Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News 03/22/06 --

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All members welcome and encouraged to participate.
Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.
2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233
3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.
4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.
Please
"Recommend"
for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).
pics courtesy of: http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm

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1. California Lawsuit....

March 22, 2006.California Secretary of State Sued Over Diebold Certification LINK A group of California voting activists, including Voter Action has filed suit seeking a mandate from the Court to reverse the February 17th certification of Diebold's TSX DRE. The suit alleges serious security, verifiability and disability access problems. A complete reproduction of the suit filed can be accessed by the five links below:
CA Law Suit - Part 1
CA Law Suit - Part 2
CA Law Suit - Part 3
CA Law Suit - Part 4
CA Law Suit - Part 5

Read CA State Rep Debra Bowen's comments HERE
http://ballot-integrity.org/

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9. State, 18 counties sued over voting machines

By DAVID KRAVETS
The Associated Press


SAN FRANCISCO - A group of voters sued the state of California and 18 counties on Tuesday in a bid to prevent those counties from using Diebold Election Systems' electronic voting machines in November's general election.

The group Voter Action filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court alleging that Diebold's touchscreen voting machines lack adequate security and aren't easily used by the disabled.

Machines made by Diebold Election Systems, based in Allen, Texas, are slated to be used in as many as 18 of California's 52 counties this November.

"We can't have trustworthy elections with Diebold's touch-screen voting machines,'' said Lowell Finley, an attorney representing about a dozen voters. "They are easily hacked.''

Last month, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson gave conditional approval to use the disputed voting machine - the AccuVote-TSX. The Secretary of State's office said in December that the Diebold machines failed one of the 10 criteria he established for voting machines because the source coding, or computer language, on their memory cards was not reviewed by independent investigators. But McPherson authorized the machines as long as counties take security precautions, including keeping a written log of who has control of the machines' memory cards.

Originally published March 22, 2006
http://www.californianonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060322/NEWS06/603220330/1050

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2. Illinois: Voting machine woes force ballot backup

ELECTION 2006: THE PRIMARIES

By John McCormick and James Janega, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Michael Hawthorne, David Kidwell, Courtney Flynn, Charles Sheehan, Hal Dardick, Ray Quintanilla and Deborah Horan c
Published March 22, 2006

A high-tech voting system in Chicago and suburban Cook County provided plenty of frustration and confusion for voters during its first test Tuesday, as election officials dealt with missing power cords and ballots, jammed equipment and broken electronic voting machines.

Cook County Clerk David Orr said remote transmission of results had failed in "dozens" of polling places, slowing results. He said judges were sending some data cards downtown by cab for counting, after they were unable to merge and transmit results from the new touch-screen and optical scanning systems.

In suburban Cook County, election officials said about 10 optical scanners and 15 touch-screen machines were swapped out during the day because of equipment failure, among the roughly 4,000 machines in the polls. City officials still were counting their equipment failures but said at least two machines needed to be replaced and 30 to 40 needed repairs during the day.

In suburban Summit, election officials confirmed that at least a dozen voters were turned away from the polls in one precinct. There were no Democratic ballots to feed into the optical-scan machine and the power cord for the touch-screen machine was missing.

[e-mail]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603220085mar22,1,3756192.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

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3. LaSalle County:Technician causes glitch in printed results

Posted Online: March 22, 2006

Technician causes glitch in printed results
TAMMIE SLOUP, [e-mail], [phone]

Vote totals posted on La Salle County's Web site and on the printouts brought down to the basement of the County Governmental Center Tuesday night were incorrect.
The problem was caused by a technician with the county's voting system's vendor, ES&S Elections, whom County Clerk Mary Jane Wilkinson dubbed "inexperienced."
When the vote results were being tabulated for one of the early precincts, only the early votes were being tallied for the printouts and for the Web site results.
Wilkinson stressed all the votes were being tabulated in the computer system; however, incorrect numbers were being printed and posted on the Web site.
"The vote totals were never in question," she said.
The technician, in an attempt to correct his mistake, then created a problem with eight additional precincts, in which the votes were being doubled.

