News from other states

by Shelley Cohen Fudge, Gazette.net

The state of Maryland will be making a foolish choice if it decides to renege on its promise to replace our risky paperless touchscreen voting machines with a paper ballot, optical-scan voting system. The new voting system, with just one-fifth the equipment of the old one, would be much cheaper to operate and maintain. It would reinstill voter confidence by finally putting in place a safe, reliable voting system that records the votes as voters intended, and allows recounts to be conducted in close races.

by Shelley Cohen Fudge, Gazette.net

The state of Maryland will be making a foolish choice if it decides to renege on its promise to replace our risky paperless touchscreen voting machines with a paper ballot, optical-scan voting system. The new voting system, with just one-fifth the equipment of the old one, would be much cheaper to operate and maintain. It would reinstill voter confidence by finally putting in place a safe, reliable voting system that records the votes as voters intended, and allows recounts to be conducted in close races.

Summary, from the Press Release and Report:

Connecticut’s November 2008 Post-Election Audits Report Large Differences From Optical Scanner Totals

Coalition Calls On Legislature To Act

Committee Meeting: December 11, 2008
With Respect to Consideration of S. 2380

Thadeus Greenson/The Times-Standard

The first of its kind Humboldt Election Transparency Project has uncovered a glitch in the county election's software that resulted in almost 200 ballots not being counted and the county certifying inaccurate election results.

The 197 uncounted ballots would not have changed the outcome of any of the election's races, according to Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich.

Raises concerns with audit credibility and potential problems for November post-election audit

Hartford, Connecticut –Today, the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit Coalition released a report summarizing the observations of 46 citizen observers at 27 state-mandated post-election audits conducted by local officials following the August primary election. In its 3rd observation report, the Coalition noted continuing improvements in procedures and compliance, while finding additional areas of concern.

A test in Santa Fe County finds and fixes an error that could have cost Democrats thousands of votes

by Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet

An electronic voting machine test in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, on Friday revealed a programming error that, had it not been caught and corrected before the start of early voting next week, would not have counted hundreds -- or possibly thousands -- of votes for president and U.S. Senate in this Democratic stronghold.

by Catherine Dolinski, The Tampa Tribune
 

TALLAHASSEE — What's the use of paper ballots if no one looks at them? That is the question that election watchdogs continue to press, even as the state's election supervisors race to implement the 2007 election law requiring every Florida county to vote on paper ballots.

By SaveOurVotes.org      Yesterday the Maryland General Assembly approved the Fiscal Year 2009 budget, including funding to move Maryland by 2010 to a less expensive, recountable voting system based on optically scanned paper ballots. This highly popular switch, favored by nearly two thirds of voters statewide, was enacted last year in matching bills sponsored by Sen. Edward Kasemeyer (D - Baltimore and Howard Counties) and Del.

New York Times

Voters nationwide have seen that electronic voting cannot be trusted, and New Jerseyans are the latest to learn this unfortunate lesson. It is now clear that the state’s machines produced suspicious results in the Feb. 5 presidential primary. Rather than working to put doubts to rest, the machines’ manufacturer is resisting a proper inquiry. New Jersey needs to quickly get to the bottom of the problem to ensure voters that in November their ballots will be counted accurately.