Herbert Hoover quotes (American President, 1874-1964)
- The BRAD BLOG - http://www.bradblog.com -
Judge Orders CO to 'Cease And Desist' Voter Purges, Demands Ballots Be Counted
Important Ruling Places Onus On Elections Officials to Prove Voter Ineligibility...
Posted By DES On 2nd November 2008 @ 15:31 In Colorado, Election 2008, Accountability, Voter Registration | 1 Comment
Guest blogged by DES
Late last week, a federal court spanked Colorado's Republican Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, ordering him to restore tens of thousands of registered voters to the state's voting rolls and allow them to vote, requiring that officials count those ballots, and --- perhaps most importantly --- placing the onus on elections officials to justify the removal of voters from the rolls, rather than forcing the voters to prove they are who they say they are...
Ian Urbina of The New York Times [1] spells it out:
The voters' names had been removed by Mike Coffman, the Colorado secretary of state, who said he did so because the voters had moved out of state or were listed more than once on the rolls. But Mr. Coffman was sued by a coalition of voting rights and other groups who said such purges were generally prohibited by federal law within 90 days of an election.
Under the agreement, voters removed from the rolls will be permitted to cast provisional ballots, and those ballots will be counted unless election officials can prove the voters were not eligible. To strike such ballots, county election officials must conduct an extensive records review on each one, a decision that must then be reviewed by Mr. Coffman's office.
"This is unprecedented," said Elizabeth Westfall, a lawyer for the Advancement Project, a civil rights group that helped file the lawsuit. "We are really thrilled that there will be this degree of unprecedented scrutiny and protection for these purged voters when they cast their provisional ballots."
...
Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University and an authority on voting litigation nationwide, said the settlement was noteworthy because many states had put the onus on voters to prove that their provisional ballots were legitimate before they could be counted. The settlement shifts this responsibility to the state, Mr. Foley said, and is more in keeping with the spirit of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, which calls for election officials to count a provisional ballot if they can determine the voter's eligibility. [emphasis added]
But now it appears that Coffman --- who, as chief elections officer in the state is simultaneously presiding over his own race for the U.S. House seat vacated by the retiring Tom Tancredo --- in defiance of the court's order is apparently still purging voters from the rolls.
According to the Rocky Mountain News [2], Federal judge John Kane issued a cease-and-desist order in an emergency court hearing today (h/t TPM Muckraker) [3]:
"There has been a violation of federal law, and that must cease and stop immediately," Kane said from the bench. "That is the order."
...
Coffman had told the newspaper that a court-approved agreement worked out this week still allowed him to remove voters from the state rolls when he found duplicate names, people who moved or deceased voters.
"The process is continuing," he told the Rocky on Thursday. The plaintiffs, he said "did not prevail ... in stopping us from moving forward with additional cancellation through this election."
...
"If the defendant [SoS Coffman] doesn't listen to his counsel, he's going to be listening to me personally," Kane said. "I don't issue threats idly, and I'm not issuing one now. … I expect to be obeyed."
In a statement issued after the ruling, Coffman maintained his office was "in full compliance" with the original order. But he said he would comply with today's ruling.
In an earlier story, The New York Times [4] estimated 37,000 people were purged from Colorado's voter rolls in the three weeks after July 21 of this year.
The BRAD BLOG [5] covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation [6] to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great election integrity documentary films in return.
In the suburban county of Montgomery, just outside of Philadelphia, election officials have, inexcusably, been caught off guard by a new, court-mandated directive by PA's Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes.
The directive requires that counties have enough emergency paper ballots (EPBs) on hand at polling places to ensure that voters can vote if half, or more, of a precinct's voting machines break down. County officials admit today that they were completely unprepared for the directive, and even for the likelihood of serious machine failure, despite known problems with the touch-screen voting systems they use, or the extraordinary voter turnout long-predicted for next Tuesday.
The new directive [PDF] was issued yesterday, as we reported last night in our late update to our article on the lawsuit. The successful suit was filed last week against the Democratic Secretary, by the NAACP and a local election protection coalition. It followed on Cortes' directive a month a go that EPBs needed to be given out to voters only in the event of failure of 100% of a precinct's machines.
