Voters in the state of Hawaii filed a lawsuit on July 14, 2008, asking the Court to order the Hawaii Chief Elections Officer to stop using telephone lines or the internet for transmitting ballot counts and election results for final tabulation until such time as administrative rules can be legally promulgated in accordance with Hawaii Administrative Law, Chapter 91, HRS, and all other laws can also be legally followed. Also note in today’s featured article that at the end election day all memory cards are taken to the Maui County central location and given directly to an employee of Hart Intercivic. This employee, not election officials, then downloads the information from the cards to a laptop and then sends those votes over the internet to Honolulu. ...

Today is one of those days where there are many big stories. The list of Secretary of States who have joined together to demand that Veterans Administration facilities be opened to allow non-partisan voter registration drives has risen to 19. Meanwhile, Indiana’s Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, has shown that he does not care about the veterans in Indiana as he has sent a letter to the Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs to express his support for the disenfranchising rules.

Also, a whistleblower has stepped forward and stated that a patch was installed in two Georgia counties in 2002 before the Governor and Senatorial elections. He says, in part, that a “computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox [then Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox] was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.”

The Georgia news stems from a press conference held in Ohio where attorneys announced that they were filing documents with the courts to lift a stay on the 2004 Election fraud case. This case, according to the attorneys, has the potential to take down some very powerful people in this country....

In fairness I need to clarify my statement, in this space, of yesterday. There are many national organizations that are working, behind the scenes mostly, in many states. That does not change my opinion that we need to stop our emphasis on trying to get federal legislation passed through Congress. It is just not going to happen. Not only has it become a partisan issue, though it should not be, but the House and Senate leadership does not seem to be on the side of transparent, verifiable, audited elections. We should change our strategy to stop any damaging federal election legislation while working hard in the states to change their mind-sets. The state strategy has already worked in many states. And just today Centre Co., Pennsylvania, announced it is moving from DREs to optical-scan. ...

Yesterday another bill went to the floor of the House of Representatives and, like the last time, failed to get enough votes. It is time that the national organizations and their supporters change their strategies to a state-by-state strategy. We are NOT going to get any legislation through congress this year, and very possibly not next year. We can make a difference at the state level though. While many have concentrated on spending their time and money in Washington DC lobbying for the various bills that have come up, activists in Tennessee, New York, New Mexico, Florida, and other states and many counties have been successful in new laws being passed and DREs being replaced. Rather than spend the time and money in Washington DC, we need to spend it in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Annapolis Maryland, and Atlanta Georgia....

In today’s “Featured Article” I relate how the EAC is getting bad advice from their very own Board of Advisors. This board includes officials who are either under the influence of the voting machine vendors or who have taken funds from those vendors. The board has sent the commission a resolution that asks the commission to cut corners in the voting system certification program. They actually want the EAC to make the system more like what was the previous system as administered by NASED. That is the system that tested and qualified all of the trash that is running our elections now. That is the system that has allowed the vendors to beta test their voting systems in real elections. The EAC would do well to ignore this bad advice....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite

As set up by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) receives some advice from a Board of Advisors. The Board is made up of a set number of people representing groups like the National Association of Secretaries of State; National Governors Association; International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers; congressional leaders; and even two members of The Election Center, a vendor-sponsored group that promotes electronic voting. There are no voters groups and no one from the election integrity community on the Board. But then, who cares what the voters think?

The Board of Advisors is advising [PDF, pg 7] the EAC, via resolution, that they need to speed-up the certification process for voting systems. They want the system to be what it was under the old, rubber-stamp system headed by the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED). They want the same system of testing and certification that has resulted in our voting systems failing in many elections and not even being compliant with federal standards.

Incredibly, the Board's recommendation to the EAC goes so far as to admit that a failed "common practice" of the past should, apparently, be re-instituted under the newer certification system. "The common practice since the introduction of electronic voting systems," they wrote, "has been to make hardware and software upgrades based on issues found in the most recent election in sufficient time to improve the voting systems for the next general election."

That is a stunning admission. That that is a system they'd like to return to is even more stunning.

The EAC is holding a public meeting in Phoenix later this month and the Board of Advisors' resolution is to be discussed by the commissioners. I sent the following email to the commissioners and staff of the EAC to voice my concerns about the resolution.

My letter to them follows in full below...

In this evening’s “Featured Article”, Kim Zetter of “Threat Level Blog” at Wired reports about the failure of new Sequoia voting machines to get through state and local testing. So far about 50 percent of the voting machines delivered to the state have problems. Doug Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, is quoted as saying something that the Election Integrity community has known for a long time. He said, “There's no way the vendor could be adequately reviewing the machines and having so many problems. What it tells us is that the vendor just throws this stuff over the transom and does not do any alpha- or beta-testing of their own before they apply for certification testing. Then they expect that we'll identify technical glitches and then they'll correct those glitches. But correction of those glitches is an extraordinarily time-consuming process. And it’s very disappointing that this equipment is not ready for prime time.” The vendors have used real elections to beta test their products without regards for the voters and this has been an ongoing process for years....

