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Election Integrity News - July 28, 2008
| In this issue ... National Stories The Latest Spin From Voting Machine Makers: What Problems? 50 Percent of Sequoia Voting Machines Flawed in New York EAC Chair Urges Recruitment of Two Million Poll Workers for Presidential Election Three States Accused of Illegally Purging Voter Lists Senate Bill Introduced to Require VA to Provide Access to Voter Registration Brennan Center: Better Ballots The FEC Is BackWith an Interesting First Test News From Around the States New D.C. Election Leaders Face Big Stage in September, November Votes Comparing Florida Elections to USDA Beef Study Predicts Long Lines at Maryland Polls in November Voting Rights Advocates Challenge New Mexicos Voter Registration Law in State Court New York: Schedule Slips and Slippery Slopes Ohio Secretary of State Report on March Primary Elections Click Here for Previous Issues Two Years Ago: The July 24, 2006 Issue of Election Integrity News One Year Ago: The July 9, 2007 Issue of Election Integrity News Subscribe to Election Integrity News! Put the Election Integrity News on your Website or Computer with our RSS Newsfeed |
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We Must Get Voting Right by U.S. Representative Rush Holt - July 26, 2008 |
The following letter was published in the
July 26, 2008 edition of the New York Times.
To the Editor:
Re Influx
of Voters Likely to Test New Machines (front page, July 21):
The ability to vote is the most important right, as it is the right through
which citizens secure all other rights. In recent years doubts about whether
every vote counts and is counted have grown to a high level.
As your article reminds us, the 2008 election will be historic, and it comes
on the heels of two highly controversial presidential elections and numerous
controversial local elections. This time, we must get it right.
It is time we stopped using elections as beta tests for unreliable electronic
voting machines. Despite failed attempts so far, Congress should still pass
a national standard requiring that all voters can record their votes on paper
(either manually or with the use of ballot marking devices) and that in every
election, randomly selected precincts be audited.
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The Latest Spin From Voting Machine Makers: What Problems? by Dan Wallach, Rice University - July 8, 2008 |
This article was posted at AlterNet
and is reposted here with permission of
the author.
Last week, I testified before the Texas House Committee on Elections (you
can read my testimony). I've done this many times before, but I figured
this time would be different. This time, I was armed with the research from
the California
"Top to Bottom" reports and the Ohio
EVEREST reports. I was part of the Hart InterCivic source code team for
California's analysis. I knew the problems. I was prepared to discuss them at
length. Wow, was I disappointed. Here's a quote from Peter Lichtenheld, speaking
on behalf of Hart InterCivic:
Security reviews of the Hart system as tested in California, Colorado, and Ohio were conducted by people who were given unfettered access to code, equipment, tools and time and they had no threat model. While this may provide some information about system architecture in a way that casts light on questions of security, it should not be mistaken for a realistic approximation of what happens in an election environment. In a realistic election environment, the technology is enhanced by elections professionals and procedures, and those professionals safeguard equipment and passwords, and physical barriers are there to inhibit tampering. Additionally, jurisdiction ballot count, audit, and reconciliation processes safeguard against voter fraud.You can find the whole hearing online (via RealAudio streaming), where you will hear the Diebold/Premier representative, as well as David Beirne, the director of their trade organization, saying essentially the same thing. Since this seems to be the voting system vendors' party line, let's spend some time analyzing it.
Did our work cast light on questions of security? Our work found a wide variety of flaws, most notably the possibility of "viral" attacks, where a single corrupted voting machine could spread that corruption, as part of regular processes and procedures, to every other voting system. In effect, one attacker, corrupting one machine, could arrange for every voting system in the county to be corrupt in the subsequent election. That's a big deal. At this point, the scientific evidence is in, it's overwhelming, and it's indisputable. The current generation of DRE voting systems have a wide variety of dangerous security flaws. There's simply no justification for the vendors to be making excuses or otherwise downplaying the clear scientific consensus on the quality of their products. Read More
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50 Percent of Sequoia Voting
Machines Flawed in New York by Kim Zetter - July 17, 2008 |
This article was posted at Wired.com's Threat Level Blog and is reposted here with permission of the author.
New York state is in the process of replacing its lever voting machines
with new voting equipment, but the state revealed recently that it has
found problems with 50 percent of the roughly 1,500 ImageCast
optical-scan machines (shown in the video above) that Sequoia Voting
Systems has delivered to the state so far -- machines that are slated
to be used by dozens of counties in the state's September 9 primary and
November 4 presidential election.
Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections,
expressed frustration with the vendor, saying it appeared that Sequoia
was using the state's acceptance testing process to find problems with
its machines in lieu of a sound quality-control process.
