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Sub-Topics Assistive Technology Audits for Precincts Certification Citizen Oversight Election Counting Accuracy Election Finance Reform Election Oversight Election Security Exit Polls Hand Counting Ballots Open Source Software Tests for Hardware Verification of Results Vote by Mail Voter Fraud Voter Owned Elections Voter Registration Voting Machines Also Try Election Fraud Elections Supervision Paperless Voting Presidential Election 2008 Voter Suppression Lesson Plans -09-11-06 Analysis of Election Campaigns (PBS.org) Provides lessons to help students become better consumers of political information." 04-08 -09-11-06 Analysis of Presidential Debates (PBS.org) "Explain to your students that often viewers react to a candidate's performance-- how they look and act instead of what they say. This activity is designed to help them focus on what the candidates say and then look at how the media covers the debate and the consequent effect on public opinion." 09-08 -09-11-06 How the Media Use Poll Results (PBS.org) "Students will review reasons for including polling data in media coverage of the 2004 presidential election and will research and analyze recent examples of polling data in journalism." 09-08 Multimedia -08-15-07 Study: Dan Rather Reports on Paperless Voting Machines (HD.net) Provides Dan Rather's report on faulty paperless voting machines. He provides the surprising revelation that Sequoia, a company that provided paper ballots for the Florida 2000 election, especially Palm Beach, provided faulty paper and specifications that were known to cause problems with chads. A transcript of the show is available here: Transcript. 08-07 -Debate: Should Voters Trust Electronic Voting Machines? (VoterAction.org) The Voter Action Co-Director debates with the Election Assistance Commission Director. 06-06 -Editorial: Lou Dobbs Reports on Threat to Democracy Posed by Voting Machines (BradBlog.com) Dobbs points out that many of our voting machines are owned by foreign companies and such ownership is not in any way reviewed by our federal government. The software that runs the machines is proprietary and cannot be examined to determine what it does when it counts the votes. 06-06 Study: Dobbs Reports that Voting Machines Are Not Secure (BradBlog.com) Lou Dobbs goes over the Brennan Center's comprehensive report on over 100 ways the three most commonly used electronic voting machines can be manipulated to change the overall results of an election--by one person. 06-06 News -01-03-07 Electronic Voting Machines Led to Errors (Houston Chronicle) "Electronic voting machines meant to streamline the Election Day process have resulted in late poll openings, data-retrieval errors and widespread machine failures, according to a new report about last year's midterm election." 01-07 -01-03-07 Report: Election Systems Still Unacceptable (VoteTrustUSA.org) "To ensure the health of our democracy, we must recognize and admit the inadequacies of the present systems and adopt pro-active corrective measures. The problems catalogued in this report cannot be rectified by a single corrective measure. Attention is required for all the diverse problems that have been exposed: confusion caused by the complexity of the computerized equipment; long lines at the polls; voter disenfranchisement; dependency on vendor involvement; and questionable outcomes." 01-07 -01-03-07 Voting Machines Testers Decertified (New York Times) "A laboratory that has tested most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests." 01-07 -04-12-07 Maryland Votes in Paper Ballots (Baltimore Sun “A week ago, it looked as if efforts to replace Maryland's Diebold AccuVote TS terminals would fail for the fourth straight year. But legislators and voting reform activists got together in the waning hours of the General Assembly session to hammer out a law that will guarantee not only a paper trail on Election Day, but a real paper ballot." 04-07 -04-12-07 Pennsylvania Court Requires Paper Ballots (VoteTrustUSA.org “A Pennsylvania court held late today that voters have a right under the commonweath's constitution to reliable and secure voting systems and can challenge the use of electronic voting machines 'that provide no way for Electors to know whether their votes will be recognized' through voter verification or independent audit." 04-07 -05-11-07 H.R. 811, The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act (TruthOut.org) The bill is an amendment to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was passed after the debacle in Florida during the 2000 general election. HAVA funded the replacement of old voting systems and gave rise to a new generation of technology-based systems that have been proven untrustworthy. Most notable of these are the Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (DRE), which store electronic records of votes and use those records to tabulate election outcomes. Computer scientists have shown that elections employing these machines are not safe from hackers." "Holt's efforts have come under scrutiny from grass-roots activists and experts who have been deeply involved in election integrity. Many of these activists oppose the Holt legislation because it does not go far enough in ensuring that elections are secure. They seek further citizen oversight and a ban on DRE voting systems. But the bill has supporters in activist circles, including MoveOn.org, Common Cause, and People For the American Way (PFAW). These groups point to the urgency of getting some kind of legislation passed that can be implemented before the 2008 elections." 05-07 -05-11-07 Holt Describes H.R. 811, The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act (Holt.House.gov) Two of the requirements set forth in the bill are: "Requires a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast." "Requires routine random audits by hand count of the paper ballots in 3% of the precincts in every federal race, unless the race is very close, in which case the percentage of precincts required to be audited would be higher; allows states to use alternative mechanisms, if determined to be equally effective and transparent." 05-07 -08-03-07 California's Voter Election Systems Decertified (Secretary of State of California) "Secretary of State Debra Bowen began her top-to-bottom review of the voting machines certified for use in California on May 31, 2007. The review is designed to restore the public's confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and is designed to ensure that California voters are being asked to cast their ballots on machines that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible." On August 3, 2007, Secretary of State Bowen removed her approval for use of the four primary voting machines in California, except for use to assist persons with disabilities. 