A total of 13,382 ballots were cast out of 72,650 registered voters. The number of Democrat ballots cast was 5,415; Republicans cast 6,883. Non-partisan ballots totaled 1,073, and there were 11 federal ballots.

http://mywebtimes.com/ottnews/archives/ottawa/sections.cgi?prcss=display&id=256964

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11. Glitches gum up results

Election returns slowed by new equipment


Wednesday, March 22, 2006
By TAMMY BOULD
The Register-Mail

GALESBURG - Murphy's law took effect Tuesday at the Knox County Courthouse, causing a delay in tabulating primary election results.
For Knox County Clerk Scott Erickson, it started early Tuesday. He arrived at the Knox County Courthouse at 5 a.m., and around 7:30 a.m. learned two of the tires on his vehicle were flat. That was just the beginning.

When the ballots from the precincts started to arrive after the polls closed at 7 p.m., some did not include the memory cards from the new touch-screen voting machines.
It was a "breakdown in communications," Erickson said. "We thought they knew what to bring in and they thought they had what we needed."
When workers in the election office realized some did not have the memory cards from the new machines, Erickson said his office immediately tried to contact the other precincts before election officials left, but most were already on the road.

During the confusion, some anxious moments occurred when Erickson started having "some pains" and paramedics were called.
Shiela Parkin said Erickson grew pale and said his chest was bothering him and his arm was tingling. Office workers finally persuaded him to go into his office where his family attended to him.

Erickson said once everything is in place, he is confident things will run much smoother during the fall election

http://www.register-mail.com/stories/032206/MAI_B9AQ4LRB.GID.shtml

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4. Coles County Election Problems

Posted: March 21, 2006

A problem they have faced is with the new optical scan voting equipment.

Earlier this year the State of Illinois passed a law requiring every polling location to offer the use of an Optical Scan voting machine primarily to aid the visually impaired in the ballot process.

One election judge says the machines did not operate properly anywhere in Coles County.

Both Ashmore and St. Charles Catholic Church problems came with loading the paper into the printer of the machines.

But while an engineer hurries from precinct to precinct in an attempt to fix the new technology Election Judge Mary Shoot says the overall voter turn out should not be affected

http://www.weiu.net/news/archive/newsbuilder/2006/march/0321/coleselection.htm

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6. Ballot counting in Cook County resumes this afternoon

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:55 PM CST

CHICAGO (AP) Apparent problems with new electronic voting equipment led to hundreds of uncounted voting precincts hours after the polls closed, sparking heated questions over ballot integrity today in the already contentious Democratic primary for Cook County Board President.
Supporters of both incumbent John Stroger -- still hospitalized after suffering a stroke March 14 -- and challenger Forrest Claypool expressed concern that votes from their strongholds had not been counted and raised questions about the stewardship of the ballots. Both campaigns dispatched attorneys to the election boards' headquarters.
"We've got ballots flying around, being counted by hand, arriving by truck and in God knows whose custody," said David Axelrod, a Claypool political strategist.

Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Chairman Langdon Neal said as many as 200 city precincts had not been counted early this morning. He said there were problems transmitting vote results from the precincts to board headquarters downtown, so ballots had to be driven to be counted by computer.
A number of county precincts outside the city also remained uncounted early today.

Speaking to Stroger supporters early today, State Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, said many of the areas were predominantly black communities that would back Stroger.
"Our community has been disenfranchised," Trotter said. "This process has, at this point, has been a farce because we ... have not been recognized in this political process."
Neal said there is no way to know which precincts had not been counted. He also tried to assuage concerns about ballot security.
"We maintain a very stringent chain of custody. The ballots will be locked up and secured," he said.

See Thursday's Illinois editions of The Times for the latest in primary election results.

http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2006/03/22/updates/top_stories/a93cd573daf464ba8625713900644268.txt

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10. Technical glitches slow vote count

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

WOODSTOCK – Computer troubles and a learning curve with the county's new touch-screen voting system caused election results to come in later than expected Tuesday night.
Data from the county's new touch-screen voting machines and older optical-scan voting systems were supposed to both feed into the same tallying system, said Tim Schultz, computer technician for the McHenry County clerk. But it was not working Tuesday night.
"The two systems are butting heads," Schultz said.
McHenry County for the first time used 140 electronic touch-screen systems, along with the traditional optical-scan ballots.
Extra time was needed to merge the systems together, Schultz said.
Problems also caused precincts that had planned to send in results over phone lines to have to drive to Woodstock to hand-deliver them, Schultz said.

http://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/322002691078277.php

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12. Cook board president's race still too close to call

Wednesday, March 22, 2006
By Jonathan Lipman
Staff writer

New voting technology made chaos of the returns Tuesday night, and both campaigns called the results unacceptable. About 14 percent of the vote remains uncounted
City election officials stopped counting at about 1 a.m. and have 365 precincts left to count, spokesman Tom Leach said. Several machines saw their computer data tapes fail. so they'll began a manual recount of paper ballots this afternoon, but do not expect to finish today.