"There's no way the vendor could be adequately reviewing the machines
and having so many problems," he told Threat Level. "What it tells us
is that the vendor just throws this stuff over the transom and does not
do any alpha- or beta-testing of their own before they apply for
certification testing. Then they expect that we'll identify technical
glitches and then they'll correct those glitches. But correction of
those glitches is an extraordinarily time-consuming process. And its
very disappointing that this equipment is not ready for prime time." Read More
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EAC Chair Urges Recruitment of Two Million Poll Workers for Presidential Election US Election Assistance Commission Media Release - July 24, 2008 |
U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chair Rosemary Rodriguez today emphasized the need to be prepared for record turnout this presidential election by calling for a recruitment goal of two million poll workers.
"We have seen historically high voter turnout during the primaries and continued high registration rates this year," said Chair Rodriguez. "Poll workers have always been central to ensuring smooth and accurate elections, and we will need them more than ever in November. Recruiting two million poll workers is an ambitious goal, but I believe if we can get the word out to the public, they will respond and participate.
"Election officials throughout the nation anticipate high voter turnout
to continue in the general election. Preparation for high turnout includes extra
ballots and voting machines, but most important, we must have as many poll workers--including
bilingual poll workers--as possible to prevent long lines." Read
More
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Three States Accused of Illegally Purging Voter Lists by Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet - July 26, 2008 |
The article was posted at AlterNet and is reposted here with permission of the author.
The states are swapping data files to find duplicate names, but civil
rights attorneys say they are not following federal law to remove them.
Election officials in a handful of states appear to be ignoring the
federal law dictating the way registered voters may be purged from
voter rolls, civil rights attorneys say.
National voting rights
groups have contacted officials in Kansas, Michigan and Louisiana in
recent weeks because those states appear to be purging registered
voters after election officials found duplicate names and birthdays of
people on their voter lists and in out-of-state databases, such as
driver's license records.
The states are assuming that a more
recent driver's license or voter registration in another state
indicates that the voter has relocated, meaning the voter registration
tied to their prior address is no longer valid. While purging voters
who move, die or are imprisoned is a routine part of managing
elections, the federal law governing purges -- the National Voter
Registration Act -- lays out a multiyear process of trying to contact
voters to confirm a change of address before deleting them from voter
rolls.
The election attorneys say the NVRA process seeks to err on the side of protecting voting rights and cannot be circumvented by what appears to be a duplicate voter registration. Read More
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Senate Bill Introduced to Require VA to Provide Access to Voter Registration U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein Media Release - July 22, 2008 |
Legislation would give veterans access to
voter registration services at VA facilities
U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) today introduced
a bill to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide voter registration
services to veterans in the departments care.
The senators introduced the legislation after receiving a response from Veterans
Affairs Secretary James B. Peake earlier this month, again denying the senators
request that Secretary Peake designate VA facilities as voter registration agencies.
Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Barack Obama (D-Ill), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.),
Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Ron Wyden
(D-OR) are co-sponsors.
This is about giving those who have fought to spread democracy and freedom
the right to exercise that freedom in the voting booth, Senator Feinstein said.
I believe the cost of providing voter materials is minimal. And given the sacrifices
that these men and woman have made, providing easy access to voter registration
services is the very least we can do.
It shouldnt have taken a legislative solution to fix a bureaucratic problem,
but thats what its come down to in the name of common sense and patriotism,
Senator Kerry said. Making it easier not harder for veterans to vote is the
least we can do in our democracy for those who fought for democracy around the
globe. The cost of getting these voter materials to veterans is tiny, but its
meaning is bigger than any of us. Read
More
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Brennan Center: Better Ballots by Lawrence Norden, David Kimball, Whitney Quesenbery, and Margaret Chen - July 21, 2008 |
Download
PDF of study
The notorious buttery ballot that Palm Beach County, Florida election ofcials
used in the 2000 election is probably the most infamous of all election design
snafus. It was one of many political, legal, and election administration missteps
that plunged a presidential election into turmoil and set off a series of events
that led to, among other things, a vast overhaul of the countrys election administration,
including the greatest change in voting technology in United States history.
Yet, ironically, eight years after the 2000 election, and billions of dollars
spent on new voting technology, the problems caused by poor ballot design have
not been fully and effectively addressed on a national level. Year in and year
out, we see the same mistakes in ballot design, with the same results: tens,
and sometimes hundreds, of thousands of voters disenfranchised by confusing
ballot design and instructions, sometimes raising serious questions about whether
the intended choice of the voters was certied as the winner.
Problems with voting technology have, rightly, attracted much public attention.
