Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News MONDAY, 11/07/05

[autorank]

I am dedicated to free and fair elections and the elimination
of election fraud. I want easy access to registration and voting
for myself and others. I want to cast my vote for Tim Kaine, D, VA
(Governor) knowing that it will count and that all others who
do so will know the same. Autorank, Precinct captain, VA

Election Day, VIRGINIA 11/08/05--6:00am-7:00pm. Be there!

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.

Only the deluded & complicit accept election
results on blind faith.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News MONDAY, 11/07/05

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.

If you want to know how post "News Banners" or other images, go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371233#371391



All previous daily threads are available here:
http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm

Please

"Recommend"

for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[autorank]

1. OH: Vote to Reform Elections Cast on Mostly Diebold

OH: Vote to Reform Elections Cast on Mostly Diebold Touchscreens—Ironic, Isn’t it?
It’s Diebold time. Consider the viscious iriony: an election in Ohio is being held to reform the rotten election process there and the vast majority of voting will be done on Diebold machines, touch screen. What a joke!

Touch-screens make election debut
Poll workers anticipate lines, problems

http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1107ohscreenvote.html


By the Associated Press

Voters in 44 counties will use touch-screen machines for the first time in Tuesday's election, and veteran poll workers are anticipating some confusion.

Complicating matters is a ballot featuring five lengthy statewide measures. The potential for confusion prompted Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to ask volunteers not to enforce a rule that limits voters to five minutes in the booth.

Poll workers and 400 service technicians have been trained on operating the new machines, and Blackwell posted an online practice program so voters will know what to expect. But some poll workers worry that technical problems could come easily and old habits could die hard.

"I think there'll be mass confusion," said longtime poll worker Lee Walters of Lancaster.

[autorank]

2. VA: Fraud Alert for VA--Yikes, my state!!!

VA: Fraud Alert for VA
Lets see how DOJ does in Virginia. Better be helpful or there will be some serious push back. The Democrats are aware of election integrity issues. This also a state where the largest county Republican Committee demanded to see machine code after a botched election (Fairfax County). Democrats here (in VA) are not gracious losers!!!

Voter Fraud Crackdown for Tuesday's Va. Election

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=614192
Updated: Sunday, Nov. 6, 2005 - 10:30 AM

Hank Silverberg, WTOP Radio

UNDATED- Because the Virginia gubernatorial contest is so close, there are some concerns about problems at polling places, including voter fraud.

For the first time the U.S. Department of Justice will be monitoring for voter fraud in a statewide election in Virginia. The Election Day Program is designed to deter election fraud and discrimination at the polls.

FBI agents and several U.S. attorneys will be on hand Tuesday to respond to complaints of fraud and prosecute offenses where and when they occur.

The initiative was set up nationwide in 2002 in response to the 2000 presidential election that was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

Anyone who suspects voter fraud is asked to call 703-299-3700.

Meanwhile, the ACLU, concerned with voter intimidation, has reminded polling officials in Virginia that voters who don't have I.D. should not be turned away. They can still vote by signing a affirmation of identity.

[autorank]

3. AZ: ID Rule May Deny US Citizens Right to Vote

AZ: ID Rule May Deny US Citizens Right to Vote
Well, isn’t that what it’s all about, denying people their basic human rights through the contrivances of idiots and fools, the craven who feast at the trough of our sorrows and losses. The GA law was struck down, this one should be as well. Voters pass these ID propositions thinking they will help stop what voters know is taking place, election fraud. But they’re misdirecting the effort. Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, etc. should not be able to come within 100 yards of any polling place. Lets vote on that.

Arizona ID rule may deny U.S. citizens right to vote
Law passed to keep illegal immigrants from casting ballots

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/06/MNGARFJR711.DTL

- Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
Sunday, November 6, 2005

Phoenix -- A stringent new voter-identification law being put into effect in Arizona -- designed to keep illegal immigrants from voting -- is also preventing thousands of legitimate voters from casting ballots in Tuesday's election, according to election officials.