Cortes' original directive, and even the one issued yesterday, has been seen at odds with a PA statutory provision that allowed counties to offer paper ballots in the event that just one machine has failed. PA uses Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems across most of the state, and is a key battleground for John McCain's attempt to win the White House this year...
Montgomery County's voter services Director, Joseph R. Passarella, admits this morning that his county is unprepared for the directive, despite known problems and historical failures of electronic voting machines on Election Day in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, or even the widely-predicted unprecedented turnout that's expected.
He also says that he believes, according to the Philadelphia Intelligencer, that an "estimated...80 percent of the state's other counties do not have emergency ballots, having used provisional ballots for both purposes in the past."
Incredibly, Passarella also admitted today that he had previously planned to give just 100 provisional ballots, and 100 emergency ballots to each precinct...
However, officials do not have any concrete compliance plan in place at this time.
"We are just going to have to train on the fly," said county voter services Director Joseph R. Passarella, noting that all but one of the county's 18 poll worker training classes have been completed.
Simply placing a letter with detailed instructions on how to handle the situation in each poll's box of Election Day supplies "would only cause more confusion," said Passarella.
Also, there is no time to print additional individualized emergency ballots for each of the county's 418 polling places, according to Passarella.
Even if there was time, all of the supply boxes for each poll "are packed and ready to go," he said.
So, in other words, even though the law already says paper ballots may be given out if even one machine breaks down, and even though the machines have broken down historically, and even though there is likely to be record turnout and not nearly enough machines to serve voters as is, this county has not previously --- prior to the new directive from the SoS, or even in response to the old one, issued over a month ago --- made plans to ensure that voters would be able to vote come hell, high-water, or completely-predictable machine-failure.
Disgraceful.
Who Could Have Predicted It?
According to Wikipedia, Montgomery, a suburban area southwest of Philadelphia, has a population of approximately 800,000. The Democratic-leaning county reportedly voted strongly for John Kerry in 2004, by a margin of 56% to 44%, over George W. Bush. It is the third most populous county in the state.
In the 2004 general election, 379,715 voters reportedly voted [PDF] on the county's DRE voting systems at their 418 polling places.
That's an average of 908 voters at each precinct in 2004. And yet, as the Inquirer reports, Passarella was prepared to have just 100 provisional and 100 emergency paper ballots on hand at each polling place this year, even with the predicted historic turnout.
To make matters still worse, Montgomery County forces voters to use the Sequoia Voting Systems' faulty, error-prone, hackable AVC Advantage DRE touch-screen voting machines. Those are the same machines that wouldn't start up at all in New Jersey on Super Tuesday this year, delaying Governor John Corzine, and countless other voters', ability to cast a vote at all for nearly an hour on the morning of primary day.
The same Sequoia machines in New Jersey also reportedly flipped votes from Obama to Clinton that day, before proceeding to misreport vote totals in dozens of counties, and even lose votes entirely, as reported by Princeton University in the recently released court-ordered analysis of the Advantage machines.
"As a consequence of these flaws," the computer scientists at Princeton wrote, "voters were disenfranchised." The report was commissioned as part of a lawsuit by NJ election integrity advocates, and the court ordered it's release just last week. The researchers were also able to pick the lock on the machine in 13 seconds, and do so without breaking the machine's security seals.
In February of 2007, we reported on the same Sequoia Advantage machines having been hacked in five minutes by a professor at Princeton University, who had purchased five of the machines on the Internet from an on-line government equipment clearinghouse for $86 apiece. NJ had purchased them for $8000 a piece.
John Bonifaz, of VoterAction.org, co-counsel in the successful NAACP lawsuit against the state of PA, writes via email this morning that the legal team in the case has been alerted to the report out of Montgomery County.
“I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964”
Ronald Reagan quotes (American 40th US President (1981- 89), 1911-2004)
“The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”
Lyndon B. Johnson quotes (American 36th US President (1963-69). 1908-1973)
A county clerk in Colorado has finally done the right thing for the voters by removing a touch-screen voting machine from service, and quarantining it, after it was discovered to be flipping votes from one candidate to another. The failed machine in this case was a Diebold Accu-Vote, a frequent flipper.
