New York still uses mechanical lever voting machines such as Iowa once used. They are the only state still doing so. Attorney Andrea Novick and NY writer Ruth Wahtera each have blogs that make the case for levers over scanners. Novick has researched NY case law and believes that spot [...]
This week a bill to randomly check on the electronic vote tally by actually looking at some ballots (ah–the audacity!) passed the Iowa House without dissent. But it’s already being stymied in the Senate, though no one is sure why. This paradoxically reverses the situation from four years ago when [...]
Iowa blogger desmoinesdem has pointed out that only two other states allow absentee ballots to be counted before election day.
The price we pay for faster results in close races will be this: wondering if insider knowledge of the Monday count was used to flip the close race.
Pretty [...]
The Iowa House has passed a bill to speed up election returns, as if getting speedy results were the main goal of the counting. The House wants to count absentee ballots before the polls open, something that is now strictly forbidden.
Don’t worry about this affecting the election by [...]
The Iowa Senate’s state government committee has approved the bill that would move the USA away from the archaic electoral college. I was quite surprised–but pleased–to hear from Jack Kibbie last week that this might happen.
Most Americans think the electoral college is a mistake. Apparently the whole world agrees, because [...]
The University of Iowa’s professor Doug Jones, a world leader in voting machine oversight, has today described the Diebold voting machine audit logs as “just totally nuts.” Diebold machines count most of the votes in Iowa elections. The audit logs are supposed to reveal what the machine has been doing [...]
(Update Below)
This fall the registrar of Humboldt county, California allowed local citizens to post all the ballots on the internet after the election. This was an audacious and innovative project. And guess what? This audit uncovered two counting errors, one of which traces directly to the secret software Diebold used [...]
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal blasted the Minnesota Senate recount. Here’s a point by point defense of Minnesota by some who has watched the recount much closer than the Journal has. And btw, I agree with his opening praise for the WSJ in general.
[...]Would Republican Senators kiss off Michigan autoworkers if the electoral college were abolished? This year they hoped McCain could carry Michigan, but when he didn’t, Senators saw no need to treat factories the way they treated banks just three months ago.
Many of Michigan’s own Republican state legistlators have [...]
UPDATE: After this post was old, I learned that voter intent standards had been used in some Iowa recounts. So my interpretation of Iowa Code must be in error.
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They have begun the recount in the Senate race in Minnesota. Originally the ballots were scanned as Iowa ballots are scanned, [...]
Voting machines in Black Hawk County have apparently counted ballots that don’t exist. This was discovered Wednesday during a recount in the close race between Representative Jeff Danielson and challenger Walt Rogers. Seven ballots are missing. According to the WCFCourier the recount shaved votes from both candidates.
The county conducted [...]
Updated below.
With all the scare stories now arising about the upcoming election, it’s time to remind ourselves that Iowa looks pretty good. We won’t have (shouldn’t have) long lines to vote on election day. We won’t have any touchscreens to go awry. We won’t have many registration problems. Let’s review [...]
Why are so many things secret about the elections? THe secret software that runs voting machines isn’t the only thing being kept from the public:
Debate watchdog group Open Debates calls on the Commission on Presidential Debates to make public the secret debate contract negotiated by the Obama and McCain [...]
I’ve mostly stopped writing about electronic voting machines since the state legislature got rid of the terrible touchscreens. The problem of electronically counted votes is still with us, however.
Yesterday the New York Times editorialized about states that count paper ballots by machine but do not double check the count. [...]
Hal, the 2001, A Space Odyssey computer with a mind of its own, is apparently lurking in some ES & S voting machines in Arkansas. They took votes from one race, assigned them to a candidate in another race and produced the wrong winner.
Worse than that: they reassigned the votes [...]
Thanks to Iowa’s new voter registration law, you can vote June 3 even if you are not now registered. Just register at the polls. Or go to the county auditor’s office today to vote absentee (after you register under the new law).
These late registrations have tougher rules because you must [...]
The 2004 campaign to purge voters from the roles in Florida has moved to Missouri. It has already been successful in Arizona and Indiana. See this tale with photo from Digby.
[...]It’s hard to keep a lid on information in the age of the internet. Steve King and the English-only crowd should learn their lesson.
The Iowa voter registration forms are again available in multiple languages. While the Secretary of State is forbidden by law from providing them to citizens, others can [...]
From the AP in Indiana:
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at [...]
Several times over the next few weeks HBO will show the 2006 movie “Hacking Democracy,” an investigation of voting machines. A little progress has been made to protect democracy from these machines, but the movie’s central questions remain unaddressed: How did Florida’s Volusia County report negative votes for Al Gore [...]