Part of Proposition 200, which voters approved last year, the regulations require proving U.S. citizenship to register to vote and showing a photo ID at the polls. The law put this border state at the edge of a nationwide push to tighten screening at the polls: 15 states now require ID at polling places, but no other state requires documentation of citizenship in order to register.

It's a movement that advocates say is long overdue to prevent election fraud, but which critics say will decrease voter turnout and has already disenfranchised thousands of legitimate Arizona voters.

In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, more than 10,000 people trying to register have been rejected for being unable to prove their citizenship. Yvonne Reed, a spokeswoman for the recorder's office, said Friday that most are probably U.S. citizens whose married names differ from the ones on their birth certificates or who have lost documentation.

[autorank]

4. CA: Parallel Elections Come to Northern California, Marin

Judy Alter was one of the presenters at the Save our Elections conference in Portland Oregon. She’s got a plan and experience. How low we have sunk that our citiens have to come up with methods to check on elections. There is no way our leaders can demonstrate that they were elected. They are not our leaders, they are iligitimate.

Parallel election' to check votes

http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_3189692

Article Last Updated: 11/06/2005 09:05 AM

Richard Halstead
Marin Independent Journal

Marin is one of a handful of California counties in which a cadre of suspicious poll watchers will conduct a "parallel election" on Nov. 8 to check up on government vote counts.

An elections watchdog group calling itself the Citizens' Audit Parallel Election has recruited volunteers in Marin, Humboldt, Los Angeles and Orange counties. The volunteers will go to polling places on election day and ask exiting voters to duplicate their votes on paper ballots that will later be hand-counted in public.

So far, about 22 Marin residents have volunteered to visit polls here, said Linda Bagneschi Dorrance of Novato, a 37-year-old publicist who is coordinating the local effort. CAPE's leaders worry that the move to computerized voting has set the stage for massive voter fraud.

"California election officials cannot demonstrate that our votes are actually counted as we cast them when our ballots are counted with secret software," said Judy Alter of Culver City, the group's founder. "The official ballots and vote tallies are recorded on optical scanners, electronic voting machines, and central tally machines that are operated with trade-secret software not disclosed to the public, not even to public elections officials."

"We need to have a transparent vote-counting process," said Dorrance. "We used to have that when paper ballots were hand-counted in public view. Now that takes place in a machine, and then ballots are locked away, and if you want a recount, you have to pay."

[autorank]

5. Nation: Interesting take on Election Fraud from the Right.

My head is spinning. This article is on a very conservative site but look at it. It decries “American Empire” and nails election fraud as a strategy. It’s fascinating..

The American empire and big business (Part 2)
From Renew America, The Grassroots at Work Web Site

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/spingola/051106


Deanna Spingola
November 6, 2005

Strategy #2 involves installing puppet leaders which brings up the possibility, nay the inevitability of vote fraud, bribery and intimidation. Yes, it does occur in our country.

Despite denials, there is reliable evidence regarding the actual versus the alleged votes cast in the 2000 election for George W. Bush. While the complicit media led everyone to believe that the democrats were either poor losers or that the Floridian democrats were just plain stupid, the Florida fiasco was ultimately settled by the court and family values George walked off the winner's trophy — the highest elected office in the country.

He appeared to win again in 2004 except the victorious vote winning state was Ohio. In that election we had skeletons, or more correctly, Skull and Bones tumbling out of long forgotten closets. For president we could select either Skull and Bones Kerry or Skull and Bones Bush. No, Skull and Bones is not just a benign fraternity where immature individuals play pranks on each other. Many United States politicians belong to the Order of Skull and Bones as well as to another secretive society, the Council on Foreign Relations.

Pre-election we were exposed to high priced public relations including photo ops showing their best candidate profiles engaging in unrelated activities. Questionable past military activities and irrelevant failures were flaunted before us as if they answered any conceivable concern. Rarely did we hear much about the real issues except for that forever decades-long popular issue of abortion. One party always promotes pro-choice and the other party always favors pro-life. It is all merely rhetoric. By their lack of action, Republicans support abortion, an evil abomination that has taken the life of over 44 million pre-born infants. If the alleged pro-life Republicans had the courage of their pre-election claims, they would have repealed abortion long ago. Any republican majority congress that can foist the patriot act on an unsuspecting constituency should work to save the innocent from infanticide. I belong to neither party — I don't want the blood of either party on my hands!

