Dust settles on voting machine failures

Dust settles on voting machine failures. Beware the Perils of Internet voting

Posted: 12 Nov 2010 06:08 PM PST

Arizona Pot smokers ‘edgy’: Prop 203 still undecided..Colorado SoS to investigate Saguache County election after discovery of uncounted absentee ballots...Minnesota Recount part 2? Fewer absentee ballot rejections in 2010 vote...Spokane WA County Ballot Copying — Problem?..Six House Races Remain in Limbo..Africa election commission mulls EVMs for "ensuring free elections"..Beware the Perils of Internet Voting says Kyle Geske of www.WinnipegElection.ca...The dust settles - for now...

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

US: Six House Races Remain in Limbo
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/six-house-races-remain-in-limbo/?partner=rss&emc=rss

AK: Write-ins still going for Murkowski
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/154312 More than 90 percent are unchallenged for her. The Miller campaign challenged an additional 7.7 percent of Murkowski votes, but was overruled by Elections Director Gail Fenumiai.

Those are "counted but challenged" and could go to court

The Miller campaign's ballot observers have successfully challenged 1.48 percent of the 56,088 write-in ballots reviewed.

AK: On Alaska's 'Hinky' Elections & the Fight for Oversight of Their U.S. Senate Write-In Count http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8193 (podcast available)
Where Brown is inappropriately suggesting "voter fraud" without evidence to back it up, he is exactly right in calling for the right for the campaign to be allowed to reconcile the poll rosters to determine if the lower-than-expected number of ballots so far tabulated are, indeed, accurate.

AK: Miller campaign plans to sue state over alleged voter fraud
http://www.wsbt.com/news/elections/ktuu-2010elect-miller-voter-fraud-state-lawsuit-111110,0,1111649.story

AZ: Pot smokers ‘edgy’: Prop 203 still undecided
http://tucsoncitizen.com/tucson-progressive/2010/11/12/pot-smokers-edgy-prop-203-still-undecided/ With tens of thousands of ballots to count in Maricopa County, Props 110 and 203 are losing by about 3000 votes, while Prop 112 is winning by less than 2000 votes, according to the Star. All three propositions have gained ground in the past week.

AZ: Appeals court won't force Arizona to count ballots from citizenship dispute
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/arizona/article_7d0ec6f8-edef-11df-90b1-001cc4c002e0.html
In an unsigned order Thursday, the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged its earlier ruling that the citizenship-proof requirement imposed by Arizona voters in 2004 runs afoul of federal statutes.
But the judges said that ruling came weeks after the deadline to register to vote in Arizona had closed on Oct. 4. That was also the day that early ballots were mailed.

CA: Santos not ready to concede
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_16588954
Santos says "questions" remain about the election

SAN LEANDRO -- Mayor Tony Santos said Thursday that he is not set to concede the mayor's seat for the next four years, despite unofficial results that show him losing his re-election bid by less than 200 votes.

CA: The Winning Strategy in Oakland: Concentrate on Being 2nd or 3rd Choice
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/us/politics/12bcvoting.html

CA: Public Supports Ranked-Choice Voting
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Public_Supports_Ranked_Choice_Voting_8669.html
For the first time in San Francisco Bay Area history, ranked choice voting gave victories to candidates who did not win the most first-placed votes.

CO: State to investigate Saguache County election*
http://www.alamosanews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=18643
SAGUACHE — The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) announced Tuesday that it will launch an official investigation into the reversal of the Nov. 2 election results following the discovery of mail-in ballots not counted on election night.

CO: Election Update: Saguache County Clerk presents report to County Commissioners; computer and scanner errors blamed for discrepencies in ballot tallies*
http://crestoneeagle.com/?p=2107 ...ES&S notified us that they has miscoded the ballots and made each ballot style its own precinct, which created 25 precincts instead of the actual 9. The only way to fix it would be to reprint the ballots, which was not possible due to the UOCAVA ballots already out. To fix this problem, ES&S agreed to lend us a laptop and a copy of their Unity, Elections Report Management software, which would enable us to create reports and group the ballot styles together to get the results by precinct.
...
There is some community skepticism with the retabulation. In conference with the SOS, ES&S and County Attorney Gibbons, the election materials will be sealed up and on Nov 15th, the SOS will send representatives to review the entire election and report the findings.

CT: Panel to look into Conn. ballot shortage
http://www.courant.com/community/bridgeport/hc-ap-ct-notenoughballotsnov11,0,4989336.story
A panel set up by Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch to look into voting problems in the Nov. 2 election has scheduled its first public meeting.

IL: Borrowing Space for a Correction on Military Voting
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/12/borrowing-space-for-a-correcti
When I repeated this line at the beginning of a larger segment on Illinois' problems with the military voting law, I misspoke. In Cook County, Illinois, it is not “felons” but not-yet-convicted inmates who are, quite legally, voting. And Cook County, unlike in 35 other Illinois counties that had failed to mail overseas military ballots on time, was indeed in full compliance with the military voting law.

KY: Watkins petitions for recount in Bullitt jailer race(overvotes & undervotes)
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20101112/ZONE10/311120097
"A recount is necessary because an undetermined number of voters were given incorrect instructions by poll workers regarding the proper method for marking of their ballots during the general election,"

MN: Recount part 2? Fewer absentee ballot rejections in 2010 vote (Carver County)
http://www.chaskaherald.com/news/election/recount-part-2-fewer-absentee-ballot-rejections-2010-vote-111 ..The razor thin margin of victory in the state’s gubernatorial race is expected to extend this year’s election at least into December.
...
In 2008, absentee voters needed to provide two items of proof of identity, as well as a signature on the absentee ballot application that matched the signature found on the ballot envelop. In 2010, if the two items of proof of identity were validated, there was no requirement to have matching signatures. In 2008, many of the absentee ballots were rejected because signatures didn’t match.

