Voter Fraud ?

[TheDoctor]

The 11/11 editorial is nice. I did not see any examples of Democrats using voter fraud in this editorial. I read this editorial as a generalized plea for improvement in the voting system.

As for the editorial itself, I would love to see the adminstration of elections become independent. Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 are classic examples of what happens with one party controls the election machinery. I would also love to see some standardized voting systems developed that have a paper or audit trail. Optical scanners may be a better way to go compared to the current touchscreen machines because of the paper trail.

We had a chance after the 2000 election to make great strides in fixing the system of voting and I am disappointed in how little has actually been accomplished since 2000. I do hope that something is done to improve the voting system.

Some of the Democratic proposals posted above are meant to address specific problems that were present in the last election (robo calling) and in past elections (voter suppression). I would love to see a comprehensive plan for fixing all voting issues but I will be happy if we can fix a few of the clear problems. Robo-calling for example should be regulated so that it is clear who is making the call at the beginning of the call.

 

[Fitswimmer]

Robo-calling for example should be regulated so that it is clear who is making the call at the beginning of the call.

Works for me, because then I'd know right away who NOT to vote for!!

 

[TheDoctor]

An official election contest has been filed in the Florida 13 http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/005583.html

Sarasota, FL – Citing statistical and eyewitness evidence of significant machine malfunctions sufficient to call into doubt the result of the election for Florida Congressional District 13, the Christine Jennings campaign today officially contested the election in Circuit Court. The complaint specifically requests the judge to order a new election “to ensure that the will of the people of the Thirteenth District is respected, and to restore the confidence of the electorate, which has been badly fractured by this machine-induced debacle.”

More than 17,000 undervotes (15%) were recorded on Sarasota County’s electronic voting machines, a rate nearly 6 times higher than the undervote rate in the other District 13 counties or in Sarasota’s paper absentee ballots. Jennings won Sarasota County by a 53% - 47% margin, while losing the district-wide manual recount by 369 votes. As noted in the complaint:

“The failure to include these votes constitutes a rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to place in doubt, and likely change, the outcome of the election.”

The complaint also cites significant eyewitness accounts describing a consistent pattern of voter difficulty in having their votes recorded in the House of Representatives race, but not in other races on the ballot.

“This is clearly a case of machine error – not ballot design error and not voter error,” added Jennings campaign attorney Kendall Coffey. “We’re asking the courts to ensure that the will of the people of the 13th District is respected and end the crisis of confidence among the electorate by ordering a new election.”

As part of the discovery process, the Jennings campaign seeks expedited discovery of items including audit and ballot-image logs generated by the iVotronic system, iVotronic machines and related hardware that generated particularly high undervote rates, and the software – particularly the source code – used to operate that hardware.

The machines appear to be at fault here. We really need paper trails or audit trails for all voting machines.

 

[eclectics]

An official election contest has been filed in the Florida 13 http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/005583.htmlThe machines appear to be at fault here. We really need paper trails or audit trails for all voting machines.

Why is this too much to ask for from the manufacturers of these machines? Can't be technology. Is it the cost? Or is it something else....

 

[TheDoctor]

Now that an election contest has been filed, the Florida courts will have a chance to resolve the matter. If nothing else, the Democrats will get to examine and test the machines and see if there was any defect or reason for not counting so many votes. There is authority in Florida for ordering a new election.

In any event, after the Florida courts have reviewed this, the Democrats in Congress get a crack. http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electio...stage_of_house_seat_battle_could_be_the_house

Vern Buchanan might have been certified as the winner in this race, but it's far from over. Democratic candidate Christine Jennings is already contesting the results, citing reports of malfunctioning voting machines, and if Jennings refuses to concede and shows enough evidence of malfunctions, the race could be decided...in the House itself.

A new article in Roll Call spells it out (paid subscription): Election watchers around the country think that the race could end up before a House committee — the House Administration Committee, which oversees Federal elections. If so, the full House, which in the end is responsible for seating new members, could potentially vote on which of the two candidates to seat, thus deciding the race's outcome itself — or could call for a new recount, or even declare the seat vacant and mandate a new election. Right now, of course, the House is still GOP-controlled, but by the time of this vote it could be in the hands of Dems — meaning Jennings could conceivably pull off a win after all.

I would not be surprised to see a new election called for this seat.

 

[TheDoctor]

This is sad. Jeb has picked a GOP partisan hack to supervise the recount. http://flapolitics.blogspot.com/2006/11/gop-hack-to-lead-cd-13-review.html

The computer expert, Professor Alec Yasinsac of Florida State University, is a registered Republican who actively supported GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher this year and loudly protested Democratic tactics in the 2000 presidential recount. ...

