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Below is a group of articles discussing different aspects of the electronic voting; possible problems and possible solutions. The article was written at least a few month ago. It's not a reporting of the problems on November 2, 2004 (yet). Sorry, Your Vote Has Been: Lost, Hacked, Miscast, Recorded TwiceNew electronic voting machines are supposed to prevent another Election Day disaster, but these paperless PCs could make hanging chads seem like a minor nuisance.  A breakdown of 2004 voting machines by county, and a few hotspots to watch    http://www.popsci.com/popsci/lgimg/0,21039,748736,00.html[1] Maryland and Georgia use Diebold voting machines statewide that leave...

I am MAD in Washington State. My Dad runs a polling place. He stayed up both nights on the weekend to work on getting all the materials together for today's election. He made sure that he was following the letter of the law on voting. Then he got up early to get the polling place all set up. Then King 5 News makes it's "report" that the electronic polling is suspect because there isn't a paper trail. I went to my polling place and SAW A REAM of paper coming off each and every machine documenting the whole process. There...

Lida Rodríguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Commission and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Miami, ably and clearly explains the intricacies and background of Florida's election process -- the good, the bad and the ugly parts. Q: When we spoke about three weeks ago you were feeling pretty optimistic about the Nov. 2 election in Florida. Do you still feel the same? A: I'm a little more pessimistic after seeing the problems cropping up in the early voting. The long waiting lines, the length of the ballot and the shortage of poll workers and voting...

Thought it would be helpful to some who have not seen the new electronic voting machines to get a description of what to expect from a general sense to avoid some potential anxieties. The machines are about the size of 20-25 inch tv screens and are touch screen, surrounded by blinders typical of election set-ups in the past. 1. Arrive with your voter card (or whatever your state accepts) and sign in next to your name just as in every other election. 2. You will go to a booth and an election official will insert a device which looks sort...

Joe "Verified Voting has just gone live with a number of tools for all you data-hungry election nerds out there. Amongst the goods: an election guide for geeks, a voter's guide to electronic voting, the Verifier database of county-by-county election information and the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) which will be used on E-day by attorneys and observers in the field to collect data about election incidents called into the Election Protection Coalition's hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The geek community is playing a particularly active role in this year's eleciton via VV's TechWatch program. However, we could still use the help of...

sounds like dems are worried about NJ

Oregon plays a unique role in national politics and American thought. We are a forward-thinking state, and we value the liberties of the individual more than most. We are also a small state, and occasionally the policies we enact are watched nationwide as an experiment, before they are adopted by the entire country. We are the microcosm of America's progress. We will soon be facing another opportunity to exhibit our individuality. Another election for president of the United States is on the horizon, and the likelihood of a fair and clean election is low. Computerized voting, an untested, secretive and...

Residents turn out to try new voting machines FLORENCE - Residents turned out by the hundreds to test out Florence County’s new electronic voting system Saturday. Moreover, officials said they were receptive at an open house at the former Florence County Library on Pine Street sponsored by the Florence County Voter Registration and Election Commission. The event is part of a massive educational outreach initiative designed to familiarize the voting public with the set-up, officials said. “It went very well - we got a lot of people acclimated to the system today without any complaints as far as I know,”...

Call them the dirty dozen of democracy. Election officials in 12 states did not report how many ballots were cast when they certified 26,349,619 votes for president four years ago, making it impossible to know how many votes were lost because of inaccurate counting machines or other tabulation errors. Most are still unprepared to check for missing votes this November, increasing the odds that America will face another uncertain presidential election. Experts warn that the mistakes painfully discovered in Florida in 2000 could be repeated. "This is really embarrassing," said Deforest Soaries Jr., chairman of the new U.S. Election Assistance...

The Free Congress Foundation is an educational foundation with conservative roots and an extensive history of encouraging citizens to become effectively involved in the political process. Although we are generally in favor of voter-verifiable, paper-ballot systems, we see this issue as one of voter confidence. One way to build voter confidence is to allow voters to witness tangible evidence that the vote that they cast accurately reflects their intention. Other important steps to voter confidence include preventing or overcoming security and malfunction problems. The surest way to accomplish those goals is through heightened security procedures at all stages of the...