08-07 -08-16-07 E-Voting a Non-Starter (BBC News) "A group of researchers at Johns Hopkins and Rice universities in the US got their hands on the source code of one of the most widely-used electronic voting systems, from Diebold Election Systems, and did a security audit on it." "The system they look at is called a 'direct election recording', or DRE, system. It runs on specially adapted touch screen systems in voting booths, but it is the software that would form the basis of an online voting system too." "DRE systems were available to over a fifth of people voting in the 2002 US congressional elections." "The researchers found dozens of security holes in the voting system. In order to vote, each person had to insert a special card, but the system did not check that the same person was not voting many times." "It was also possible to change the order that candidates were presented on the screen without changing the internal codes assigned to each one, so that voters could be tricked into voting for the wrong person." 08-07 -11-03-07 Voting Out Electronic Ballots (Time.com) "It is hard to believe now what a darling touch-screen voting was seven years ago. After the Florida presidential vote recount debacle — which made traditional paper voting, especially the infamous 'butterfly' ballots and hanging chads, look positively Third World — electronic voting was embraced as the way back from America's electoral humiliation. Some 50,000 touch-screen machines were bought in 37 states at a cost of almost a quarter of a billion dollars." "The reversal since then couldn't be more stunning — as indicated by a bill in Congress introduced this past week by Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which would ban touch-screen voting (also known as direct recording electronic voting, or DRE) in federal elections starting in 2012. 'We have to start setting a goal on this,' Nelson tells TIME. 'Voters have to feel confident that their ballot will count as intended.' " 11-07 -11-03-07 Voting Out Electronic Ballots (Time.com) "It is hard to believe now what a darling touch-screen voting was seven years ago. After the Florida presidential vote recount debacle — which made traditional paper voting, especially the infamous 'butterfly' ballots and hanging chads, look positively Third World — electronic voting was embraced as the way back from America's electoral humiliation. Some 50,000 touch-screen machines were bought in 37 states at a cost of almost a quarter of a billion dollars." "The reversal since then couldn't be more stunning — as indicated by a bill in Congress introduced this past week by Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which would ban touch-screen voting (also known as direct recording electronic voting, or DRE) in federal elections starting in 2012. 'We have to start setting a goal on this,' Nelson tells TIME. 'Voters have to feel confident that their ballot will count as intended.' " 11-07 -11-17-06 Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006 (Election Defense Alliance) "When we compare the results of this national exit poll with the total vote count for all House races we find that once again, as in the 2004 Election (“E2004”), there is a very significant exit poll-vote count discrepancy. The exit poll indicates a Democratic victory margin nearly 4%, or 3 million votes, greater than the margin actually recorded by the vote counting machinery. This is far outside the margin of error of the poll and has less than a one in 10,000 likelihood of occurring as a matter of chance." 11-06 -11-21-07 Top Voting Machine Company Sued (FogCityJournal.com) "City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed suit against the City's voting systems vendor today, charging Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software, Inc. with a panoply of wrongdoing that includes fraud, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and multiple violations of California's Elections Code, False Claims Act and Unfair Competition Law. In a 23-page civil complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court this morning, Herrera detailed a months-long pattern of misrepresentations and voting system problems by ES&S that caused California Secretary of State Debra Bowen to impose stringent conditions on the City's use of the company's voting machines to conduct its municipal election earlier this month. Because of those restrictions, San Francisco election officials were forced to tabulate ballots centrally; to remake thousands of ballots by hand; and to borrow equipment from another county. City elections officials were unable to release election results from the polling places on election night as is the ordinary practice, and do not expect to announce final results for San Francisco's municipal election until Dec. 4, 2007 -- fully four weeks after Election Day." 11-07 -11-29-06 Commissioners Want New Voting Machines (Cleveland Plain Dealer) "Ohio received $130 million from the federal government under the Help America Vote Act, with nearly $18 million going to Cuyahoga County to purchase 5,407 touch screen machines and the 20 scanners." "Commissioners spent another $5.4 million to buy 900 more touch-screen machines and other equipment because election officials were concerned that they didn't have enough to handle a large voter turnout." 11-06 -12-01-06 Feds to Toughen E-Voting Standards? (InternetNews.com) "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is recommending that the 2007 version of the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) decertify direct record electronic (DRE) machines." 12-06 -12-07-06 Feds Initiate New Electronic Voting Certification Program (EAC.gov) "The United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) today voted to approve a new voluntary program for the testing and certification of voting systems. Today’s approval marks the first time that the Federal Government will provide for the certification, decertification and recertification of voting system hardware and software used during the federal election process, and the accreditation of testing laboratories. The new program is scheduled for implementation beginning in January 2007." 12-06 -12-07-06 Feds Release Election Crimes Report (EAC.gov) "“Election crimes” are intentional acts or willful failures to act, prohibited by state or federal law, that are designed to cause ineligible persons to participate in the election process; eligible persons to be excluded from the election process; ineligible votes to be cast in an election; eligible votes not to be cast or counted; or other interference with or invalidation of election results. Election crimes generally fall into one of four categories: acts of deception, acts of coercion, acts of damage or destruction, and failures or refusals to act." 12-06 -12-20-08 Mike Connell and the White House (Scoop.com) "As reported here, the Bush family's personal Internet strategist installed proprietary database, email, and web servers on the U.S. House of Representatives IT networks, less than three months after President George W. Bush took office in 2001." "Six years later, Michael L. Connell and his twin companies -- New Media Communications and Govtech Solutions -- have replicated that early success and spread throughout the federal government like one of New Media's award-winning viral marketing campaigns." Editor's Note: Mike Connell, a key witness on possible fraud in the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, died 12-18-08 in a private plane crash. He was the only casualty in the crash. 