Representatives King and Latham joined 85% of the Republicans in the US House yesterday to vote down a paper ballot bill that could have re-imbursed Iowa for the expense of replacing our touchscreens.
Democrats tried to pass the bill under a suspension of the rules, a maneuver that requires a [...]
He signed the bill that chases DRE touchscreens out of our state. He’s a better governor than he was Secretary of State.
Thank you, Governor Culver.
Secretary Mauro was on the radio yesterday, taking an hour long victory lap over this and same day voter registration. He’s a very credible Secretary [...]
Last week as the legislature was dumping touchscreens and mandating paper ballots, the American Statistical Association was getting into the debate. Their board adopted a “Position on Electoral Integrity” that reminds us to actually look at the paper ballots.
“It is critical that the integrity of central vote tabulations [...]
The House has followed the Senate, voting for paper ballot systems througout Iowa. The bill protects our next Presidential election from the terrible touchscreens:
Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, for elections held on or after November 4, 2008, a county shall
use an optical scan voting system [...]
A new bill approved by committee today in the Iowa Senate moves us much closer to paper ballots. Senate Study bill 3262 mandates paper ballots for the fall election and the state picks up the tab!
This goes a step beyond previous plans passed last spring to phase out touchscreens [...]
UPDATE: The video below was just getting a good start circulating the internet when the real news told us a major US military contractor has made an unsolicited bid to buy Diebold. United Technologies, makers of Pratt & Whitney jet engines and Sikorsy helicopters now wants to make voting machines, [...]
State Representative Mary Gaskill wants to check on those computerized ballot scanners by counting 5% of the ballots by hand. She has filed a bill creating a state election audit board to oversee the process. The board would also have broad authority to review election administration in five randomly chosen [...]
What a sad state of finger-pointing we have come to regarding Iowa’s tarnished election administration. In the Sunday Des Moines Register Governor Culver blames counties for the paperless voting machines he let them buy when he was Secretary of State. Story county auditor Mosiman defends her purchase, saying [...]
If the store clerk says your lottery ticket was not a winner, should you just shrug and walk away? If the paperless voting machine says your campaign for office was not a winner, should you concede the election?
What’s the difference between these two events?
We now know some Canadian store [...]
Tonight MoveOn.org is not practicing what it preaches. The lobby group has advocated paper trails for voting machines, but it is now conducting an apparently unverifiable poll via the internet, deciding which Democrat should be endorsed for the White House.
Actions speak louder than words. Shame on MoveOn. How will the [...]
Media-savvy Sean Flaherty of Iowans for Voting Integrity took advantage of the slow pace of holiday news to get some airtime on Iowa Public Radio. He warned Iowans about those ES & S touchscreen voting gadgets that caused trouble in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. Several Iowa counties use the [...]
As New Jersey enacted an exemplary election audit law and New Hampshire waded into another recount, Computerworld reporter Todd Weiss called Iowa to ask, Can audits restore confidence in elections? His inquiry is “Today’s Top Story” at the Computerworld website.
Weiss already knew that real paper ballots had saved [...]
Sean Flaherty, co-chair of Iowans for Voting Integrity, led off the primary election season with a fifteen minute interview on Iowa Public Radio’s Midday show on Tuesday.
He cited the many studies of voting machines that have found so many flaws, and emphasized that the main critics are computer [...]
Here’s another good video, apparently just posted at YouTube in the wake of the NH Clinton upset. It attacks the chain of custody for NH’s Diebold scanners and, best of all, shows the famous Harry Hursti hack from three years ago. Some 36,000 people have viewed it already this [...]
These aren’t works of art, now, just work-a-day looks at the actual caucus, collected here in the interests of open and transparent vote counting methods.
See actual Republican vote counting here (21 seconds) and here (31 seconds) and buried in the middle of this long one from Shenandoah.
See [...]
Sorry but there will be no video posted from my caucus. There were only 12 persons in the Havelock Methodist Church and most said they did not want to appear on a YouTube video. I think most did not know what a YouTube video was, exactly, but they understood that [...]
Here’s a short version of a platform plank being advocated by Iowans for Voting Integrity. The full resolution is in the comment section below, as is another resolution for auditing election returns. Take these to your caucus if you want verifiable elections.
WHEREAS, an accurate and verifiable tabulation of votes is [...]
The Republican straw poll will be posted precinct-by-precinct on a board at the the Polk County Convention Center tomorrow night. It will be potentially possible to verify the whole Republican vote process. This news came to me second hand (Thanks SF) from a voting integrity activist extraordinare.
A Republican caucus attendee [...]