Politics, the playground for controlled conflict and orchestrated outrage, never tires of keeping the populace diverted and divided on the real blood and guts issues like people dying on both sides of a war, babies slaughtered before they can draw their first breath, loss of constitutional freedoms, expelling God from the public arena, upholding pornography and perversion as alternative life choices. This is the determined, devilish destabilization of America and Judea Christian values. Once we accept everything, we become committed to nothing.

As for the technicalities of the election farce, there is absolutely no way of reviewing and determining the results of any election with the prevalent use of voting machines that leave no paper trail. There are three major big profit manufacturers of these machines: Diebold, Sequoia and ES&S. They each retain control of the software that tabulates the votes. They have a very highly paid Washington lobby. Not only are these companies interested in American business but their tentacles reach out into the world community. I am sure they recently did some substantial business in Iraq.

Two companies, ES&S and Diebold, owned by two brothers, were responsible for counting 80% of the votes in 2004. The CEO of Diebold sent out a memo stating that Ohio's votes would go to Bush.

[autorank]

6. TN: Reasons to Extend Voting Rights Act

Can you believe that people actually question this. Amazing

Voting Rights Act: What’s at Stake Here?

http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/9216/index.php

by Amanda Fraser
05 Nov 2005
Much of the populace today is not quite sure why the Voting Right Act needs to be extended at regular intervals. With virtually all citizens having the right to vote, why does it have to be evaluated and continued every so many years? Is there still voting discrimination against people of color? Also of concern to “European-Americans” is whether--under the Bush administration, have polling place protections been compromised so much that even whites are questioning whether we’re living under a democracy?

These are questions that are being closely examined by Tennessee organizations working to extend provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that are due to expire to 2007. Local groups include the NAACP, TSU Africana Studies Department’s “Great Debate,” the Gathering to Save Our Democracy (National Election Reform Conference held in Nashville), the American Civil Liberties Union, and several others.

Area and National Leaders Get the Word Out

Mary Frances Berry, former Chair of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, keynoted the Tennessee NAACP’s 40th Anniversary VRA Dinner Conference in Nashville last week. She says that people often ask, “What does the Voting Rights Act (VRA) have to do with anything anyway?” She responds emphatically that the problems that beset us in our community can be resolved if we vote “the right people in office.” Voting rights have set the basis for virtually all legislative advances that have aided African Americans and others whose rights have been compromised.

Alma Sanford recently spoke on the VRA at the First Unitarian Church in South Nashville. Sanford, an attorney, is on the staff of the Davidson County Democratic Party and presently serves on the VRA Committee for the Tennessee NAACP. She urges concerned citizens to write their legislators and request that all provisions of Act be reinstated. In addition, she strongly recommends that Davidson County residents send emails to legislators to demand that the state procure voting “machines that have a paper trail” to insure the possibility of recounts if necessary. Questions have already been raised about possible efforts to block effective paper trails at the State Election Commission.

[autorank]

7. DU: Users Vote Overwhelmingly & Endorse Election Fraud- Integrity Issues

DU: Users Vote Overwhelmingly & Endorse Election Fraud, Election Integrity Position

IT’S OFFICIAL. DU’ERS SHOW SOLID SUPPORT FOR CORE
ARGUMENTS OF ELECTION FRAUD-ELECTION INTEGRITY MOVEMENT.