12-08 -12-20-08 Mike Connell's Death and Possible Rigging of Elections (VelvetRevolution.us) "Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush’s 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution ('VR'), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell’s activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how to tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that the George Bush and Dick Cheney would 'throw [him] under the bus.' ” "A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell’s life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR’s attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell’s not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabatoged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed." 12-08 -Editorial: Drop Touch-Screens (OrlandoSentinel.com) "Nothing is more sacred or vital to the survival of democracy than the ability to cast a vote with the confidence that vote will be counted accurately." "And yet the very foundation of this principle was shaken by the fiasco in Sarasota County on Nov. 7, when ATM-styled touch-screen machines showed more than 18,000 voters made no choice in one of the most hotly contested congressional races in the country. After a ridiculous "recount" in name only, the official returns show that Republican Vern Buchanan defeated Democrat Christine Jennings in District 13 by 369 votes out of 238,249 counted." "But that result isn't worth the paper the electronic ballots were not printed on. Without a paper trail to independently validate the electronic vote, the mandatory recount amounted to hitting the rewind button and replaying the machines' sad song." 12-06 -Editorial: The Myth of Fair Elections (Observer Guardian - Harris) "There is little doubt that at a grassroots level America's election is in disarray and being abused. And at a time of narrow election victories where presidential races come down to a single state (Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004) a microscope is instantly cast on that state's electoral practises. And lo, they are found wanting. Or open to fraud. Or being abused. Or local groups (from both sides) are going hell for leather to keep the other side from the polls. This is not because this is being planned out of Washington and targeted into those key states. It is because it is actually happening all over the country. We just notice because it has come down to the wire at that particular state." "You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to be seriously worried about this state of affairs. In many ways, it is more worrying that the system is not being deliberately stolen from on high. It is actually broken from the ground up." 09-06 -Editorial: Was the 2004 Election Stolen? (RollingStone.com - Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) "Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in 'tinfoil hats,' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election." "But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004." Visitors sometimes misspell as Rolling Stones. 06-06 -Editorial: Will the Next Election Be Hacked? (RollingStone.com - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) According to Ion Sancho, an election supervisor in Leon County, Florida, "With a few key people in the right places, it would be possible to throw a presidential election." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke with a Diebold voting machine consultant who reported that in 2004 unauthorized and secret changes were made on voting machines. "According to [consultant] Hood, Diebold employees altered software in some 5,000 machines in DeKalb and Fulton counties [in Georgia] - the state's largest Democratic strongholds. To avoid detection, Hood and others on his team entered warehouses early in the morning." "The United States is one of only a handful of major democracies that allow private, partisan companies to secretly count and tabulate votes using their own proprietary software. Today, eighty percent of all the ballots in America are tallied by four companies - Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic." 09-06 -Election Reform News (OregonVRC.org) Provides national news on election reform. "The mission of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition is to restore public ownership and oversight of elections, and to ensure the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent,impartial, and independently audited election process." 8-05 02-11-06 New Jersey Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of E-Voting (VoteTrustUSA.org) Provides news on the lawsuit. " In a just released press release, the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, NJ has announced that all electronic voting machines used in New Jersey may violate New Jersey's Constitution and election laws." 02-06 03-09-06 No Conspiracy Needed (St. Petersburg Times) "Since the 2004 election, an energetic and mostly Democratic group of folks has alleged (1) the election was rigged and (2) we need better safeguards for our electronic voting machines." "As long as we are putting questions (1) and (2) together, we are going nowhere." 03-06 05-30-06 Test of Software in Elections Machines Renews Security Concerns (Washington Post) "The latest dispute occurred several weeks ago after it was discovered at a test in Utah that someone with a reasonable knowledge of computer code could gain access to and tamper with the system software on a popular brand of voting machine manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. The developments prompted California and Pennsylvania to send urgent warnings to counties that use Diebold's touch-screen voting systems to take additional steps to secure them." 05-06 06-23-06 National Commission on the Voting Rights Act (VotingRightsAct.org) "The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in conjunction with other leading civil rights organizations, has created the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act to conduct regional hearings across the country. The goal of the National Commission is to write a comprehensive report detailing discrimination in voting since 1982, the last major reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. This report will be used to educate the public, advocates, and policymakers on this record of discrimination and its relationship to the upcoming reauthorization." 06-06 07-14-06 House Votes to Renew 1965 Voting Rights Act (CBS News) "The House voted Thursday to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act, rejecting efforts by Southern conservatives to relax federal oversight of their states in a debate haunted by the ghosts of the civil rights movement." 