The Iowa Democratic Party has created a website that will show caucus results for each precinct as soon as they are reported to Des Moines via telephone. This is a virtual paper trail for this event, and very good news.
http://www.iowacaucusresults.com/
This practice is known as aggregating the vote [...]
from Common Cause Iowa here’s just what you need for Thursday night—
Resolution to support passage of the Fair Elections Now Act (US Senate File 1285) and Voter Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act (Iowa House File 805 & Senate File 553)
WHEREAS, our political system at all levels is increasingly dominated [...]
You Tube and the Des Moines Register have teamed up to host your video about the Iowa caucus in your precinct. Go for it!!! Lights, camera, action!
Here’s what I hope to see. Make sure to carefully identify your precinct and county at the beginning of your video. Include a [...]
Even I don’t agree with this Iowa caucus participant, but it’s nice to see the voters haven’t forgotten about our problematic voting machines. Look at this report filed from LeMars–
Claire Packard is an undecided voter. “The biggest issue I think is the voting machines and the progress that government [...]
Iowa’s Democratic Party will take a big step forward in election reporting on January 3, 2008. They will report results from each precinct on a website. Caucus attendees will not have to wonder if their results were correctly tallied by some black box at the other end of the phone [...]
Poweshiek County auditor Diana Dawley saved money for the small towns in her jurisdiction Tuesday by letting them count paper ballots by hand. The alternative would have been to pay for programming of touchscreen voting machines.
Before the voting Dawley told the Grinnell Herald-Register
We don’t anticipate high voter turnout [...]
Our former Secretary of State, having overseen the purchase of new voting equipment during his tenure, NOW wants to reconsider. He seeks our opinion of a vote-by-mail regime as a way to (1) solve the paper trail problem and (2) boost turnout. Democrat Gronstal nods, but Republican Zieman resists.
Why [...]
Two local election officials quoted in the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald have tried to discount the striking undervote study released last week by Iowans for Voting Integrity. Both made comments that suggest they have not read the study.
Delaware County Auditor Carla Becker said “I don’t think they are allowing for [...]
A new report from Iowans for Voting Integrity reveals that more than 1500 votes disappeared into a black hole during the 2006 Governor’s race. It happened because voters used touchscreen voting equipment.
The report shows a dramatic difference between voters using paper ballots and voters using DRE touchscreens sold by [...]
Despite the ever-flowing river of condemnation for DRE voting machines(see the California report just six weeks ago), Pocahontas county uses them at every opportunity, forsaking their paper ballot equipment. Today in an uncontested school board race, we had to vote on the touchscreen.
Since the outcome was virtually certain anyway, I [...]
Congress is in chaos over the Holt bill, HR 811. It was even called “Microsoft 811″ yesterday by Alcee Hastings, a Floridian on the Rules Committee which refused to advance the bill.
Courtesy of activist Bob Bancroft from VotersUnite.org here are 7 steps you can take in the wake of this [...]
UPDATED BELOW—ANOTHER UPDATE–THIRD UPDATE
Washington Congressman Norm Dicks told one of his constituents that Congress was being “inundated with calls in favor of the Ban-DRE amendment.” DRE is lingo for touchscreen voting machines.
The calls came pouring in when a rumor arose that the House Rules committee would allow a vote on [...]
Once called HR 811, but now called Microsoft 811 by some, Representative Rush Holt’s paper trail bill is set for a vote this week in the US House. Some former backers of Holt’s efforts have jumped ship and want you to jump, too.
Many good points of the original bill [...]
Update: Here’s the whole show.
Here’s a transcript.
Correction: Calhoun has been dropped from the list of Ivotronic counties.
Dan Rather is out tonight with an expose of ES & S touchscreen voting machines. He says they were made in a sweatshop in the Phillippines where quality control consisted of [...]
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Two bizarre “audits” of today’s straw poll in Ames were announced –one to cast doubt on the process and one to soothe fears of skeptical voters. Neither audit could accomplish much of anything.
The official Republican “audit” was being conducted by the state auditor David [...]
Update: See the comment section for news of a parallel election planned for tomorrow at the Iowa Straw Poll. Organizers will count those ballots in public! Good for them.
Two guests of WHO talker Jan Mickelson demanded Wednesday that the Republican straw poll be conducted in such a way that [...]
In a late-night press conference convened just before the Friday midnight deadline for voting system changes before next spring’s primary election, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced widespread decertification of most types of electronic voting equipment used in California, including the Diebold TSx, which is also widely used in Iowa.
The [...]
This morning on Iowa Public Radio the state GOP executive director was discussing the straw poll coming up in Ames. He said all voters will have to show an Iowa driver’s license and took the opportunity to reiterate the GOP goal of foisting such a requirement on voters in real [...]
