By John Gideon on 1/24/2008, 8:00pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Late yesterday a report was released by the Florida Fair Elections Center regarding the Nov. 2006 election in which voting machines did not register over 18,000 votes in the congressional district 13 race. The report, “Sarasota's Vanished Votes - An Investigation into the Cause of Uncounted Votes in the 2006 Congressional District 13 Race in Sarasota County, Florida January 2008,” is a well researched and presented report that chronicles the problems that very probably led to the wrong person serving the voters of Florida Congressional District 13. The report is damning to the vendor, ES&S, and to local and state election officials. ES&S’s statement about the report is that the writers of the report are “biased.” Of course the report had just been released and they had no way to have read a word.

This morning when I began working on this space I wrote something about New York and how the State Election Board could (would) not make a decision on what voting technology would be used for accessibility. A decision that allowed DREs would have nearly guaranteed that some counties in the state would be using DREs in the future. Apparently Board Member Doug Kellner was able to convince the other two members that New York State Law must be followed and that none of the DREs would meet the legal requirements. So, today the board met again and unanimously voted to allow only optical-scan or ballot-marking-devices for accessibility. No DREs were approved. This is a huge win for the voters in New York....

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**

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