07-06 08-26-06 Voters Want Judge to Throw Out June 6 Results (NCTimes.com) "County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas and newly elected U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray were in court Friday, fighting a lawsuit brought by two angry voters who want the results of the June 6 runoff thrown out." "Filed on behalf of voters Barbara Gail Jacobson of San Diego and Lillian M. Ritt of Rancho Santa Fe, both of whom live in the district, the lawsuit maintains that the results cannot be trusted because poll workers took voting machines home with them before election day in violation of state guidelines." 08-06 09-01-06 The 11 Worst Places to Try to Vote (MotherJones.com) "We used to think the voting system was something like the traffic laws -- a set of rules clear to everyone, enforced everywhere, with penalties for transgressions; we used to think, in other words, that we had a national election system. How wrong a notion this was has become painfully apparent since 2000: As it turns out, except for a rudimentary federal framework (which determines the voting age, channels money to states and counties, and enforces protections for minorities and the disabled), U.S. elections are shaped by a dizzying mélange of inconsistently enforced laws, conflicting court rulings, local traditions, various technology choices, and partisan trickery." 09-06 09-10-06 Key Election Races in 2006 (Washington Post) Provides information on close Senate, House, and governor races. 09-06 09-20-06 House Passes New Photo ID Law for Voting (ABC News) "The bill would require everyone to present a photo ID before voting in federal elections by 2008. By 2010 voters would have to have photo IDs that certified they were citizens. In response to criticism that this would be a burden for the poor, the bill stipulates that states must provide the identification cards free of charge to those who can't afford them." "Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said he was initially denied a voter ID required under a Missouri state law because he doesn't have a driver's license and couldn't immediately produce a passport or birth certificate. His congressional ID card was not accepted." "A Missouri court earlier this month struck down the state law, and on Tuesday a state superior court judge in Georgia ruled that that state's law requiring a photo ID was an unconstitutional condition for voting." 09-06 09-21-06 Most Corrupt Members of Congress List (BeyondDelay.org) "It's the second year now that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released its list of 20 muckiest senators and congresspeople." "In the following report, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) documents the unethical activities of 25 members of Congress: 17 House Members and three Senators and five members whose known conduct isn’t severe enough for them to make the list, but bears notice. The biggest problem: the members on this list have abused their positions for the financial benefit of themselves, their friends and their families. Some do this by hiring unqualified family members, some allow family members to lobby them and many use the legislative process to earmark for the financial benefit of themselves and specific individuals. Members need to be reminded that a career in public service is not intended to be lucrative. If members want to get rich, they should become lobbyists." 09-06 10-11-06 Report: New Laws Not Based on Voter Fraud (USA Today) "At a time when many states are instituting new requirements for voter registration and identification, a preliminary report to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has found little evidence of the type of polling-place fraud those measures seek to stop." 10-06 10-20-06 Arizona Will Require Photo ID's from Voters (ABC News) "The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Arizona may require voters to provide photo IDs when they cast their ballots next month." 10-06 10-22-05 Bi-Partisan Report: 2004 Election Had Poor Security and Reliability (BradLog.com) Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee said the report by the bi-partisan Government Accountability Office 'lends important credibility to the cause of election reform generally, and more specifically to requiring that every machine have a voter verified paper ballot that is used in election days audits and, if discrepancies are found in those audits, becomes the official record for the election.' " The name of the report is "Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems Are Under Way, but Key Activities Need to Be Completed." (See below under Papers.) 10-05 10-28-06 U.S. Investigating Venezuela Influence on Electronic Voting Machines (New York Times) "The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez." 10-06 11-02-06 Yellow Button Allows Multiple Votes (BBVForums.org) "Anyone who can get at the yellow button can ruin the election. It takes no password, no computer knowledge, no equipment." "The formula is printed in materials that have been distributed to thousands of people. The machines will count millions of votes." "Citizens -- not scientists or certifiers or testing lab authorities -- identified the problem and have now notified the California secretary of state, and emergency measures are reportedly being taken in California, but not yet in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, or any other state using Sequoia Voting Systems, the third-largest voting system vendor in the U.S." 10-06 11-09-06 Success Cost an Extra $17 per Voter (Cleveland Plain Dealer) "After the mess of the May primary in Cuyahoga County, where results were delayed for a week because of technological glitches, county commissioners opened their checkbook to make sure the general election would go well." 11-06 11-09-06 The 2006 Elections Were Under Intense Citizen Scrutiny (Christian Science Monitor) "Intense scrutiny of the process has helped poll workers stay on their toes, say experts." "This year, a new initiative called 'Video the Vote' enlisted amateurs to film poll irregularities. The idea: to bring attention to voting problems even in elections where the winning margin was large enough that they would normally receive little attention. 'There's so much focus on calling the winners and losers ... that we lose sight of whether the voter was a winner or loser,' says Ian Inaba, one of the leaders of the project that has posted hundreds of interviews at videothevote.org. 'You look at those lines in Denver and Missouri or listen to some of those voters in Maryland or even New Jersey - things were not OK [Tuesday]. There were a lot of frustrated people.' " 11-06 11-10-05 GAO: Electronic Voting Systems Need Improvement (Democrats) The Government Accountability Office reported that the electroniic voting systems in the United States need improvement. 