Here’s a briefing on the VOICE bill by Jenifer Parsons. She produced this work April 2, 2007 for the Iowa House Democrats. Parsons is a member of their research staff. It has been shortened just a little bit by my editing.
VOTER OWNED IOWA CLEAN ELECTIONS ACT
HF 805
Current Status: [...]
Nine Iowa counties that used touchscreen voting machines as part of their equipment in each precinct have decided to get rid of them. Their change of heart was prompted by the legislature’s orders that all votes must be put on paper. Counties had to add paper trail printers to their [...]
The state convention of Iowans Citizens for Community Improvement was held Saturday in Des Moines. Clean elections were a central issue for the members.
The pro-VOICE workshop was held in the biggest room. It featured a publicly funded winner from the Arizona state senate, Meg Burton Cahill. She barely upset [...]
Howard Stanislevic, a computer network engineer in NYC who has been studying the intersection of elections and computers, sees a clear path ahead despite the rancor among election activists over current legislation. At his blog he has proposed these five steps, only one of which is currently met by [...]
from OVC
GRANITE BAY, CA — John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to support “open source code” for election systems. In a letter dated June 21st addressed to Alan Dechert, the Edwards campaign stated that, “To ensure security, these machines should be programmed with an open source [...]
Barak Obama in Boone this week:
He was asked what can be done to restore America’s democracy. That brought up the election issues.
“I want to make sure the voting system has integrity,” he responded. “There needs to be a paper trail for every vote,” pointing out that much [...]
by Sean Flaherty, Iowans for Voting Integrity
Now is the time to take action to protect the accuracy of the 2008 elections. Please act, and spread the word.
HR 811, a federal bill requiring voter-verified paper records combined with random hand count audits in 2008, will soon get a vote in the [...]
The Iowa House has passed the paper trail bill, one which leads eventually to the end of the trail for touchscreen DREs in this state. It’s a victory for good government and citizen activism.
Iowa’s bill includes $2 million to bail counties out of the mess they wandered into when they [...]
Sean Flaherty, chairman of Iowans for Voting Integrity, has reported on the progress of legislation in Iowa. We appear about to phase out touchscreen DREs, but to spend more money on the dreadful DREs in the meantime by putting paper trail printers on them. It’s up to your [...]
This morning National Public Radio broadcast a report praising Iowa’s system for drawing legislative and Congressional district boundaries. We’re the only state in the nation that lets the voters pick the Congressman instead of letting the Congressmen pick their voters (throught their control of redistricting). Jim Leach and Mike [...]
MoveOn has alerted Iowa subscribers to contact legislators on behalf of the VOICE bill for clean elections:
Can you imagine if Iowa’s lawmakers owed nothing to corporate lobbyists and owed everything to voters? Iowa could join the cutting-edge of truly democratic elections. And if Iowa adopts public financing this year, the [...]
It is possible to “steal all the votes in [Clayton or Fayette] county without being detected” according to a “respected computer scientist who is familiar with the inner workings of the ES&S iVotronic electronic voting system.” The iVotronic is the only voting machine available in Clayton and Fayette counties. It [...]
Senate Majority leader Mike Gronstal is quoted today saying “I don’t necessarily like the rules” about political campaigns.
He’s in luck!! He can change the rules. He can bring to the Senate floor the Iowa clean elections bill we call VOICE.
If Gronstal thinks Rants has set a bad example by [...]
A candidate’s voice has been stilled, and he notes fundraising was a problem in his last race. Quoted at jdeeth’s blog, 2006 Democratic candidate Mark Nolte says:
It was very disheartening to me to learn that the party leadership is only supportive of candidates who are willing to accept special [...]
Where there’s a will, there’s a way!! I know how to get the money for Iowa’s clean elections bill. And is it ever SWEET!
Look here: Plug the Wal-Mart Loophole
It’s real tax money that now gets slyly siphoned out of the state and turned into tax-free profits for Wal-Mart and [...]
Well, maybe they expect only Michigan Dems will have opinions about what their state party does, but they already heard from me. Want to chip in? What else you got to do?
The Michigan Democrats want to allow internet voting in their Presidential primary again this year and have asked for [...]
Happy Easter. Let’s talk about Easter eggs.
Not the holiday Easter eggs, but the computer software easter eggs–hidden bits of programming that open up only when certain secret commands are given. They are a threat to voting machines.
That’s one reason machines are supposedly “tested and tested and tested” –to see [...]
The judge handling Congressman King’s lawsuit against Chet Culver over English-only voting has recused herself. It’s a question of campaign finance and an argument for public financing (VOICE).