New suit expands pre-election battles The lawsuit is at least the fourth pending against Secretary of State Glenda Hood before the Nov. 2 elecions TALLAHASSEE - As Florida inches closer to the presidential election, lawsuits are piling up against Secretary of State Glenda Hood. On Thursday, the Florida Democratic Party filed the latest in a series of lawsuits that will be heard in state and federal courtrooms over the next few days. The increasing number of suits is reminiscent of the 2000 election, when dozens of lawsuits were filed over a recount that saw President Bush win by 537 votes....

Friday, October 1, 2004 Activist: 'Blacks are afraid of voting machines' Posted: October 1, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Kevin McCullough © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The level to which Democratic Party politics will sink has become officially disgusting. On the eve of the historic debate between President Bush and Sen. Kerry, the anti-Bush machine is firing up the rhetoric and, at the same time, insulting African Americans. Sadly, old methods are being employed to turn the political tricks. Joanne Bland, who is the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, Ala., was quoted on Wednesday as saying, that computerized...

The Bombay Ballot What the U.S. can learn from India's electronic voting machines. By Eric Weiner Posted Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004, at 5:17 AM PT Remember the Cold War tale of Soviet and American scientists racing to solve the problem of writing in zero gravity? NASA spent a decade and millions of dollars developing the high-tech Astronaut Pen. The Soviets solved the problem another way: They used a pencil. The story turns out to be (mostly) urban legend, but the lesson holds true. Sometimes less is more. That seems to be the case as the world's largest democracy, India, and...

Black Voters 'Afraid' of Electronic Voting Machines, Activist Says Miami (CNSNews.com) - An African-American civil rights spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines "terrify" her, and that blacks are "afraid of machines like that." Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and surpress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not "technologically savvy." "The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting -- the...

Miami (CNSNews.com) - An African-American civil rights spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines "terrify" her, and that blacks are "afraid of machines like that." Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and surpress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not "technologically savvy." "The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting -- the new machines -- I think it will turn off...

What should a reasonable person conclude about touch screen voting machines? Sure, there are some safeguards it would be nice to add. But most of the worry out there is loony tunes stuff. The big picture: (1) No touch screen machine has been shown to have been rigged or to have delivered an inaccurate vote total. They work fine. (2) Claims of "flaws" or "errors" in various incidents around the country almost always involve human elements, such as poll workers not getting the things turned on. (3) A conspiracy to rig the machines in a national election is ridiculously unlikely...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida's attempts to avoid a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco took another hit late Monday when federal judges ordered a lower court to hear a lawsuit demanding that electronic voting machines be equipped to print receipts for voters. While it was unclear whether any ruling on the lawsuit would be issued before the Nov. 2 presidential election, electoral reform activists and state officials alike warned on Tuesday that with barely a month to go, there would not be enough time to comply anyway. "It's not just, get a machine and hook it up," said Jenny Nash,...

TALLAHASSEE - Florida's election system, ridiculed and maligned during the 2000 presidential election and then rebuilt with new technology, was thrown into chaos again Monday with five weeks to go before Election Day. A federal appeals court in Atlanta reversed a lower-court judge and ordered him to hear a lawsuit that demands voters be given paper receipts when they use touch-screen voting machines so there is a paper trail in a close election. The court's decision is vindication for U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, the Palm Beach County Democrat who filed the lawsuit, and a potential nightmare for election officials in...

"Impossible." -- David Bear, Diebold What the chimp did: Simply by double-clicking the file, we opened a real Diebold audit log file, using real Diebold software. We then highlighted the records we wanted to obliterate. (Baxter, the chimp, has difficulty handling a mouse.) Baxter then hit the "Delete" key, erasing the audit log records, and then the "Enter" key, confirming the command. What is the audit log? It is an automatically generated report that, like the "black box" in an airplane, is supposed to keep a record of everything that happens in the election. Supposedly, according to Diebold, it will...

Will eager voters turn out in droves, come Nov. 2? Maybe not. A group of social and behavioral scientists, legal scholars, cyber-security experts, academics, public-interest advocates and election officials recently determined that the American system of voting is a mess. "What can go wrong? Everything," said Susan Inmann, director of elections for Pulaski County in Arkansas and a member of an 18-person panel assembled last week by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to study the challenges of the polling place.