11-05 11-15-06 Over 30 Percent of Votes Still Uncounted in Riverside County (Californian.com) "Riverside County elections officials said Tuesday they have yet to count an estimated 120,000 ballots, nearly double an earlier estimate and about one-third of the total votes cast in the Nov. 7 election." 11-06 11-25-06 Serious Ballot Problems Persist (New York Times) "After six years of technological research, more than $4 billion spent by Washington on new machinery and a widespread overhaul of the nation’s voting system, this month’s midterm election revealed that the country is still far from able to ensure that every vote counts." 11-06 Editorial: The (Ugly) Secret of Oregon's Elections (The Oregonian - Ross) "With each election, Oregon voters can celebrate the flexibility and convenience of casting their votes by mail-in paper ballots. We can toast the fact that those ballots can be hand counted to confirm the outcome. But before breaking out the microbrew, we should ask ourselves: 'Are they?' Hand counted for confirmation, that is." "Well, the answer is 'no.' The truth is, all of our paper ballots are counted exclusively by optical scanners. And while that fact alone shouldn't dampen the festivities too much, this fact should: All ballots in Oregon are counted using proprietary software whose specifications are considered trade secrets and are not disclosed to officials or the public. So, as in other states, Oregon outsources to private corporations such as ES&S, Sequoia and Diebold the most crucial public function in our democracy -- the counting of our votes." Editor's Note: Staff of the Awesome Library participated in drafting the bill, HB 3270, discussed in this editorial that is designed to ensure competent audits of election outcomes. 05-07 Election Equipment and County Contacts (VerifiedVoting.org) Provides county level in formation by state. 02-06 Election Reform News (ElectionOnline.org) Provides a newsletter, alerts, and more 05-06 Election Reform News (VelvetRevolution.us) Provides news related to election reform. 2-05 Election Reform News (VotersUnite.org) Provides daily news on election reform efforts in the United States. 7-05 Election Reform News and Advocacy (California Election Protection Network) Provides news and advocacy projects to eliminate paperless elections and more." 02-06 News on Election Reform (VoteTrustUSA.org) Provides news. 02-06 Some Suggestions on Election Reform (Common Cause) Common Cause recommends standards for future elections. "We believe that the ballot of record, used in all recounts and audits, should be the paper ballot that the voter verified." 01-07 Papers -09-18-06 Diebold Machines Vulnerable to a Common Key (SCMagazine.com) " 'The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine - the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus - can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the internet,' Ed Felten, professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University, said today on his 'Freedom to Tinker' blog." 09-06 -10-16-06 Regulations and Laws on Observing Elections (VerifiedVotingFoundation.org) Describes what is allowed. 10-06 -Editorial: A Vote of No Confidence (Tribune Media Services) "I don't know whether the [California} secretary of state's allegiance is to partisan politics or just a quick count. But like others who have looked on appalled at the procedural sloppiness of this election, I have no confidence in Bilbray's 4,732-vote 'victory' over Busby. Worse, I fear that democracy in the electronic era is in the hands of people who regard it as more trouble than it's worth." 06-06 -HAVA 2005 Voluntary Guidelines for Elections Systems (Election Assistance Commission) Provides states with guidelines on elections systems. "The United States Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to modernize the administration of federal elections, marking the first time in our nation’s history that the federal government has funded an election reform effort. HAVA provides federal funding to help the States meet the law’s uniform and non-discretionary administrative requirements, which include the following new programs and procedures: 1) provisional voting, 2) voting information, 3) statewide voter registration lists and identification requirements for first-time registrants, 4) administrative complaint procedures, and 5) updated and upgraded voting equipment." "HAVA also established the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to administer the federal funding and to provide guidance to the States in their efforts to comply with the HAVA administrative requirements. Section 202 directs the EAC to adopt voluntary voting system guidelines, and to provide for the testing, certification, decertification, and recertification of voting system hardware and software. The purpose of the guidelines is to provide a set of specifications and requirements against which voting systems can be tested to determine if they provide all the basic functionality, accessibility, and security capabilities required of voting systems." Editor's Note: The new standards do not require a state or county test of electronic tabulation results by using a sample of hand-counted paper ballots. The standards do not ensure accuracy of results at a county or state level--or even a precinct level. 12-05 08-15-05 Study of e-Voting Funded (Berkeley.edu) "Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, will join colleagues at five institutions nationwide in a bold, new effort to improve the reliability and trustworthiness of electronic voting technology." " 'We'll look into ways of making the innards of the machine more trustworthy,' said David Wagner, UC Berkeley assistant professor of computer sciences and co-principal investigator of the center. 'This could range from building software that would make it hard for somebody to insert malicious logic without detection to building machines that include components from multiple vendors so the system can cross check itself.' " 8-05 Absentee and Early Voting by State (NCSL.org) Provides information by state. 07-06 Advisory Board and Standards for the EAC (Election Assistance Commission) "The Help America Vote Act of 2002 provides for the establishment of two boards to advise the Election Assistance Commission (EAC): the EAC Standards Board and the EAC Board of Advisors." 5-05 Analysis of Touch Screen Voting (NCVoter.net) Provides research results indicating that touch screen technology (DREs) are less reliable, more "hackable," and more expensive that optical scan machines for recording and counting votes. 02-07 Analysis of an Electronic Voting System (IEEE Symposium) "We concludethat this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election. Any paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite any "certification" it could have otherwise received." 12-05 Ballot Integrity Act of 2007: Senate Bill 1487 (GovTrack.us) "To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require an individual, durable, voter-verified paper record under title III of such Act, and for other purposes. 