TOP RATED GREATEST THREADS THREE DAYS RUNNING REPRESENT
STRONG ELECTION FRAUD, ELECTION INTEGRITY POSITION

Intuitive Poll by the author;)

DUers who believe election was stolen or that there is
enough evidence to support a vigorous inquiry into same:---99.99%

DUers who have been in coma since Election Day 2000:------00.01%

IT’S OFFICIAL, ELECTION REFORM NOW, VOTING RIGHTS NOW

O8) O8) O8) O8) O8) O8) O8)

VOX POPULI, VOX DEI

O8) O8) O8) O8) O8) O8) O8)

[autorank]

8. DU: Greatest Top Rated 1 of 3 in a Row—Election Fraud/Integrity--autorank

DU: Greatest Top Rated 1 of 3 in a Row—Election Fraud/Integrity--autorank
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2222409

autorank Donating Member (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-03-05 11:10 PM
Original message
Doing SOMETHING ABOUT 2006 - NM Citizen Suit HOT-"forthcoming elections."
Autorank: Election Errors Threaten
People ask "What are you doing about 2006? Well, this is all about FUTURE ELECTIONS. Great grass roots-legal effort by www.voteraction.org This one has the potential to blow it all open

Thursday, 3 November 2005, 12:30 pm
Election Errors Threaten Future Voting Rights in New Mexico
Major Law Suit Under Way to Open Up “Secret” Workings of Voting Machines

Special Report for “Scoop” Independent Media

First in a Series
By Michael Collins
Nov. 2, 2005

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00067.htm

Patricia Rosas Lopategui et al… “wishes to have her vote properly counted and weighted in any forthcoming elections.”

New Mexico rarely generates much national news. When it does, as in the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage investigation, it can be explosive. Now a little-known lawsuit before New Mexico District Court Judge Eugenio S. Mathis has the potential to alter the face of American elections.

Lopategui et al versus the State of New Mexico is preceding at a surprising pace, with the litigants currently in the “discovery” phase of the trial, the point at which lawyers are allowed to question key witnesses and dig for facts and opinions with wide latitude. The targets of discovery right now include Sequoia Elections, two of the big three voting machine companies; Rebecca Vigil-Giron, New Mexico Secretary of State; state and local election officials; and officials of the state’s voting systems support vendor.

Highly disturbing facts and allegations have already emerged in this well-run but under publicized case. For example, in one majority Hispanic precinct, the voting machines produced exactly zero votes for John Kerry. More issues will arise as the Plaintiffs’ legal team digs deeper into the highly irregular events of Election Day 2004. Remarkably, these events occurred at a much higher rate in predominantly Hispanic and Native American precincts.

[autorank]

9. DU: Greatest Top Rated 2 of 3 in a Row-Election Fraud/Integrity, Melissab

DU: Greatest Top Rated 2 of 3 in a Row-Election Fraud/Integrity—Our Own Melissab

MelissaB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri Nov-04-05 07:11 AM
Original message
(Brad Friedman) MSM to American Democracy: Drop Dead
(44 Votes: 35 Replies)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/mainstream-media-to-ameri_b_10094.html
It's been a full two weeks now since the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO came out with their 107-page report confirming what so many of us have been trying to ring the bell about for so long: The Electronic Voting Machines which are proliferating counties and states across America even as I type, are not secure, not accountable, not recountable, not transparent, not accurate and not adequately monitored or certified by anybody.

To quote from the alarming landmark report:

Concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes.
The Mainstream Corporate Media couldn't care less.

The report was requested by several high-ranking members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It culminated a year-long investigation into the secret Voting Machines and Software now being deployed to the tune of millions of tax-payer dollars to privatize our American Democracy.

The release of the report was accompanied by a bi-partisan News Release which lauded its findings.

That's right. Six high-ranking U.S. Congressmen (3 Dems and 3 Reps) issued the incredibly rare joint News Release together. Two of those Congressmen were Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee respectively. You do understand how rare it is that those two can agree on anything much less issue a joint press release, right?!

And yet, none of the above has been carried by even one wire service or one major American Newspaper. Not one.

News of the landmark non-partisan report and bi-partisan news release was carried on a few Internet sites (here here, and here) in a few tech journals (here , here and here ) and a couple of tiny independent newspapers (here and here ). But there has not been a single wire-service (not AP, not UPI, not Reuters, not AFP etc.) nor a single mainstream American print newspaper (not NYTimes, not Washington Post, not any of them) to run even a paragraph on any of it. Not one.