It has been a couple weeks since we reminded all of our subscribers that voter registrations and voter registration data bases have been a huge problem during the primary elections. There is no reason to believe that they will not be a huge problem in November. One of the only ways to ensure a voter is registered is for that voter to check their registration. We recommend every voter check now and then check again just before the voter’s state registration closes before November. You can find out the date that your state is closing registration and who to check to ensure your registration is still HERE...

Yesterday members of Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) filed papers in US District Court in Ohio asking a judge to begin criminal contempt proceedings for the destruction of ballots, against his orders, from the Nov. 2004 election. In King Lincoln, et al. v. Brunner, et al., Civ. No. C2 06 745 (S.D. Ohio), the judge had ordered all 88 counties to preserve all ballots from the election until a decision was rendered in the case. At least 56 counties decided that they did not need to follow the court order and destroyed a portion of the ballots they had. Seven counties assert they have destroyed all ballots. The complaint also asks the judge to impanel a special grand jury to investigate the destruction of the ballots....

Today Senator Akaka (D-HI) called on the federal Department of Veteran’s Affairs to lift their ban on voter registration drives on Veteran’s Administration property. He pointed out that the VA's policy is unnecessary and insulting to veterans who have made enormous sacrifices for our country. He was joined by Sen.s Kerry and Feinstein. Also late today Connecticut Secretary of State Bysiewicz and Washington Secretary of State Reed joined in a bi-partisan campaign to overturn the VA ban, along with the Secretaries of State from Ohio, Montana, Vermont, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Maine, to the DVA. ...

Today the Secretary of State of Ohio, Jennifer Brunner, announced a call to a meeting of the State Board of Voting Machine Examiners. The subject of Friday’s meeting is to be whether modifications made by ES&S to AutoMark machines used in many Ohio counties are enhancements or significant adjustments. If the modifications made to the machines in Ohio are the same that were made to machines in California then they are clearly significant adjustments that required a model designation change. The modification in California was done without any notice to the state or counties and has resulted in a $15Million lawsuit against ES&S. There will be more on this story over the next couple days....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Why should anyone be surprised at yesterday's decision by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that Dean Logan is the best qualified to be the county's permanent Registrar of Voters? After all, failed election officials seem to be sought after by counties. Michael Vu failed miserably in Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, where he even had two employees convicted of felony election violations. San Diego Co. tripped over themselves as they rushed to hire Vu to be their assistant Registrar.

In 2004 Dean Logan was the King County (WA) Election Director. Logan was the center of a fire storm that erupted due to the close gubernatorial race. In their reporting of Logan's new promotion from acting Registrar to Registrar, the Los Angeles Daily News reports:

A year later and Dean was rescued by then LA Co Registrar Conny McCormack, who herself came to the county under the cloud of failings in her elections jobs in Texas. Conny hired Dean as her assistant. In August 2007 Conny announced her retirement and Dean was named acting Registrar later in the year.

Failures seem to follow Logan. He was in charge of the LA Co elections office when the "Double Bubble Trouble" incident took place last February on Super Tuesday, and thousands of legally cast ballots were left uncounted from the Democratic Primary. He was also in charge when our very own Brad Friedman attempted to vote on his polling place's supposedly disabled-accessible voting machine and the machine flipped four of his votes to candidates he hadn't voted for.

One has to wonder how many times someone can fail and still come up with the rewards, such as a $195,000 a year position counting votes in the most populous county in the country. Some people are truly Teflon coated. Amazing!...But not surprising.

In the wake of Connecticut’s Secretary of State, Susan Bysiewicz, taking action to highlight the terrible decision by the Federal Department of Veterans Affairs with regards to voter registration drives Washington’s Secretary of State Sam Reed has taken action. Well, he investigated and wrote a letter to the state congressional contingent asking them to take action. While Secretary Bysiewicz went to a VA facility and actually registered voters contrary to the DVA’s directives, Secretary Reed wrote a letter and issued a press release. I am one Washington state resident, Viet Nam Vet, who would have liked to have seen Sam stand-up for all veterans in the state. It’s too bad.

There have been estimates of as high as 1.4 million foreclosures in this country in recent months. That represents an estimated 900,000 or more voters who have been moved from their residence. That’s 900,000 new voter registrations if they all re-register to vote from their new residence. Or, that’s hundreds of thousands of voters who will not bother to re-register and who will be stopped from voting or challenged when they do get to the polls. Every registered voter needs to check to ensure their registration is up to date and then do it again later this year before their state voter registration deadline. Make sure you are not scrubbed from the rolls and don’t know it until you go to vote on election day....

New York state has a very real problem with the new voting machines they must have state tested and certified and county tested and ready for Nov. The state is getting the ballot marking devices to be used by voters with disabilities from Sequoia. The state is rejecting 50% of the machines they are testing. One county, Nassau, has rejected 85% of the machines they’ve received from the state. Either the state has failed to catch flaws when testing the machines or the machines were damaged in shipping. Either way, unless the shipping process is set-up to man-handle and damage the machines, the vendor is responsible. Sequoia’s quality control seems to be lacking totally if 50% of what the state receives is rejected. Sequoia’s product is poorly designed if shipping from one place in New York to another causes damage to 85% of the machines received. Of course, Sequoia will blame it all on everyone else. It is never Sequoia’s problem....