06-07 Canada - Hand Counting Voting System (Canoe - CNews) "Florida vote canvassers, take note. Within four hours after the last polls closed in Canada's parliamentary election, officials at 50,000 polling stations had hand-counted virtually every one of nearly 13 million paper ballots." 1-05 Editorial: Arguments for Paper Ballots and Hand Counting (ChuckHerrin.com) "When we put a computer in between me and my actual vote, that computer acts as my vote proxy since unlike a paper ballot, it has the ability to change my vote. There is no way that anyone knowledgeable would allow someone with a conflicting profit or power motive to act as their vote proxy and trust that everything will just be fine, especially when there's very little chance of fraud being detected." 1-05 Editorial: Depoliticize Administration of Elections (Law.com) "No other advanced democracy uses partisan election officials to administer its elections. No other advanced democracy uses such a decentralized system with its patchwork of rules." "We dodged a bullet this time [2004]. Next time, we may not be so lucky. It is time to nationalize and depoliticize our system of election administration. The public's faith in our democratic process demands it." 2-05 Election Laws (ElectionLawBlog.org) Provides news, links, and information related to election laws and enforcement. 2-05 Election Reform Agenda (CommonCause.org) Provides the Common Cause election reform priorities. 12-05 Election Reform Links and Resources (BallotIntegrity.org) "Free and fair elections are the engine of democracy. When the machinery of voting and vote counting is run by private corporations without public accountability ... when election officials and poll workers lose the ability to understand, much less effectively oversee the vote counting process ... when laws governing elections are enforced haphazardly, if at all, and regulations are geared to another era, the democratic process, itself, is threatened." 6--05 Election Standards (Oregon Voter Rights Coalition) Provides standards for open and secure elections. 8-05 Elections Reform (People for the American Way) "The myth that the 2004 elections ran smoothly has become conventional wisdom for pundits and politicians, but nothing could be further from the truth. A preliminary review released today by members of the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition demonstrates that persistent problems continue to deny millions of Americans their fundamental voting rights, and makes the case for election reform at the local, state and national level." 12-04 Elections Reform Project (Fannie Lour Hammer Project) " Fannie Lou Hamer Project (FLHP) is the premier national organization focused on providing education, advocacy, training and community organizing specifically aimed at uniting the voices and interests of people of color, youth, the disadvantaged, their families and their communities to advance a progressive agenda to implement full public financing of campaigns nationwide." 12-04 Elections Reform: Recommendations (People for the American Way) Provides 10 recommendations to improve the openness and fairness of voting procedures. 12-04 Elections Reform: Report on Voter Disenfranchisement (People for the American Way) Provides a report documenting the extent of voter disenfranchisement during the 2004 election. 12-04 Elections Reform: Report to Nation (CommonCause.org) Provides a summary of voting irregularities from the 2004 election and proposes elections reforms. 12-04 Electoral College - How to Resolve a Crisis (CNN) Discusses a case of a presidential election crisis regarding the Electoral College. To prevent future crises, "Congress passed the Electoral Count Act in 1887. The law left the task of choosing electors to the states...." 11-00 Essay - 10 Steps to Better Elections (SierraClub.org) "We don't have to quietly accept the status quo. Here are ten ways we could dramatically improve our electoral system. None is officially endorsed by the Sierra Club, but all are worthy of bipartisan consideration. Some could be implemented at county or state levels, and some are more readily achievable than others. All have the same end: to expand the franchise, and make sure that every vote is counted." 5-05 Essay - Democracy's Abu Ghraib (CommonWonders.com - Koehler) " 'That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.' — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale" "What if it could happen here?" "This is the disquieting question I hesitate to ask because, once asked, it pretty much changes everything. The answer roars in behind it, as obvious as a Florida hurricane, an Ohio twister, ripping up the complacent heart. What if it could? What if it did? I think of my daughter, quickly, guiltily, and the country she’d inherit. I can no longer stay on the sidelines. No breath comes easily afterward." 5-05 Essay - Perlman: Psychological Resistance to Facing Election Fraud (SmirkingChimp.com) "It would be a sign of health, freedom, and conscious evolution if more people could muster up the courage to face the painful truth of what is happening in our country and support the great work of those courageous souls--who are not nuts or conspiracy theorists, but evolved, conscious, healthy leaders taking personal risks and sacrifices to elevate our democracy, restore our integrity and ultimately to increase our security on the world stage ... if we let them." 4-05 Essay - The Need for Media Reform (CommonWonders.com - Koehler) "My fantasy of the mainstream media actually doing their job, and living up to the words they carve in marble to describe their own importance, is an 80-point (Terri Schiavo- or even Pope John Paul II-sized) headline running across the top of tomorrow’s paper: ELECTION RESULTS IN DOUBT." "That would stop a few hearts. But the nation’s major newspapers, even as they struggle with declining readership, have no intention of being quite that relevant to their readers — no intention, it appears, even to begin the process of looking into the hornets’ nest of vote fraud allegations abuzz in meticulously researched reports on electronic voting (see uscountvotes.org) or the voluminous Conyers Report on what happened in Ohio on Nov. 2 (see Truthout.org/Conyersreport.pdf)." "Isn’t our democracy at stake? Doesn’t that matter?" “ 'If John Kerry and the Ohio Democratic Party and all the other folks who had the most to gain from the election were making this challenge, I would get interested. But when the people with the most at stake don’t step up, I’m suspicious.' " "So Don Wycliff, the Chicago Tribune’s public editor, wrote to me in an e-mail exchange a few days ago, explaining why he, if not the Tribune itself, had no intention of investigating the issue with any seriousness." 