MN: Brian McClung: Ballot ranking is a turnoff for voters
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/107585618.html
It means fewer people at the polls and a large potential for complications.

MN: Editorial: Ranked voting looks even better
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/107001918.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

MO: Voting advocates question students' removal from voters lists
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kwmu/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1724708/St..Louis.Public.Radio.News/Voting.advocates.question.students A voter's rights group is raising questions that could delay a recount in Missouri's 24th Senate district. The Advancement Project has asked the St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners to investigate why many Washington University students were removed from the voter lists before last week's election.

Students who had voted as recently as two years ago were being turned away from the polling site on campus, according to Denise Lieberman, an attorney with the Advancement Project.

NC: Election survey finds some errors in ballots * (Canvas of close contest)
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2010/11/12/1047353?sac=Home
Cumberland County...
Election officials discovered four write-in ballots in the Cross Creek 13 precinct that had been counted twice, so the board voted to remove the duplicates, dropping the totals in that precinct from 419 on Election Day to 415 on Thursday.

NC: Provisional ballots widen lead for Glazier, Parfitt*(uses ES&S iVotronic early voting, M100 on Election day. Possible recount ahead)
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2010/11/10/1046985?sac=Home
Cumberland Co...But Terri Robertson, director for the county elections office, said her staff members auditing the results this week have found minor voting discrepancies in some of the precincts from Election Day. Basically, the number of ballots cast and the number of voters who signed in when they voted are off by one or two votes at some of the precincts, she said.

As a result, Robertson said, she would recount the votes in those precincts when the board meets at 9 a.m. today. It is not known yet how many precincts will be recounted...

NC: Madison County voting irregularities investigated
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/2010311120054
The district attorney for the 24th Judicial District has asked state and federal authorities to investigate allegations of irregularities in the recent election in Madison County.

NC: Madison told to stop canvass of votes (ES&S iVotronic with VVPAT)
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/2010311120080
Long argued that the “manner in which the votes were counted and results tabulated” caused Harrison to receive the lowest number of votes after earlier, unofficial tallies suggested he was one of the two winners for a seat on the Superior Court.
...
The challenges came after election staff at the Hot Springs and Beech Glen precincts inadvertently failed to include one-stop early voting numbers in their totals. When those 1,100 ballots were later included, Harrison had apparently lost to Assistant District Attorney Gary Gavenus.

NY: A lot of action, but no changes in undecided race between Dan Maffei and Ann Marie Buerkle
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/11/a_lot_of_action_but_no_changes.html
ayne County temporarily stopped its audit and recanvassing of voting machines today, adding a new delay in the undecided election in the 25th Congressional District.
...
Clark said the board’s four workers are now spending all of their time pulling out applications for the 1,683 absentee ballots distributed in the county. A state Supreme Court justice has ordered that those applications must be provided to the Maffei and Buerkle campaigns for inspection.

NY: Letter-writers comment on voting machine problems
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2010/11/letter-writers_comment_on_voti.html

TN: Motion to Dismiss Election Count Suit Filed
http://www.memphisdailynews.com/editorial/Article.aspx?id=54195
Attorneys for the Tennessee attorney general, the Tennessee secretary of state and the Shelby County Election Commission have followed through on their earlier pledge to seek dismissal of the federal lawsuit challenging the way votes were counted in the Nov. 2 consolidation referendum.

WA: Spokane County Ballot Copying — Problem?
http://www.trustthevote.org/spokane-county-ballot-copying-problem
Here is some interesting news from Spokane WA, where ballot counting has been seriously delayed because election officials are hand copying tens of thousands of ballots. It’s an interesting lesson in how vote-by-mail (Spokane is an all-VBM county in WA) creates higher operational requirements for accountability, transparency, and election integrity.

Internet Voting Watch

Canada: Perils of Internet voting Letter of the day
by Kyle Geske of www.WinnipegElection.ca
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/perils-of-internet-voting-letter-of-the-day-107428958.html
Your Nov. 9 editorial Modern times, ancient system recommends Internet voting as a means of increasing voter turnout. As a computer engineer who teaches web programming courses, I would urge you to reconsider this stance.

Internet voting would be much less secure than our current system and would mean the loss of a physical record of votes for auditing purposes. We would also lose the ability to verify that each vote was cast by a unique voter. For example, a parent might be tempted to ask their 18-year-old children if they could vote on their behalf, or vice versa.

Online voting glitch postpones SA elections
http://www.cardinalpointsonline.com/news/online-voting-glitch-postpones-sa-elections-1.2402701 "There was an issue with the programming of the ballot that appeared online," Johnson said. "It pertained only to the senate."

International

Africa keen to learn from Indian elections: Zambian poll chief
http://sify.com/news/africa-keen-to-learn-from-indian-elections-zambian-poll-chief-news-national-klmkEieiabj.html 'You manage your elections well. The EVMs (electronic voting machines) have been extremely successful in ensuring free elections. We can exchange our experiences and collaborate in training electoral personnel,' she said.

Africa: Kufuor calls for e-voting in Africa
http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/201011/55860.asp
Former President John Kufuor is advocating for the introduction of biometric registration and electronic voting in Africa elections.

This he said will reduce the spate of election related disputes in Africa.

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