Scores of independent reportsincluding a major study published by the Brennan
Centerhave documented the vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines. More
importantly, voting system failures lead to long lines on Election Day, voters
being turned away at the polls, and lost votes. These are serious problems,
and we must do what we can to ensure that poor technology and procedures do
not continue to disenfranchise voters. Read
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The FEC Is BackWith an Interesting First Test by Bob Bauer - July 28, 2008 |
The Federal Election Commission convenes soon after a long time away and immediately confronts a question of considerable interest presented by Club for Growth. In an Advisory Opinion Request (2007-33), on the agenda for the 28th of this month, Club for Growth asks for relief from the spoken "disclaimer" requirements—the "Stand by Your Ad" requirements—for television advertising 10 or 15 seconds in length.
The Club argues that within an ad of that length, the seconds consumed by the spoken disclaimer eats deeply into the time for the message, taking up roughly 24% of the 15 second ad and 31% of the 10 second spot. The Club wishes to "truncate" this spoken disclaimer or omit it altogether, rely for its disclosure on the screen display of the written version. It appeals to Commission rules that permit the omission of printed disclaimers on printed items or where their inclusion would be "impractical," 11 C.F.R. §§ 110.11(f)(1)(i) and(ii), and on related Commission Advisory Opinions. Read More
From Around the States
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New D.C. Election Leaders Face Big Stage in September, November Votes by Dan Seligson, Electionline.org - July 17, 2008 |
Fixes in place to address primary woes, but inexperience still has some nervous
This article appeared in the Electionline Weekly and is reported here with permission.
Election
officials around the country have been bracing for record turnout in
the presidential election. In the Nations Capital, however, departures
and replacements in the upper echelons of election administration and
lingering concern over voting troubles during last Februarys primary has activists and residents fearing more problems at the polls.
In May, Alice Miller, executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE) for the District of Columbia for over a decade, took a new position as chief operating officer for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
That same month, William OField, the boards spokesman and poll worker coordinator,
trainer and recruiter also announced his retirement from the division. OField
had been with the board for more than a decade. The citys registrar job is
open, advertised
since April. Read
More
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Comparing Florida Elections to USDA Beef by Susan Pynchon, Florida Fair Elections Coalition - July 4, 2008 |
It's important that Americans have confidence in their food supply.
But is false confidence the same thing? What
if all beef inspectors in the U.S. decided to stop inspecting beef because they
might find problems? After all, if they found problems, that might hurt
consumer confidence. Sounds absurd, doesn't it? And yet, this is
the exact approach that the Florida Department of State and Florida Division
of Elections continue to advocate regarding the state's elections.
Election audits are supposed to ensure that electronic voting machines have
accurately counted paper ballots. These audits -- in this case referring
to a hand count of paper ballots following the election to confirm machine counts
-- are a vital check on the accuracy of Florida's optical scan voting systems.
But a new emergency rule filed July 1 by the Florida Division of Elections has
been carefully molded to say it is checking the accuracy
of election results, but is actually accomplishing the opposite.
It is a non-check that won't hurt voter confidence
by discovering any problems before the election is certified.
The audit law passed in 2007 by the Florida Legislature was incredibly weak -- requiring the hand count of just one race per election and only 2% of the precincts in that one race. But the emergency rule weakens this law even further. The new rule prohibits any audit from occurring until after the election is certified -- in other words, until it is too late to make any corrections to election results. It allows days to pass between the random selection of the race and precincts to be audited and the actual start of the audit -- meaning there is plenty of time for an elections office to check those ballots in advance and make sure the audit will match election night results. As Elaine Ginnold, Registrar of Voters in Marin County, California has stated, "the audit must start immediately, as soon as the precincts are selected, to prevent anyone from messing with the ballots." Read More
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Study Predicts Long Lines at Maryland Polls in November by SaveOurVotes.org - July 23, 2008 |
Voting Rights Advocates Propose Plan to Reduce Wait Times
With high turnout predicted in the hotly contested presidential race, a recent study by physicist William Edelstein shows that many Maryland voters can expect to wait hours to vote in Novembers elections. The study found that most polling places could experience wait times of more than 2 hours at some point on Election Day if voters take more than 6 minutes each to mark their ballots. The sites most likely to be affected are those in which a majority of voters arrive at peak voting times before and after the work day.
It is a process similar to what everyone experiences on roads, as people in the Baltimore/Washington metro area know only too well, said Dr. Edelstein of SAVE Our Votes (SOV), a nonprofit group advocating Secure, Accessible, Verifiable Elections for Maryland. Traffic flows smoothly as long as the density is low. As volume increases, traffic gradually slows until, at some concentration, it locks up and cars accumulate into long lines which can take hours to clear.
Marylands State Board of Elections (SBE) plans to spend $100,000 to rent additional voting machines for the November election to accommodate increases in voter registrations. But Edelsteins study shows that the extra equipment will do very little to reduce the long lines that many voters encountered in Marylands 2004 and 2006 elections.