5-05 Essay - The Numbers Show that Kerry Won (CommonWonders.com - Koehler) "And the numbers are still haywire. A few days ago, Terry Neal wrote in the Washington Post about Bush’s inexplicably low approval rating in the latest Gallup poll, 45 percent, vs. a 49 percent disapproval rating. This is, by a huge margin, the worst rating at this point in a president’s second term ever recorded by Gallup, dating back to Truman." “ 'What’s wrong with this picture?' asks exit polling expert Jonathan Simon, who pointed these latest numbers out to me. Bush mustered low approval ratings immediately before the election, surged on Election Day, then saw his ratings plunge immediately afterward. Yet Big Media has no curiosity about this anomaly." “Simon, who spoke at the Nashville conference — one of dozens of speakers to give highly detailed testimony on evidence of fraud and dirty tricks from sea to shining sea — said, 'When the autopsy of our democracy is performed, it is my belief that media silence will be given as the primary cause of death.' " “In contrast to the deathly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder that scream grows. Did the people’s choice get thwarted?" 5-05 H.B. 811: Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 (Oregon Voter Rights Coalition) Provides the text of a bill introduced into the House of Representatives to correct current problems with machine counts of votes. 02-07 Help America Vote Act (New York Elections) Provides the full text of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Public Law 107-252 of 2002. 2-05 Help America Vote Act (Oregon Elections) Provides the full text of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Public Law 107-252 of 2002. 1-05 Help America Vote Act - Summary (Oregon Elections) Provides a summary of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), Public Law 107-252 of 2002. 1-05 Largest Cities and Counties by State (InfoPlease.com) Provides information for campaigns. 09-06 Location of County Election Offices by State (VerifiedVoting.org) Provides the location of, and contact information for, election officials in counties. 10-06 Meeting the Challenge of Governance and Corruption (CopenhagenConsensus.com) Provides a paper and two opponent views. "Researchers at the World Bank estimate that $1 trillion is spent on bribes annually, some 3% of global GDP. The impact on economic growth and world income could well be much higher than this. Corruption is one symptom of a failure to achieve an appropriate balance between private wealth and public power. Ultimately, there is a risk that government will be captured by powerful interests and rendered dysfunctional. Both private citizens and companies are then drawn into the cycle of bribery, forced to pay corrupt officials to obtain routine services and major contracts and concessions." "Global solutions to this challenge are difficult to find because corruption and poor governance have a variety of causes. Solutions are not easy to implement because they disadvantage powerful vested interests that can block reforms. Despite these caveats, carefully tailored policies – carried out with the personal commitment of those on the ground – can have large benefits and very low costs."" "In summary, promising policy options are:" "Option 1: Grassroots monitoring and service delivery, with technical assistance and information provision provided centrally by government or nongovernmental organisations." 10-05 Monitor Legislation to Improve Voting Systems Integrity (VerifiedVoting.org) "We advocate the use of voter-verified paper ballots (VVPBs) for all elections in the United States, so voters can inspect individual permanent records of their ballots before they are cast and so meaningful recounts may be conducted. We also insist that electronic voting equipment and software be open to public scrutiny and that random, surprise recounts be conducted on a regular basis to audit election equipment." 1-05 National Summit to Save Our Elections (Scoop) Day One: "A Clear Outline and Rationale for the Ongoing Voting Rights Movement." 10-05 Open Source Voting Resources (OpenVotingConsortium.org) "The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development, maintenance, and delivery of open voting systems for use in public elections." 5-05 Oregon - Comparison of Undervotes by Ballot Type (Oregon Elections) Compares the percent of undervotes by punch card, paper, and optical scan ballots, county by county.1-05 Oregon - Mail-In Voting Guide (Oregon Elections) Provides a voter's guide to the Oregon mail-in system.1-05 Paper Ballot Legislation Introduced for 2005 (VerifiedVoting.org) "The 'Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005' was introduced on February 2, 2005, by Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey. This is an updated and expanded version of a similar bill (H.R. 2239) that Rep. Holt introduced in the previous session." "Also, Senator Ensign soon plans to introduce the 'Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2005', which is identical in content to a similarly-titled bill (VIVA 2004) that he introduced last year (S. 2437)." 1-05 Problems with Electronic Voting Machines - "Myth Breakers" (VotersUnite.org) Provides a discussion of the key problems with electronic voting. 3-05 Problems with Electronic Voting Machines - "Myth Breakers" Summary (VotersUnite.org) Provides a discussion of the key problems with electronic voting. 3-05 Standards for the EAC (Election Assistance Commission) Provides the process for testing election systems. 5-05 Study: Arguments for Paper Ballots and Hand Counting (NewScientist.com) "The US researchers conclude: 'As a society, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk.' " Editor's Note: This article was published in July, 2003, before the 2004 election. 1-05 Top Five Things You Can Do to Protect an Elecdtion (BlackBoxVoting.org) "Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the instruments ofgovernment we have created." 07-08 Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007: House Bill 811 (Thomas.loc.gov) "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 - Amends the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) with respect to: (1) ballot verification and mandatory paper record audit capacity; and (2) accessibility and ballot verification of results for individuals with disabilities." 06-07 Voter Rights Act (CivilRights.org) Provides answers to key questions about the provisions in the Voter Rights Act (VRA). 12-05 Voter's Bill of Rights (CodePinkAlert.org) Women for Peace, Code Pink, proposes a 10-point Bill of Rights for voters. 12-04 Voter's Bill of Rights (Institute for Policy Studies - Voter March) "Fifty-four percent of the votes disqualified in the [Florida 2000 Presidential] election were cast by African Americans who make up 11% of the state’s voters." "The Institute for Policy Studies decries these inexcusable violations of the Voting Rights Act and reaffirms its commitment to a Pro-Democracy Campaign which calls for a fundamental revamping of our deeply-flawed, undemocratic electoral system." The Institute calls for a 10-point Voter's Bill of Rights: "This Bill of Rights calls for: 1) Strict Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act; 2) Abolition of the Electoral College, 3) Clean Money Elections, 4) Instant Run-off Voting, 5) Proportional Representation 6)Voting Rights for Ex-Prisoners, 7) Making Voting Easier and More Reliable--same day registration, equal access to polls and new technology, new machines, 8) Easier Candidate Access to the Ballot, Media and Databases, 9) Independent and Non-Partisan Election Bodies, and 10) Statehood for the District of Columbia." 