County election officials had a different problem, with about 175 to 200 of the precincts' data tapes missing.
Spokesman Scott Burnham said they think most will tapes were stuck into "transfer cases" by election judges and then taken to the county's Kinzie Street warehouse.
Officials plan to find those tapes and have most counted by the end of this afternoon.
Claypool campaign chairman Mike Quigley said he does not question the integrity of votes already counted, but is worried officials weren't certain where to find missing ballots.

http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsindex/22-ds1a.htm

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15. County clerk defends election day procedure

By Chuck Goudie

March 22, 2006 - There was a lot of concern Wednesday about why the votes are still being counted 21 hours after the polls closed. What happened Tuesday and why are votes still being counted 21 hours after the polls closed?

The Illinois attorney general deployed 160 teams of lawyers to polling places throughout the state. They didn't find evidence of vote fraud, but state authorities did discover glitches popping up in just about every county.

But Wednesday afternoon, campaign officials for some candidates have calmed down and backed off of their middle-of-the night allegations that the election was somehow being fixed. Authorities have found a few cases in Chicago where precinct workers took ballots home Tuesday night in locked cases and one suburban precinct where some voters ballots were left behind in the polling place.

But authorities say the thousands of ballots that couldn't be tallied in the precincts, and had to be trucked downtown, were always secure.
The ABC7 I-Team talked to Cook County Clerk David Orr about the chain of command.
Was the chain of possession of people's ballots in question or was it always accounted for and secured in properly handled?
"I can't say always," Orr said. "I don't know everything. I believe we are well over the 99 percent mark. In other words, when the polls closed, everybody took their stuff to the receiving station and it was brought to the warehouse."

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4015994



Iraq Veteran Wins Democratic Primary in House Race in Illinois
By GRETCHEN RUETHLING
Published: March 22, 2006
L. Tammy Duckworth, a retired Army major who lost both her legs in Iraq two years ago, won the primary in a race in suburban Chicago.

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5. Texas:Ballot recount stopped

http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4560939,00.html
Problems with voting machines delay results

By PAUL A. ANTHONY, [e-mail] or 659-8237
March 22, 2006

A recount of ballots cast during the March 7 primary election ground to a halt Tuesday - midway through its second day - after workers could not resolve discrepancies that affected more than 1,400 ballots.

The problem in the recount appears to be with new, federally mandated electronic voting machines, provided by vendor Hart InterCivic. During a hand recount, the machines are designed to print out paper ballots for each voter's choices, but Mc-Kerley said the machines that were used to register early votes printed out only 75 percent to 80 percent of the votes believed to have been cast.
A Hart InterCivic representative is expected to arrive this morning, McKerley said, to determine whether or how to retrieve the remaining printouts.

The problem affects early votes cast in what appears to be every voting precinct, McKerley said. All of Precinct 1 was affected, he said, as were all of the randomly selected voting precincts in other parts of the county. The lone exception was voting precinct 112, where few early votes were cast.

If the Hart InterCivic representative cannot print out the ballots elections workers believe should be there - or if they simply aren't there at all - the Republican Party will have no choice but to certify the ballots in hand, McKerley said.

An additional 68 paper ballots were discovered March 8 and added to the total, lowering the razor-thin margin between Roberts and Edwards by one, to 12.

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7. Pennsylvania...Selection expected today

Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Fayette County commissioners are expected to select an electronic voting machine at a public hearing today.
The commissioners initially scheduled a vote for Tuesday afternoon but postponed action while they continued to talk with vendors and officials from the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The lever voting machines the county bought in 1976 were decertified for state and federal elections as part of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002.

The county has $1.1 million in grants and has reserved an additonal $500,000 in the general fund for the purchase of new machines. County officials are trying to determine which vendors will be able to provide the machines in time for poll workers to be trained for the May 16 primary.
-- Staff reports
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/s_435747.html

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8. Pennsylvania...Selection expected today...

Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Fayette County commissioners are expected to select an electronic voting machine at a public hearing today.
The commissioners initially scheduled a vote for Tuesday afternoon but postponed action while they continued to talk with vendors and officials from the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The lever voting machines the county bought in 1976 were decertified for state and federal elections as part of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002.

The county has $1.1 million in grants and has reserved an additonal $500,000 in the general fund for the purchase of new machines. County officials are trying to determine which vendors will be able to provide the machines in time for poll workers to be trained for the May 16 primary.
Advanced Voting Solutions, UniLect Corp., Election Systems and Software and Diebold demonstrated their machines during a public hearing last week.

The meeting this morning was at the Public Service Building at 22 E. Main St., Uniontown
-- Staff reports
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/s_435747.html

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13. Maryland dumps Diebold voting machines

By Joe Baker, Senior Editor

The state of Maryland has dumped its $90 million Diebold voting machine system. The Maryland House voted 137-0 to dump the Accuvote TS system because it does not provide a paper record of votes.
The Baltimore Sun reported lawmakers concluded the state had adopted a voting technology that makes it impossible to audit election results, impossible to carry out recounts in close or contested races, and makes it possible for the machine makers to rig election results without fear of detection.

The voting machine maker offered to replace 5 percent of Maryland’s voting machines with models that are linked to a printer. So replacing about 1,000 of the state’s machines with printer-linked models would cost approximately $5 million, versus the estimated $12 to $16 million for leasing such a system for a year.
The plan met with strong and heated rejection from Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. and members of the Maryland House. Henry Fawell, a spokesman for the governor, said: “The governor does not believe that is even close to a sufficient solution. The governor believes we need a solution that protects every vote, not 5 percent of the votes.”
Delegate Elizabeth Bobo, who backs the House’s proposed optical-scan system, said the Diebold option does nothing to fix machines she says are full of flaws. “It doesn’t matter if we have printers for these Diebold machines,” she said, “they are inherently insecure. If something were to go wrong, we would never know it.”

Gov. Ehrlich jumped into the fray three weeks ago when he stated he no longer had confidence in the State Board of Election’s ability to carry out an accurate and tamper-free vote in November. He also said he lacks confidence in Linda Lamone, the board’s director, who backs Diebold. Soon after, information was disclosed that Lamone had allowed uncertified Diebold software to be used in the 2002 and 2004 elections. Maryland also had massive machine failures in the 2004 vote.
Lamone insists on the Diebold machines, contending they are sound and secure. Replacement of the system would mean testing and certification of new machines, and reeducation of voters and election workers.
“The rallying cry now is: ‘Diebold out of Maryland,’” said Linda Schade, a member of a group called TrueVoteMD. “It’s unbelievable. They should not be signing any more contracts with Diebold, they should be suing Diebold.”

From the March 22-28, 2006, issue

http://www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&cat=2&id=12721

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14. Ohio:Elections officials threaten legal action against supplier

Posted on Wed, Mar. 22, 2006
Summit board members angered by lack of cooperation on voting machines
By Lisa A. AbrahamBeacon Journal staff writer

Members of the Summit County Board of Elections are threatening legal action against Election Systems & Software, the company installing the county's new optical-scan voting system, if the company doesn't cooperate more with the county.
Board members became incensed Tuesday when ES&S officials refused to attend the board's meeting and answer questions about problems the company had with computer memory cards for the optical-scan machines.
Hundreds of memory cards shipped to the county did not work.
The company eventually replaced them with good cards, but only after two additional shipments of cards also failed.
The board voted unanimously to issue subpoenas if necessary to get ES&S officials to their meetings; Democratic board member Russ Pry made the motion.

Donofrio said that ever since news articles about the problems with the memory cards appeared, ES&S staffers who are installing the system have become uncooperative. She likened getting information updates from them to ``pulling teeth.''
Donofrio said she was informed by ES&S officials that their on-site project manager would not attend the board's meeting Tuesday ``because he did not have the intelligence to talk about the memory cards.''

• ES&S staffers, while training local poll workers, have actually broken three handicapped voting machines when they inserted the memory cards incorrectly.

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's office purchased the voting machines for the county.
Blackwell spokesman James Lee said the state has not yet paid ES&S for the equipment.
``ES&S is obligated to fulfill the requirements of its contract and the board is responsible for fulfilling their duties as elections officials, and we are working from the expectation that both will successfully adhere to their obligations,'' Lee said.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/living/community/14157502.htm

[Wilms]

16. .