[autorank]

10. DU:Greatest Top Rated 3 of 3 in a Row-Election Fraud/Integrity, HamdenRice

HamdenRice Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Nov-05-05 08:52 AM
Original message

To the very flawed John Kerry: Lead, follow or get the fu*k out of the way
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5273598

(89 Votes: 298 Replies)

I am really distressed to wake up this morning, log onto DU and discover that John Kerry is disavowing the remarks of Mark Crispin Miller on Democracy Now, to the effect that Kerry admitted that he believed the 2004 election was stolen. I remember when Kerry conceded the day after election day, and the very first post on DU's election board was "Fu*ck You John Kerry" by some DUer engraged that, after sending John Edwards out to say every vote would be counted, Kerry had conceded. That's how I feel this morning: Fu*k you, John Kerry.

A number of DUers have theorized why Kerry disavowed Miller's statement, ranging from the notion that Kerry's record on BCCI shows that he is a careful investigator who must be still trying to gather evidence before making public accusations, to tin foil hat theories that his daughters have been threatened by the BFEE. Admittedly we can't know right now, but if we are free to post theories, let me post the most likely one: That John Kerry is a deeply flawed man and hopeless as a leader of our party; that he is displaying exactly the kind of poll-tested, excessive caution that cased him to run a lousy, unfocused, content-empty campaign; that Kerry still thinks that the issue is his political future -- ie whether he is perceived to be a sour grapes kind of guy, which might hurt him on some future election day -- rather than our political future as a democratic republic with free elections; that despite however brave he was in Vietnam and however much he was an outspoken truth-teller as a Vietnam Vet activist, he is not that brave and truthful young man any more.

John Kerry -- the real Bullworth of our time.

[autorank]

12. DU: And...Mark Crispin Miller Comes to DU...Users Ask Great ?'s!!!

Just Me: Numerous states have enacted "paper trail" laws. Will such laws be sufficient to protect our votes? If not, what other actions do you suggest should be taken?

Mark Crispin Miller: Paper trails per se are not enough. Certainly it's better to have paper trails than none, but the mere existence of such disparate slips of paper is no panacea. I think that thre should be a paper BALLOT, so that the ballots can be stored indefinitely and counted or recounted as required. The TruVote machine looks like a very good idea. (That's the company whose CEO was evidently Silkwooded last year.)

<snip>

althecat: Hi Mark.... Alastair from Scoop NZ here.... I will have to buy your book ASAP. And am delighted you have decided to come and chat here in DU.

Is Volusia County in the book?

I was always very disappointed after we followed up your story (Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud) that Dana Millbank didn't go back and dig a bit deeper into this. For me I thought this discovery was a bit of a breakthrough in terms of indicating that fraud had quite probably occurred at a fairly high level in the 2000 election.

P.S. I will have a scout around the thread to figure out the best place to buy the book.

Mark Crispin Miller: Alastair, I'm honored by your praise. Scoop.co.nz is indispensable! 1,000 thanks.

Yes, in Fooled Again I do deal with Volusia County—especially with the fact that Fox News called the race for Bush just at that moment when those 16,000+ Democratic votes had temporarily zipped down the rabbit hole.

You can get the book from my own blog, at www.markcrispinmiller.com, or from Buzzflash.

[enid602]

11. Diebold

I hope Diebold remembers to reprogram its computers; Virginia could end up with George Bush as its new governor. Could be problematic for George, too. Isn't Virginia dry?

[babylonsister]

13. www.whytuesday.org - please check it out!

Andrew Young on CSPAN talking about this new website that is addressing voting on Tuesdays and why the date needs to be changed so that more people will be able to vote

Why Tuesday?, The Tarrance Group, and Lake Snell Perry Mermin/Decision Research are pleased to present the findings from a nationwide survey of adults. All respondents interviewed in this study were part of a fully representative sample of 1000 adults nationwide. Responses to this survey were gathered September 27-29, 2005 and October 1-2, 2005. The margin of error is ± 3.1%.

Strong majorities of adults agree that voting should be as convenient as possible (94%) and that voting is an important civic duty (94%).

Majorities of adults agree with the statements that Congress should work to make voting easier (58%) and that they have complete faith in the fairness of the election system (52%).