Here's what he told the Tallahassee Democrat on Dec. 3, 2000, while wearing a ''Bush Won'' sign on the steps of the Florida Supreme Court: "I'll never be a passive political participant again." It was a week before the case was decided.

Such comments "definitely raise concerns," said Jennings spokesman David Kochman. "It appears the government is part of the problem, we need to make sure that everyone's vote is counted accurately and we would hope the experts the government looks to are unbiased and nonpartisan."

Given that this is Katherine Harris' old seat, you would expect the GOP to do something like this. If the process is too partisan, then the Democrats in congress could have to remedy this abuse.

One piece I saw speculates that the Democrats may cut a deal and let the GOP candidate be seated in exchange for a bipartisan vote on some real election reforms such as paper trails for voting machines

 

[TheDoctor]

This may be major news. The agency that certifies voting machines is going to decertify electronic voting machines because of a lack of an audit trail. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3646231

A federal agency is set to recommend significant changes to specifications for electronic-voting machines next week, internetnews.com has learned.

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.

DREs are currently used by more than 30 percent of jurisdictions across the U.S. and are the exclusive voting technology in Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland and South Carolina.

According to an NIST paper to be discussed at a meeting of election regulators at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., on Dec. 4 and 5, DRE vote totals cannot be audited because the machines are not software independent.

In other words, there is no means of verifying vote tallies other than by relying on the software that tabulated the results to begin with.

The machines currently in use are "more vulnerable to undetected programming errors or malicious code," according to the paper.

The NIST paper also noted that, "potentially, a single programmer could 'rig' a major election."

It recommends "requiring SI [software independent] voting systems in VVSG 2007."

The NIST is also going to recommend changes to the design of machines equipped with paper rolls that provide audit trails.

Currently, the paper rolls produce records that are illegible or otherwise unusable, and NIST is recommending that "paper rolls should not be used in new voting systems."

The lack of an audit trail is an issue and we need to get rid of any machines that does provide an audit trail

On a related note, there are some issues with the recount and audit of the results in the Florda 13th District including the machines producing miscounts when being tested. http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061129/NEWS/611290392 Electronic voting machines without an audit trail are dangerous and there is a chance that they may have to redo this election.

 

[TheDoctor]

Here is some more on the federal report that calls for the elimination of electronic voting machines that do not have a paper trail. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113001637.html

Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country "cannot be made secure," according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency.

In a report hailed by critics of electronic voting, NIST said that voting systems should allow election officials to recount ballots independently from a voting machine's software. The recommendations endorse "optical-scan" systems in which voters mark paper ballots that are read by a computer and electronic systems that print a paper summary of each ballot, which voters review and elections officials save for recounts.

Some 18,000 votes were eaten or not accepted in a race in Florida. These machines need to be abolished and replaced with machines that produce a paper record.

 

[TheDoctor]

Nebraska is launching an investigation into robo-calling. http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002230.php

A new investigation into harassing robo calls from November´s election may lead to the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).

The Nebraska Public Service Commission has launched an investigation into one of one of the more egregious examples of attempted voter suppression this year. In the 3rd District there, voters reported receiving repeated (often back-to-back) calls featuring a recorded voice that seemed to belong to Democrat Scott Kleeb. The calls, which went out to an unknown number of Nebraskans, prompted a flood of complaints to Kleeb´s campaign office.

Kleeb, who was leading Republican Adrian Smith in polls just before the election, ultimately lost by approximately 20,000 votes, garnering only 45 percent of the vote.

Since the low-quality calls reportedly sounded like a recording of a recording of Kleeb´s voice, Kleeb´s camp suspects that the perpetrators simply taped one of Kleeb´s calls and then used it to harass potential voters. People reported getting the calls sometimes six times in a row, sometimes late at night or very early in the morning.

According to the Public Service Commission, which has a recording of one of the calls, the calls did not identify the source at any time. ....

The Nebraska calls were more misleading than the robo calls the NRCC used in approximately twenty districts across the country. In those districts, an anonymous male or female voice began the call with something like "Hi, I'm calling with information about [the Democratic candidate]," then continued to give negative information about the candidate. The true source of the calls was not identified until the very end, when they informed the listener (if he/she bothered to stay on the line until the end of the call), that the NRCC had paid for it. Voters reported being called again and again. A number of Democratic campaigns reported receiving complaints from voters who thought that the calls were coming from the Democrat, because of the calls' lead-in. You can listen to recordings of some of the calls here.

The first order of business for investigators in Nebraska will be to determine who was behind the calls. If the NRCC is found to be responsible, then it could be hit with fines for violating federal rules. At this point, criminal charges seem unlikely, since there´s really no federal law that covers it. Democrats plan to change that, though, as one of their first orders of business.