As reported by the Colorado Independent (Hat-tip VoterAction.org)...
“I always just trusted the machines, and it opened my eyes,” said state Rep. Mary Hodge. “The way it works now, I’m told … is that those votes throw it to Mr. Hadfield that we’ll probably have a lawsuit and a court decision. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Hodge, the Democratic nominee, faces Republican Robert John Hadfield in the race to represent state Senate District 25.
...
“I have quarantined the machine,” Long told the newspaper. “It’s removed and it’s sealed up and it’s in a bag.” She said she is awaiting instructions from the secretary of state’s office.
Long is to be lauded for being the first election official in the country so far during the general election (that we're aware of) to have taken the correct action in such a vote-flipping case. And now that Hodge's eyes are "opened" we hope that both she and her Republican opponent, Hadfield will stand up for their voters by signing the StandingForVoters.org "no concessions" pledge immediately!
Late last night VelvetRevolution.us (a non-partisan, non-profit election watchdog co-founded by The BRAD BLOG) issued a press release calling on election officials to not recalibrate systems mid-election, but rather remove and impound them, and offer voters paper ballots as needed instead. The complete press release is posted at the end of this article.
Colorado has a troubling history with electronic voting, even as the Secretary of State found all of the state's machines to be faulty and easily hackable in late 2007, but has capitulated to pressure from election officials to allow them to be used by voters again this year anyway...
Problems Not New to Colorado...
In another story on the removal of Adams County's Diebold machine, it was noted that the system was quarantined "as per the Secretary of State's instructions". We're not sure if those were instructions given only to Long, or if SoS Mike Coffman had issued a directive somewhere on this. We'll try to find out. In any case, we hope other CO officials (as well as officials in other states where this occurs) will follow Long's lead and take the same action she did.
SoS Coffman --- who is overseeing his own election this year in his bid for the U.S. House --- previously decertified all but the Diebold voting systems in his state after an exhaustive court-ordered certification test (and after it was found that his Congressional campaign shared the same PR outfit with Diebold). Following his decertification last December, which discovered all of the machines used by his state were easily hacked and prone to serious errors, he recertified all of them after receiving pressure from CO county election clerks.
One of those officials, the state's Election Director Holly Lowder, resigned in disgrace just last month after it was discovered she shared her residence with one of the state's top election vendors.
Following Similar Failures in Other States, Watchdog Calls for Impounding...
Previously, after votes were noticed to have flipped during early voting this year on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) systems in WV, in TN, in TX and other states, election officials have often first (and completely inappropriately) blamed the voters, and then instructed poll workers to "recalibrate" the machines.
Calibrating an electronic voting machine mid-election, however, as we've pointed out repeatedly, is irresponsible and dangerous, and --- as demonstrated by this West Virginia County clerk on video tape --- ineffective, as it often fails to correct the problem at all.
Whether a vote is seen flipping or not on a DRE, it must be noted, there is no way to verify that any vote ever cast on such a system in any election for any candidate or initiative on the ballot has ever been recorded accurately. That's a fact whether or not such a system offers a so-called "paper trail" print-out, as even the DREs with such print-outs can be easily and quickly hacked in a way that would be next to impossible to discover as shown in this video demonstration from the state-sponsored computer scientists at the UCSB Computer Security Group.
While we have asked repeatedly for any such evidence to show that any such vote has ever been recorded as per a voter's intent during an election, no election official, or voting machine company representative has ever been able to offer any. That's because none exists.
DRE machines require 100% faith-based voting, with faith applied solely in the private company who created and programmed the machine, and the election officials who force voters to use them in our public elections.
Moreover, Diebold was forced to admit in August that their GEMS central tabulator system, used with both DRE and paper-based optical-systems in 34 states this year, routinely drops thousands of votes without notifying system administrators.
Our complete special coverage page on DRE Failures 2008 (General Election Version), including what you can do about it, if it happens to you, is right here...
VR's press release, issued today, calling for the immediate removal from service and impounding of such machines, is both posted here, and follows in full below...