12-04 Voter-Verifiable Paper Trail Legislation (PCWorld.com) "A group of U.S. lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require electronic touch-screen voting machines to allow for a so-called "voter verifiable" paper trail." The Voting Integrity and Verification Act, introduced this week, would require printed ballots that voters could check after they use an electronic voting machine. The act, introduced by Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), would add clarifying language to the Help American Vote Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2002 after complaints about paper ballots during the 2000 presidential election." 2-05 Voting Machines Study (CalTech-MIT) "This report examines the use of voting equipment and the incidence of spoiled and unmarked ballots associated with that equipment. We call the rate of spoiled andunmarked ballots the residual vote rate. The residual vote rate is not a pure measure ofvoter error. If voting technologies are not producing voter mistakes or confusion, theresidual vote rate should be unrelated to equipment. The study covers election resultsfrom over 2700 counties and municipalities in the 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000presidential elections." 3-05 Projects -06-17-06 Petition for Hand Re-Count Where Election Laws Were Violated (VelvetRevolution) "It has come to my attention that the Busby-Bilbray special election in CA-50 on June 6th was conducted on Diebold voting machines, many if not all of which were left unsecured in the homes, cars and offices of poll workers in the weeks prior to the election. Diebold touchscreen and optical scan machines have been proven by California's own Secretary of State to be unreliable in the field and vulnerable to hacking in unsecure environments. Because improper procedures were used in this election, no one has proof that these machines were not subject to memory card switches or other easy tampering techniques such as manipulating the counters. Americans deserve to know their elections are counted accurately. No matter the results." 06-06 -09-28-06 Support Funding for Paper Ballots (DemocracyInAction.com) "In primaries in Ohio, Maryland, California and numerous states across this nation, Electronic Voting Machines have caused serious problems at the polls, resulting in long lines, voters turned way from their polling places, and uncounted or miscounted votes. We must act now to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a ballot that counts on November 7." "The 'Confidence in Voting Act of 2006' would offer funding to states and counties who make 'contingency paper ballots' available to voters to be used at the voter's option instead of electronic voting systems. The so-called contingency paper ballots would be counted as normal ballots, as opposed to Provisional Ballots which must be vetted first to determine the accuracy of the voter's registration." "Making emergency paper ballots available in every voting jurisdiction is necessary to insure a free, fair and transparent election. The Congress will break in just a few days for its election recess." 09-06 -Let America Vote Act (BradBlog.com) "For the November 7, 2006, General Election, each election jurisdiction shall be required to prepare and print Emergency Paper Ballots of the proper ballot style for all races and propositions which shall be contested in that jurisdiction." Editor's Note: When voting machines fail, we must have a backup plan. The Let America Vote Act is such a plan. It requires election officials to have enough paper ballots on hand so that if a legally registered voter cannot vote on the voting machine, the person can still vote by paper ballot. 09-06 Election Protection (ElectionProtection2004.org) "All the people involved in the Election Protection coalition — including the unprecedented 25,000 volunteers — worked together to document thousands of voting problems around the nation and rectify many of them on Election Day." 05-06 Election Reform Representatives by State (51CapitalMarch.com) Provides contacts for assisting with election reform efforts by state. 01-06 Election Reform by Group (51CapitalMarch.com) Provides contacts for assisting with election reform efforts by group and by state and group. (See the left-hand column.) 01-06 Exit Poll "Errors" Start When Electronic Voting Starts? (CommonDreams.com) "Maybe George W. and Jeb Bush, Alabama's new Republican governor Bob Riley, and a small but congressionally decisive handful of other long-shot Republican candidates around the country really did win those states where conventional wisdom and straw polls showed them losing in the last few election cycles, but computer controlled voting or ballot-reading machines showed them winning." "Perhaps, after a half-century of fine-tuning exit polling to such a science that it's now used to verify if elections are clean in Third World countries, it really did suddenly become inaccurate in the United States in the past few years and just won't work here anymore. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that the sudden rise of inaccurate exit polls happened around the same time corporate-programmed, computer-controlled, modem-capable voting machines began recording and tabulating ballots." 'Throughout election night, the national exit poll showed the Massachusetts senator leading President Bush by 51 percent to 48 percent. But when all the votes were counted, it was Bush who won by slightly less than three percentage points.' 3-05 Objective Investigation of Voting Irregularities (USCountVotes.org) "USCountVotes proposes to objectively investigate elections results through the creation of a database of precinct level election and demographic data for all states. Our goal is to develop statistical techniques capable of pinpointing probable errors in vote counts." "On the other hand, statistical techniques alone cannot substitute for trustworthy and auditable voting systems. Even if statistical measures were perfect in pointing out where to look for fraud or mistakes, a voter verified paper record that is securely maintained remains essential to ensure that mistakes would, on closer examination, be provable and correctable. Statistical analyses alone cannot correct problems when there is no paper ballot available to recount!" 3-05 Online Voting Tools (E-Ballot.com) Provides online voting opportunities for various groups. Awesome Library does not endorse this service, but provides it as an example. 11-05

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