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17. PA: Card-scanner system is choice in Chesco

philly.com Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted on Wed, Mar. 22, 2006
Card-scanner system is choice in Chesco
County officials faced a deadline to pick a new means of voting. It drew tempered enthusiasm.
By Nancy Petersen
Inquirer Staff Writer
After months of debate and what seemed to be an endless e-mail campaign by voter activists, Chester County officials have picked a new voting system that uses paper cards and electronic scanners.

The system, much like the one used for standardized tests, was approved by a unanimous vote of the county's Board of Elections to meet new federal standards for voting machines.

Voters will fill in circles next to each candidate's name, and then the ballot will be fed into a high-speed electronic scanner, which counts the results.

The system provides the paper trail sought by some local activists, who said a purely electronic system could not be made tamper-proof.

The card machines will be supplemented with a single electronic touch-screen machine in each polling place for blind and disabled voters.

"This is not a perfect solution, but it is the best one available to us right now," said Chester County Court Judge Jacqueline Cody, who was appointed to the elections board last Thursday. The activists who pushed for a paper-based system expressed partial satisfaction with the unexpected decision.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/montgomery_county/14155008.htm

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18. CA: Voter registration firm hired by Riverside GOP under fire

The Desert Sun, Palm Springs

Doug Abrams
Desert Sun Washington Bureau
March 22, 2006

WASHINGTON - A Lake Elsinore consultant under scrutiny in connection with flawed voter registration forms in San Bernardino County received about $150,000 from the Riverside County Republican Party to sign up voters.
John Burkett Petition Management received the money from the county GOP to register voters in 2003 and 2004, Federal Election Commission reports show. The exact amount received remains unclear.

Riverside GOP officials said Tuesday they were unaware of any contracts they had previously with Burkett.

"It was way before my time," said Jeff Miller, chairman of the county party, who took office in January. "I know we don't have any contract with him (now)."

This month, the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office began looking at Burkett's firm in connection with an investigation of complaints from voters who said they were improperly registered as Republicans.

Burkett could not be reached for comment. Nor could Kevin Jeffries, former chairman of the Riverside County Republican Party, who is now running for state Assembly.

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060322/NEWS10/603220339/1024

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19. CA: BOWEN COMMENTS ON LAWSUIT FILED

California Chronicle

(My comments a good chronolgy of events in article)

California Political Desk
March 22, 2006

SACRAMENTO – The non-profit group Voter Action filed a lawsuit today in San Francisco Superior Court against Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, asking the court to reverse the Secretary’s decision to re-certify the Diebold TSx electronic voting machine for use in California. The suit was filed on behalf of 25 California voters, including Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers and Bernice Kandarian of the California Council of Citizens with Low Vision.


Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee, has been arguing for over a month that the Secretary of State’s February 17 decision to re-certify the Diebold system for use in California violated state law.


“The lawsuit puts the spotlight on the question of whether the Secretary of State has the power to ignore the law when it comes to certifying voting equipment for use in California,” said Bowen. “California law requires voting machine makers to comply with the EAC and FEC standards, but the Diebold machines fail that test because they rely on interpreted code to operate. The law also requires the paper trail to be accessible to visually-impaired voters, which the Diebold machines also fail to do. The Secretary bungled the Diebold re-certification application by ignoring the law and refusing to make key information public, such as an internal study that found 16 security flaws in the Diebold machines, until after he’d decided to re-certify Diebold for use in California.”

http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7107

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20. DC: Registering to Vote May Lead to Identity Theft

WTOP 103.5 FM

Mar 22nd - 2:30pm

Mark Segraves, WTOP Radio

WASHINGTON -- Could registering to vote put you at risk for identity theft? The possibility is very likely in one local jurisdiction, a WTOP investigation has found.

WTOP was able to obtain the Social Security numbers of registered voters in the District of Columbia including the Social Security number of Mayor Tony Williams and several members of the City Council.

The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics (DCBOEE) still uses Social Security numbers despite the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), legislation passed in 2002 that advises states not use the government-issued numbers to identify voters.

The federal Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits government agencies from disclosing identification numbers, such as Social Security numbers, to the public.

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=428&sid=733727
In many jurisdictions, including the District, a resident's voter history is public record.

Over the course of two months, WTOP requested copies of various D.C. residents' voter history. Most forms provided by the DCBOEE included the voter's Social Security number.