Where Are The Election Protection Attorneys?
Non-Profit Election Watchdog Demands Failed Machines
Be Removed from Service, Impounded
Velvet Revolution ("VR"), a non-profit dedicated to fair, honest, accurate and transparent elections, today called for elections officials in all states to immediately impound any voting machine that has flipped votes from one candidate to another. It has been widely reported in the media over the past week of early voting that Direct Recording Election (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting machines made by ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia and Hart InterCivic have been flipping votes, predominantly from Democratic candidates to Republican candidates, but in some reported cases, just the opposite. (See: http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=6577).
These vote flips were first reported in West Virginia and the elections official there quickly ordered the recalibration of some machines, but video has shown that recalibration does not correct the problem and the flips continue. (See: http://www.velvetrevolut...vote_captures_video.html)
Vote flipping has also now reported to have occurred in Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Nevada, Colorado, Georgia and elsewhere.
"Machines that flip votes should never be recalibrated," said Brad Friedman, co-founder of Velvet Revolution. "Accessing these election-ready machines in this way, when they are most vulnerable to malicious software and manipulation, is wholly inappropriate. It is outrageous that election officials have ordered such action. Instead, failing machines must be immediately removed from service, impounded for later inspection, and voters should be given paper ballots to assure their vote may be counted accurately."
VR also demands that the legal teams associated with the candidates step up and take immediate legal action to quarantine these faulty voting machines. The Obama campaign has made much of the fact that it has thousands of lawyers on the ground to ensure that this election is fair and everyone's vote is counted. "Unfortunately, these lawyers, the lawyers for McCain and the lawyers for the DNC and RNC are AWOL and asleep at the wheel," continued Friedman. "We insist that they keep their promise to the voters by demanding that these machines be taken out of service immediately. We should not have to wait until after the election for a candidate to sue because voters were not allowed to properly register their votes."
SOURCE Velvet Revolution
Touch-Screen Vote-Flipping 2008
(2008 General Election Version)
Links to The BRAD BLOG's coverage on touch-screen vote-flipping and related failures follow, along with our recommended list of steps to take should you find your vote flipping on one of these wholly unverifiable voting machines...
Recent ES&S iVotronic Failures as covered by The BRAD BLOG:
- 10/18/08: ES&S Vote-Flipping Seen in 2 WV Counties
- 10/21/08: Election Filmmaker Sees Own Vote Flipped From Dem in TN
- 10/22/08: Candidate Names Missing on Final Review Screens in SC
- 10/22/08: Votes Reportedly Flip R to D in Decatur Cty, TN
- 10/23/08: Vote Flips 5 Times From D to R in Another WV County
- 10/24/08: Straight-Party Votes Flip D to R in TX
- 10/25/08: Screen Blanks Out, Another Obama Vote Lost in TN
- 10/26/08: DNC Claims They're On it, Just Can't Tell Us What They're Doing
- 10/27/08: ES&S Vote-Flipping Now Seen in 6 WV Counties
- 10/27/08: ES&S VP Given 'Award of Merit' By WV SoS
- 10/27/08: VIDEOS: Watch the Votes Flip in WV, Clerk Tries, But Can't Fix Prob
- 10/29/08: Votes Flip D to R in 7 TX Counties on Diebold & Hart Machines Too
- 10/30/08: Vote-Flipping Diebold Machine Removed, Quarantined in CO
- 10/31/08: OPRAH'S VOTE GETS DROPPED BY TOUCH-SCREEN!
And since the DNC and Obama campaign refuse to take any steps to assure your vote may actually be counted accurately on one of these machines...
What to do if it happens to you:
- Call poll supervisors to observe the problem.
- Fill out a problem report.
- Refuse to vote on that machine.
- Request that the machine be taken out of service.
- Get a serial number of the machine if possible (may be difficult in many cases).
- Tell other voters in line which machine it was and that they should NOT vote on that machine!
- Report it to county/town election office.
- Report it to the Secretary of State.
- Call local reporters and tell them the story.
- Call voter problem hotlines (eg. 866-MYVOTE1 and 866-OUR-VOTE) and report it.