There is no doubt that many voters who cannot wait will leave without voting, including the elderly, the infirm, people needing to get to work, or parents needing to care for children, he said. Read More
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Voting Rights Advocates Challenge New Mexicos Voter Registration Law in State Court by Brennan Center for Justice - July 24, 2008 |
New Mexico Law Is One of Harshest in the Nation - Severe Penalties Threaten to Shut Down Voter Registration Drives and Disproportionately Block Minorities from Voting in 2008
A copy of the complaint can be downloaded
here.
T he Brennan Center for Justice, along with pro bono law firms Davis Polk &
Wardwell and Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg & Ives, has filed a lawsuit
in state court in Albuquerque challenging a New Mexico law that significantly
restricts the ability of voter registration groups to register new voters and
threatens to block thousands of eligible New Mexico citizens from registering
and voting in the 2008 elections as unconstitutional and inconsistent with federal
and state law. Plaintiffs in the case are the American Association of People
with Disabilities (AAPD), the Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas
Inc. (FAWCO), New Mexico Public Interest Research Group (NMPIRG), and the Southwest
Organizing Project (SWOP). Plaintiffs typically register thousands of New Mexico
citizens (especially low income, minority, disabled, and young citizens) to
vote but have suspended or dramatically curtailed their operations as a result
of the challenged law.
There are currently over half a million unregistered eligible voters in New
Mexico. The suit claims that New Mexico's lawNew Mexico Statutes Annotated
1-4-49, and New Mexico Administrative Rules 1.10.25.7-10both enacted in
2005-constitutes an unconstitutional burden on free speech and association by
impeding civic groups from helping eligible voters to register.
"The law aggressively discourages civic organizations from helping New
Mexico citizens to exercise their basic right to vote, and threatens voter registration
drives across the state," Robby Rodriguez from SWOP stated. Read
More
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New York: Schedule Slips and Slippery Slopes by Bo Lipari, New Yorkers for Verified Voting - July 24, 2008 |
Voting Machines Cant Meet NY Standards in Time for 2009
This article was posted at Bo Lipari's Blog and is reposted here with permission of the author.
Its become obvious that New York States new
voting systems will not be able to complete New York State
certification testing in time for the scheduled 2009 rollout. The state
sets the highest bar in the nation for approval of voting machines, one
that vendors have never been required to meet before. Their performance
in New York demonstrates that they are a long, long way from
understanding that the public will not stand for poorly designed, badly
tested and outrageously overpriced equipment, and a business philosophy
of let the customer be damned.
In its July 24 status report
SysTest, the contractor performing the states testing noted the
serious problems and risks to the testing schedule, and cite the
reasons that NYSBOEs ability to meet its court-mandated timeline
for complete and thorough testing is at significant risk for the
reasons described below. Some of the reasons demonstrate the
complete lack of quality control on the part of the vendors before they
send systems out to New Yorks certification site. Read More
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Ohio Secretary of State Report on March Primary Elections Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner - June 18, 2008 |
Download the Full Report
Executive Summary
The administration of elections in 2008 showed vast improvement from the 2004 presidential primary election. The first directive issued by this administration in February 2007, Directive 2007-01, established minimum qualifications for all directors and deputies (See Appendix III, page 263). In December 2007 the secretary of states Ethics Policy (See Appendix III, page 295) was adopted. This policy provides guidance to members and employees of county boards of elections, poll workers, employees, and appointees of the secretary of state to clearly state expectations and legal requirements for complying with the states ethics law and working in such a manner so as to ensure public confidence in the states elections.
Overall the county boards of elections performed exceedingly well in the March 4, 2008 primary election. A record high 46% of eligible voters turned out for this presidential primary (3,603,523 of the 7,826,480 registered voters in Ohio) to cast their ballots. Over 500,000 voters (approximately 14% of the primary elections voters) voted by absentee ballot, taking advantage of the recent change in state law that does not require a reason to vote absentee.ii The professionalism and emergency planning by boards of elections allowed them to overcome unforgiving weather conditions, power outrages, bomb threats and late evening court orders.
In addition to the directive for backup paper ballots, other directives provided
instruction and guidance on ID requirements for voters, absentee voting, provisional
voting, proper procedures for processing absent voters ballots prior to Election
Day, unofficial and official canvass procedures, recount procedures, and post-election
audit procedures. (See Appendix III, Directives and Appendix VII, Court Orders,
page 511) In addition, instructions were provided for polling place security
and chain of custody procedures for transporting voting equipment, ballots and
election supplies, as well as instructions on the proper procedures for encryption
of security cards for DREs. Secretary of state advisories provided information
and instructions on the presence of observers in polling places, polling place
conduct, media access to polling locations and exit polling. (See Appendix IV,
page 441) Read
More
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Election Integrity News Editor: Warren
Stewart
VoteTrustUSA is a project of The Verified
Voting Foundation
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