The judge (or her spouse) gave a lot of money to Chet Culver when he ran for Governor. She should not be hearing [...]
Use your voice on the phone to get your political VOICE back! You can join this weekend and next with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement in canvassing and calling to motivate our legislators. E-mail jessica@iowacci.org if you would like to help.
Here’s some of the options:
Phone Banks:
-Friday, April 6, [...]
How much allegiance do legislators owe to their campaign contributors?
Essential Estrogen has chided Rep. Dawn Pettengill for her opposition to the union shop bill known as Fair Share, saying “You Gotta Dance With Them What Brung Ya.” EE points to Pettengill’s sources of campaign contributions and suggest she [...]
The creative plan to elect our President without the electoral college and without having to amend the Constitution is making slow gains. Last year it passed in California but their Governor terminated it.
It has just passed both houses of the Maryland legislature. Governor O’Malley has promised to sign it, [...]
UPDATE–The markup of HR 811 described below did not occur. Officially it was because of the committee chair’s illness. Some opponents of the bill claim it is because they stirred up so much last minute opposition that they threw the committee off its plans. Markup is now expected in mid-April.
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[...]
It passed 45-5. It spells the end of touchscreen voting in Iowa, since current equipment can be replaced only with scannable paper ballot systems. That’s good news.
Unfortunately there’s more. The bill allows the new paper trail to be “machine readable” as well as visually readable by real people. This opens [...]
The VOICE bill is in a House Appropropriations subcommittee of Jacoby, Oldson, and Roberts. My apologies to Dwayne Alons for mistakenly directing email to him instead of to Rod Roberts of Carroll county.
Rod.Roberts@legis.state.ia.us
I’ll be asking Rep. Roberts if he supports giving all Iowans a VOICE instead of just a vote.
No [...]
Johnson county state representative David Jacoby says HF 805 (VOICE bill) is “darn good” and he is “not opposed”.
He did not say he would do anything to advance the bill out of his subcommittee of the appropriations committee, but I didn’t ask that. I slipped up by merely asking if [...]
And now the BAD news. Two reports in the last two days of Democrats opposing clean elections legislation that has already passed the state government committees in both House and Senate.
First I heard it from Senate President Jack Kibbie, speaking in Pocahontas Thursday night. Kibbie backed the bill but said [...]
The Iowa legislature is about to take up a bill that will force counties to phase out touchscreen voting machines(DREs). The bill got some support this month from two disabilities groups.
The Massachusetts Disability Law Center applauded their state’s decision not to buy touchscreens and called for
common ground between the [...]
Two Cleveland, Ohio, election workers got the maximum 18 month jail sentence Tuesday when they were sentenced for rigging the recount in 2004. The judge said he thought they were still protecting someone.
One outside investigator seems to agree:
Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter, appointed as an outside investigator to look [...]
Sarasota was warned. Sarasota did nothing. Sarasota’s race for Congress came up 18,000 votes short. The wrong person went to represent Sarasota in Washington, D.C.
The loser filed suit over the voting machines. The state investigated. Sarasota did not mention the warning. The voting machine company (ES & S) did not [...]
Among the complaints against the fired US attorneys was one from Karl Rove that they were not prosecuting voters, according to McClatchey’s Washington bureau:
Rove acknowledged that he personally complained to Miers that “voter fraud cases were not being treated as a priority” by the Justice Department, . . .
You [...]
There is a new map at Verified Voting. It shows Iowa in red.
Red states have fallen behind in the open elections department. Verified Voting’s map used to concern itself with whether states had paper trails for their balloting. Now they have moved on to asking whether states with paper [...]
At the heart of the current voting machine mess is the reliance on corporations to run public elections. One voting machine company just went out of business, leaving some Indiana counties up a creek without a paddle:
“From the best we can tell they no longer exist, so we have [...]
The bill to permit voter registration on election day passed the House state government committee yesterday 12-8, but not before opponents argued the case against it.
I heard two arguments against the bill on radio news coverage. Neither one said there would be chaos in the polling place or that auditors [...]
Democrats loved HAVA in the beginning. It was going to end the large number of spoiled or undervoted ballots that plagued some Democratic precincts. “Don’t worry about that paper trail nonsense,” they said. “Democrats will win more votes with new e-vote machines because more votes will get counted.”
New Mexico saw [...]
State Senate Appropriations chair Bob Dvorsky is looking for money to replace the nearly new (but undesirable) touchscreen voting machines in Iowa. Good for him.
With Secretary Mauro’s committment to getting a good paper voting system, Dvorsky’s money can solve the problem. Just get Mauro the money, and he’ll take [...]