- Contact bloggers and Election Integrity websites.
- Raise holy hell.
REMINDER: Please bring a video camera/cell phone camera when you go to vote so you can document these problems on video tape, and then upload them to VideoTheVote.org and YouTube!
(Thanks to VelvetRevolution.us and TrueVote.us for help in compiling these recommendations!)
NAACP Sues in Virginia Over Voting Machine Distribution
by georgia10
Wed Oct 29, 2008 at 10:15:03 AM PST
In 2004, we saw in Ohio how poor voting machine distribution, coupled with extraordinary turnout, created lines blocks long at many polling places, with voters waiting from morning to night to vote. And while the Justice Department concluded in 2005 that the distribution of those voting machines was not discriminatory, clearly, the system of voting machine distribution is broken in many key states.
Which brings us to Virginia.
The NAACP has filed a lawsuit claiming that the government has failed to adequately prepare for the anticipated record turnout:
The lawsuit claims that the state is violating the U.S. and Virginia constitutions by not allocating enough voting machines, poll workers and polling places -- particularly in precincts with high minority populations -- which could result in long lines and lost votes.
The Advancement Project, a national voter protection group, filed the lawsuit late Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond on the NAACP's behalf. It asks the state to move voting machines to precincts most likely to have long waiting lines; keep polls open for an extra two hours; and use paper ballots in some cases.
The State Board of Election responds:
[T]he State Board of Elections maintained that all localities are complying with the minimum number of voting machines and voting booths in each precinct as required by state code. Since 2004, the number of voting machines, polling places and workers has increased, according to the statement. For example, the number of voting machines has increased from about 5,700 in 2004 to about 10,600 in 2008.
Virginia has done a pretty good job of recruiting more poll workers and adding more voting machines (a 77% increase in voting machines since 2004). But the problem is that the state's allocation rules state that there should be at least one voting machine per 750 registered voters. As one staff attorney for the Advancement Project, the group that filed suit on behalf of the NAACP notes, "a touch-screen voting machine can’t handle 750 people in a day — not even close."
Whether through this lawsuit or through emergency suits filed on election day, voting hours in Virginia may likely be extended to accommodated the anticipated crushing turnout.
Justice Finds No Discrimination in Voting Machines Distribution
July 1st, 2005
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The U.S. Department of Justice says it found no evidence of discrimination in the distribution of voting machines in two Ohio counties in the close 2004 presidential election.
The department, which is part of the Bush administration, began investigating after voters complained of long voting lines and alleged discrimination in Franklin and Knox counties. Investigators wanted to determine if elections officials had intentionally skewed the placement of machines.The Justice Department said the distribution in Franklin County narrowly favored black voters. Because turnout in predominantly black precincts was lower than in white ones, machines in those districts averaged fewer votes, according to a report released Wednesday.
An unanticipated 76 percent turnout _ with many first-time voters _ contributed to the long lines in the Kenyon College precinct in Knox County, according to a report released in June. Some voters waited until 4 a.m. to cast their ballots.
President Bush won re-election Nov. 2 with his win in Ohio over Democrat John Kerry.
A Democratic National Committee report released last week found more complaints statewide among black voters about voting than white voters.
Walter Mebane, a Cornell University professor who worked on the DNC report, said voters in mainly black precincts in Franklin County who showed up early to vote found fewer machines than those who voted later, which could explain some of the differences between the two reports.
Distribution of voting machines is determined by county boards of elections, made up of two Democrats, two Republicans and two nonvoting members.
Franklin County had 2,904 machines on hand for 535,575 people who showed up to vote. The county intends to have at least 5,000 machines operating in 2008, said Michael Damschroder, elections board director.
When final registration numbers were available for the Kenyon College precinct, the Knox County board already had decided on the distribution of voting machines. Between March and November of 2004, the number of registered voters at the precinct more than doubled to 1,607. Two machines were available.
The county hopes to buy one new machine for every 175 voters, which based on current registration figures, would give the county about 200 new machines. The board will reserve six machines to dispatch on Election Day to crowded precincts, said Rita Yarman, board director.
No comments:
Post a Comment