New York 7th SD - give up or count the votes? Internet vote co hiring on Craigslist

Palm Beach County Commissioners dodge touchscreen question..NY Sen DEM spokesman says Craig Jackson won't concede 7th SD yet:"anything less than the counting of every vote is a slap in the face to every voter."...Lucas Co. recount continues after flub.. Audit shows Vt. ballot machines accurate..EAC Commish Gracia Hillman has resigned..Internet Vote company "EveryoneCounts" hiring off of Craigslist...Hackers took down 36 Pakistan govt websites...

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

AK: State seeks expedited ruling in Miller lawsuit over write-ins
VOTE SUIT: Alaska risks being deprived of a senator, they say.
http://www.adn.com/2010/11/30/1580321/state-seeks-quick-ruling-in-senate.html

AK: Miller camp combing through Alaska precinct logs
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/10485657/article-Miller-camp-combing-through-Alaska-precinct-logs-?instance=home_news_window_left_bullets

AZ: No-excuse absentee ballots, voter ID, and slow counts in Arizona
http://www.earlyvoting.net/blog/2010/11/no-excuse-absentee-ballots-voter-id-and-slow-counts-arizona

CA: Stolen Ballots Won't Be Counted (San Francisco)
http://www.baycitizen.org/elections/story/stolen-ballots-wont-be-counted/ Batch of ballots found floating in pond was too small to influence election outcomes, official

CA: Readers sound off on Jean Quan, ranked-choice voting, the Oakland A's, and more.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/letters-for-november-31/Content?oid=2241521
(For and against)

CO: Saguache vote ruling awaited
Group recounted ambulance district proposal Monday.
http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/article_a9db5f90-fd15-11df-8305-001cc4c03286.html
board member Lisa Cyriacks said the recount found different tallies among precinct and mail-in ballots.
...
But both Cyriacks and board member Jessica DuBoe said the outcomes did not reverse the leads held by incumbent Commissioner Linda Joseph and incumbent Clerk and Recorder Melinda Myers.
Those races drew scrutiny when election officials flipped election-night totals following a retabulation of the votes Nov. 5.
The move was meant to correct a software error that excluded results from 197 ballots from the election night count.

DC: D.C. board of elections wants to expand early voting
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2010/11/dc-board-elections-wants-expand-early-voting-1

FL: Palm Beach County may ask state for more time to handle election recounts
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-palm-touch-screen-machines-20101130,0,3610319.story Chairwoman Karen Marcus asked the commission to direct staff to lobby for making touch-screen voting machines legal again. But the commission dodged the controversial issue for now and asked for more information from Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher.

IL: Retab finds a Glitch
http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2010/12/01/retab-finds-a-glitch/
However, for the first time, we had two ballots, in Mahomet 5, which alternately counted as overvotes for three offices, as unreadable, or correctly. After identifying the ballots we continued to run them in a variety of orientations and failed to ever get a consistent outcome.
...
But it does speak to the value of redundant counts of ballots and mandatory recounts in the event of close races.

MN: Recounts are a pain, but let's be grateful we have them here
http://www.startribune.com/politics/recount/111153564.html?elr=KArks:DCiUec7PaP3E77K_0c::D3aDhUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUec7PaP3i_vPQL7PQLaU

MN: 'Frivolous' challenges? Judge for yourself
http://www.startribune.com/politics/recount/111150859.html

MN: Slowly: Count, then challenge
http://www.startribune.com/politics/recount/111091254.html GOP chair said the party's frequent challenges to ballots are simply an attempt to defend its interests.

NJ: Seven are arrested, face voter fraud charges stemming from Paterson election
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/seven_are_arrested_face_voter.html

NY: GOP to Johnson: Do the right thing and give up! (NY 7th SD)
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2010/12/gop-to-johnson-do-the-right-th.html Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran just issued a response to the GOP. "The margin in Nassau is less than half of one percent and there are still machine problems and vote count irregularities which call into question the accuracy of the count. The GOP's own top election lawyer raised these issues...That is why we believe a full manual recount is the only way to ensure a full, fair, and accurate count of every vote."

NY: Bishop keeps momentum, though GOP suspects fraud
http://northshoresun.timesreview.com/2010/12/3631/altschuler-scores-20-votes-from-military-ballots/ Altschuler (D) scores 20 votes from military ballots

NY: Hand recount of votes to start in freeholder race
http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20101201/NEWS01/12010335/Hand-recount-of-votes-to-start-in-freeholder-race
WOODBURY A recheck of voting machines on Tuesday did not change results of the recent freeholder election in Gloucester County. Starting today, election workers will conduct a hand recount of vote-by-mail and provisional ballots.

OH: Lucas Co. recount continues after flub
http://www.toledoonthemove.com/news/story.aspx?id=548148
But after choosing which polling locations to recount on Monday, someone discovered a sheet of locations was left out of the random drawing

OR: Recount requested in close state Senate race
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/11/senate_republicans_say_theyll.html

RI: Rhode Island's election history on display
http://www2.turnto10.com/news/2010/nov/30/3/rhode-islands-election-history-display-ar-309360/

SC: Florence school board candidates protest election precincts
http://www2.scnow.com/news/2010/nov/30/florence-school-board-candidates-protest-election--ar-1152249 / “You changed the voters up — you confused the voters. I don’t know how many maps they had, but we couldn’t seem to get the correct information before the election,” James said

VT: Audit shows Vt. ballot machines accurate
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=13590830 In two of the towns the hand count produced exactly the same results as the tabulator machines. In the other three towns the count was off by only a vote or two.

Internet Vote Watch

Experienced Java Software Engineer - Secure Internet Voting System (San Diego (UTC / La Jolla)) http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/sof/2087439659.html

Cyber warfare: Indian hackers take down 36 govt websites
http://tribune.com.pk/story/84269/cyber-warfare-indian-hackers-take-down-36-govt-websites/ Websites of Pakistan Navy, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the ministries of foreign affairs, education and finance, as well as NADRA and the Council of Islamic Ideology were among some of the key websites hacked, aside from at least 30 other local websites.

National

EAC COMMISSIONER GRACIA HILLMAN HAS RESIGNED
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/?p=3663

THE ELECTION SEASON GETS LONGER AND LONGER
http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=21773
Doug Chapin, the founding director of electionline.org, a program of the Pew Center on the States, says we see “a demand for greater accuracy and fewer mistakes—right along with an exactly opposite demand for speedy results.” In other words: We ask our election officials to be accurate AND fast.

Checking In on Those Lingering Midterm Races
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/checking-in-on-those-lingering-midterm-races/ Since our last update, closure (or something close to closure) has come to seven of the nine midterm contests that were unresolved.

International

Haiti: Voting officials count the votes inside a vote center in Petion-Ville
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101130/img/pwl-voting-officials-count-3-0d66b3910e4c.html (Counting ballots by candlelight)

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