A strong majority (62%) of adults favor having Congress enact legislation that makes it easier to vote in federal elections, including 32% of adults who “strongly” favor this action. Only 27% of adults oppose this action. The remaining 11% of adults are unsure.

84% of adults agree that voting is an important right and civic duty while only 11% of adults agree that not voting is a right and an appropriate way to express frustration with the American political system.

lots more...

[Wilms]

14. Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting

Aussies Do It Right: E-Voting

By Kim Zetter

Nov. 03, 2003 PT

While critics in the United States grow more concerned each day about the insecurity of electronic voting machines, Australians designed a system two years ago that addressed and eased most of those concerns: They chose to make the software running their system completely open to public scrutiny.

Although a private Australian company designed the system, it was based on specifications set by independent election officials, who posted the code on the Internet for all to see and evaluate. What's more, it was accomplished from concept to product in six months. It went through a trial run in a state election in 2001.

snip

But he says that the security of voting systems in the U.S. shouldn't concern Americans alone.

"After all, we've all got a stake in who's in the White House these days. I'm actually prone to think that the rest of the world should get a vote in your elections since, quite frankly, the U.S. policy affects the rest of the world so heavily."

snip/more

http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.html

Thanks to henslee for the GD discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5286961

ER Discussion here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x400340

[Algorem]

15. "Ohio Voting"-Comix Nation,The Nation

http://www.thenation.com

[MelissaB]

16. E-Voting Security Ignored

Michelle Pilecki

“

Eat The Press

Eat the Press” is the Huffington Post’s ongoing coverage of and commentary on the media. Hosted by Harry Shearer and his band of media critics, this is where we turn our gaze on the ever-more powerful fourth estate—keeping watch on the watchdogs.

E-Voting Security Ignored

Does anybody care if those nifty electronic voting machines actually work as promised? Are reliable? Tamper-proof? Apparently not. Last week the US Government Accountability Office issued a report on "Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems Are Under Way, But Key Activities Need to Be Completed." Among its findings, according to the press release from the House Committee on Government Reform:

Voting System Vulnerabilities Identified by GAO:

• Cast ballots, ballot definition files, memory cards, and audit logs could be modified.

• Supervisor functions were protected with weak or easily guessed passwords, and memory cards that allowed individuals access to voting machines were inadequately protected.

• Systems had easily picked locks and power switches that were exposed and unprotected.

• Voting machine vendors had weak security practices, including the failure to conduct background checks on programmers and system developers, and the failure to establish clear chain of custody procedures for handling software.


The list goes on to note real failures in real elections:

• In California, a county presented voters with an incorrect electronic ballot, meaning they could not vote in certain races.
• In Pennsylvania, a county made a ballot error on an electronic voting system that resulted in the county’s undervote percentage reaching 80% in some precincts.

• In North Carolina, electronic voting machines continued to accept votes after their memories were full, causing over 4,000 votes to be lost.

• In Florida, a county reported that touch screens took up to an hour to activate and had to be activated sequentially, resulting in long delays.


Outside of a few computer trade journals and voting-rights blogs, the report has gone almost entirely unnoticed. ComputerWorld quoted the report:

Until these efforts are completed, there is a risk that many state and local jurisdictions will rely on voting systems that were not developed, acquired, tested, operated or managed in accordance with rigorous security and reliability standards -- potentially affecting the reliability of future elections and voter confidence in the accuracy of the vote count.
As far as the consumer press, the ANG Newspapers group in and around Silicon Valley seems to provide the only coverage, reporting that "fixing problems could be years away."


Congress never granted a full appropriation to the or to the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which was to provide technical help. As a result, the new standards for security, performance and accuracy of voting systems have been three years in the making and may not be applied to actual voting systems until 2007. New labs to test voting systems to the standards won't be approved until then, and meanwhile the existing laboratories may continue testing voting systems to older standards until June 2008.

That's nice to know, isn't it?

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nellie-b/evoting-security-ignored_b_9726.html

[MelissaB]

17. Discussion

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5291910