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May 09, 2008 Providing legal resources and election news to California election officials and the attorneys who represent them. |
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« March 2006 | Main | May 2006 » April 28, 2006 New en banc order in PadillaThe Ninth Circuit previously granted rehearing en banc in Padilla v. Lever, and directed that the opinion not be cited by or to the court. The panel has now issued an additional order stating that "A majority of the en banc court has voted to withdraw the opinion of the three judge panel." The orginal three judge panel held that the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act apply to California recall petitions. Presumably this means that the decision may not be cited by or to any court, not just the Ninth Circuit. And it may hasten reconsideration in more recent district court decisions extending Padilla to California initiative petitions. Posted by Randy Riddle at 12:12 PM | Permalink. . . Texas Secretary of State Threatens to Decertify ES&S"Wichita Falls' early voters will use pen and paper - not electronic voting machines - to cast ballots in the joint municipal and school district election beginning Monday. City Clerk Lydia Ozuna said Thursday afternoon early voters would mark their X's on emergency paper ballots because the county's electronic voting machine vendor, Electronic Systems and Software, failed to provide the needed election information. Ozuna said the problems were because of ES&S overextending its capabilities and customer base in Texas. "I think they realize they were ... not prepared to deal with that many entities," Ozuna said. Amanda Brown, ES&S spokeswoman, confirmed paper ballots would be used during early voting but hoped her company could find an "alternative solution" before it ended. Brown said her company was "working really hard to make sure everything was ready for May 13." ES&S's lack of election readiness prompted a letter from Secretary of State Roger Williams. In the letter, Williams threatened to withhold state money, decertify ES&S as a Texas vendor and find the company in breech of contract if it did not increase its election efforts in Texas, according to Trey Trainor, general counsel for the secretary of state." The story is here. This comes on the heels of Oregon's lawsuit against ES&S for breach of contract. Update: The Indiana Secretary of State has now filed a complaint against ES&S as well. Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:13 AM | Permalink. . . More on Dismissal of Counties from Diebold LawsuitFrom a Eureka Reporter story: The California Voters lawsuit, Holder v. McPherson, filed in San Francisco Superior Court last month seeks to nullify Secretary of State Bruce McPherson’s conditional certification authorizing the purchase by counties of Diebold electronic touch screen voting equipment. Its critics say the machines have a history of security, verifiability and disability access problems for use in California elections, according to a news release. As reported previously in The Eureka Reporter, Diebold spokesman David Bear stated tests that were conducted on Diebold equipment, which its critics say show security vulnerabilities, were not done in a real environment and therefore do not reflect a realistic outcome. Although initially included in the lawsuit and at risk for potential litigation and associated costs, Humboldt County hadn’t formally approved to actually purchase any of the devices. Humboldt County Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich said the county signaled its desire in late February and approved last month a pilot program to implement the non-electronic Vote-Pad voting equipment for the June election to come up to speed on federal Help America Vote Act disability access laws. Vote-PAD, a non-electronic, booklet-style voter-assist device, which helps people with visual or dexterity impairments to vote, can be customized for different elections’ hand-counted or optically-scanned paper ballots. “We just decided that it would be the most secure way at this point,” Crnich said Thursday." Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:06 AM | Permalink. . . April 27, 2006 "Seven counties promise to use paper ballots""Seven of 18 counties sued to prevent them from using Diebold Election Systems' electronic voting machines in November's general election were removed from the lawsuit Wednesday when they gave assurances to a judge they would use paper ballots. Those counties are Humboldt, Marin, Placer, San Luis Obispo, Trinity, Tulare and Santa Barbara counties. Butte County was added to the San Francisco County suit, filed last month by Voter Action. The suit also names California, which this year approved the use of the disputed voting machine - the AccuVote-TSX, built by Diebold Election Systems, based in Allen, Texas." The article is here. Update: You read more about this development here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 11:22 AM | Permalink. . . Campaign Legal Center Launches Blog"Effective today, the Campaign Legal Center is proud to announce that it will use this website to post comments on issues of campaign finance reform, ethics and lobbying reform, media law and policy, redistricting reform and the Voting Rights Act." Posted by Randy Riddle at 11:16 AM | Permalink. . . "California's Emergency HAVA Regulation Adopted for Statewide Database Change"From electionline.org The Secretary's memorandum to county registrars, and the emergency regulation, are available here on the Election Updates website. Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:08 AM | Permalink. . . April 25, 2006 "California eyes race for nation's first primary"From the AP: "California lawmakers are considering a plan that could put the state in a race with New Hampshire to have the earliest Presidential primary. The bill would require California's secretary of state to schedule the election as early as Jan. 2 in Presidential election years and conduct it by mail. Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:17 AM | Permalink. . . April 22, 2006 Monterey County registrar of voters resigns"Tony Anchundo has mysteriously resigned as Monterey County's registrar of voters -- and his departure less than seven weeks before the June 6 primary election leaves a vacuum in the department. The reasons for Anchundo's departure were unknown late Friday. "He caught everyone off guard by quitting, especially with the election only... weeks away," said Supervisor Dave Potter. "We're all kind of mystified." News of Anchundo's resignation was delivered to area media about 6 p.m. Friday in a press release e-mailed by Maia Carroll, the county's spokeswoman. No reason was given for his resignation and Anchundo could not be reached for comment Friday evening. County Administrative Officer Lew Bauman was not available for comment. "This comes as a big surprise," said county Supervisor Lou Calcagno. "There's probably more to the story that I don't know. But I'm wanting to hear why." With the Election Department gearing up for a big election June 6, the loss of Anchundo will be difficult for the department, Calcagno said." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:44 PM | Permalink. . . April 21, 2006 Arizona Governor vetoes bill for early review of intitiatives"Governor Napolitano today vetoed a bill to allow ballot initiative supporters to get early rulings on whether a proposed constitutional amendment meets a key legal threshold that has kept several proposed major policy changes off the ballot in recent years. Napolitano says requiring a state Supreme Court ruling on whether an initiative effectively includes more than one constitutional change could force the justices to rule on measures that otherwise would not qualify for the ballot. Napolitano also says the proposed review process wouldn't assure that the court is presented multiple points of view." The story is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 05:04 PM | Permalink. . . Clerk to probe L.B. ballot problems"Did everyone who requested an absentee ballot receive it in the mail? Why were registered voters' names left off the list at their polling places? Why were so many provisional ballots cast during the April 11 municipal elections? The questions came fast and furious Monday for City Clerk Larry Herrera during a session with several office seekers and election consultants anxious to know their political futures. A week after voters went to the polls in a citywide election to pick a new mayor, five council members, city auditor and attorney and a slew of school board members, some of the race's outcomes remain unknown as authorities work to verify more than 6,000 provisional and absentee ballots. Those votes which are set to be counted beginning at 3 p.m. Friday at City Hall could determine the outcomes in the City Council District 3, 5 and 9 races as well as the Long Beach Unified School District's District 1 race. "I know people are frustrated, but we have to give it a little more time," Herrera said. The city is working this week to verify the validity of 6,202 absentee and provisional ballots received citywide April 11 that remain sealed as workers prepare to examine them for proper signatures, addresses and registration. One of the biggest questions is why so many provisional ballots were cast. The city collected about 2,200 April 11, compared with the average 500 or so received during a typical municipal election, Herrera said." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 03:41 PM | Permalink. . . "Rosemead recall has new legal life""An effort to recall Mayor Gary Taylor and Councilman Jay Imperial could be revived because a court decision Thursday undermines Imperial's legal challenge to the recall petition against him. Chief Judge Mary Schroeder of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the case of Padilla v. Lever to be heard by a panel of 11 judges. In Padilla v. Lever, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit appeals court ruled last September that recall petitions circulated only in English violate the voting rights act. The Padilla v. Lever case was used in December by Imperial to overturn the recall petition against him since it was circulated only in English. Imperial won that case in California District Court with Judge Gary R. Klausner presiding. According to the Census, 80 percent of Rosemead residents speak a language other than English at home." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:09 AM | Permalink. . . April 20, 2006 En banc review granted in PadillaRick Hasen has the story. Posted by Randy Riddle at 02:53 PM | Permalink. . . Oregon Secretary of State Sues ES&S"Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury has filed a lawsuit against Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), for breach of contract for failure to deliver the electronic voting machines that would allow people with disabilities to vote privately and independently. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires, among other things, that all states provide people with disabilities the ability to vote with the same privacy and independence as all other citizens by a deadline of January 1, 2006. The federal government can impose penalties on states that fail to meet this requirement, including withdrawal and withholding of federal funds available for elections improvements. "I'm disappointed in ES&S," said Bradbury. "They agreed to provide us with voting machines, they didn't follow through on that agreement, and that failure directly punishes people with disabilities." ES&S submitted the winning bid to a request for proposals issued by the Secretary of State in July 2005. In that bid, ES&S agreed to all of the standard state contract terms, and agreed to provide $1 million worth of AutoMark touch-screen electronic voting machines by the January 1, 2006 federal deadline. On January 10, 2006, ES&S informed the Secretary of State that it would not agree to the terms of the contract, and would not deliver the voting machines unless the Secretary changed the terms of the contract. Bradbury refused to alter the contract to meet ES&S's demands, which then led to this lawsuit. "We will not leave our elections in the hands of companies that do not follow through on their obligations, and we will not be coerced into altering our contracts," said Bradbury. The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 02:50 PM | Permalink. . . April 19, 2006 Secretary of State Bruce McPherson Announces Flexibility of HAVA Funds for CountiesYou can find the press release here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 02:09 PM | Permalink. . . More Padilla: Going back to ballotFrom the San Bernardino Sun: "A conservation group that was stymied twice in court is trying once again to slow development of the hills. Save Loma Linda has started the process of qualifying another ballot initiative that would impose strict limits on hillside and citywide development. Save Loma Linda's previous effort to get a slow-growth measure on the ballot was overturned last month by a federal judge who ruled the group violated the law when it failed to translate voter materials into Spanish. Also last month, a San Bernardino Superior Court judge decided that a separate attempt by the group to qualify referendums on two housing and commercial developments violated the state Elections Code. Save Loma Linda still believes the federal decision was wrong and will be overturned by a higher court, said spokeswoman Kathy Glendrange. In the meantime, the group has filed another initiative - with a Spanish translation - to make sure voters have a chance to decide the city's future, Glendrange said. "Our initiative will ensure that Loma Linda is run for the people, not for a few big special interests,'' she said. The proposed initiative, submitted to City Clerk Pamela Byrnes-O'Camb on Monday, contains the same principles as the initiative that was thrown out in federal court. The measure requires minimum lot sizes of 7,200 square feet throughout the city and makes developers responsible for increased traffic produced by their projects. Glendrange said the group changed a few provisions to increase support for the initiative, including broadening the exemption for nonprofit institutions and charitable organizations that wouldn't be required to adhere to more strict traffic-mitigation standards. The initiative could be considered by voters in the November general election or at a special election, Glendrange said." Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:08 AM | Permalink. . . Trouble feared at ballot box"Summit County Board of Elections Director Bryan Williams is predicting Election Day failures with the memory cards in the county's new optical scan voting system. ``I don't think we can assume anything else,'' Williams said at a meeting Tuesday, where the elections board reviewed the latest list of troubles. The voting system uses paper ballots marked in pen by the voter which are fed into a scanner. And with just two weeks to go before the election, the board continues to experience problems with PCMCIA cards, commonly referred to as memory cards, that are inserted into ballot scanners to record and tabulate those votes. On Monday, 11 cards that were working properly on Saturday experienced errors or other problems as elections staff have continued practice runs with test ballots, Williams said. ``One card is physically coming apart at the seams,'' Williams said. ``We're seeing at every point of use, a little drop off.'' Williams said that based on what he has seen so far, he can only expect that some of the 475 memory cards programmed for each county voting precinct will not work on Election Day. The main ballot tabulator, called the election reporting manager or ERM -- which is supposed to read the memory cards and report totals -- also isn't working correctly. At one point in practice runs, the tabulator was dropping off dozens of races for Republican candidates for precinct committee members. And, the machines the county purchased to accommodate disabled voters still aren't working right, even though by law they should have been available for absentee voting that has been ongoing since the end of March." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:07 AM | Permalink. . . April 14, 2006 Voting machines pulled in Indiana"New problems with Marion County's balloting system led election officials Thursday to abandon touch-screen voting machines required by federal law for the May 2 primary. The announcement came as the state's top election official said he will hold hearings into whether two suppliers of Indiana voting machines, including Marion County's, violated state law. "This is not a willful announcement of breaking the law," Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler said. "It's a report that we can't physically comply because the vendor hasn't provided what they are supposed to provide." The Help America Vote Act requires all voters be able to cast a ballot privately and independently, so Marion County spent $3.8 million in 2003 to buy 615 touch-screen machines for people with disabilities. The machines have never been used and cannot be prepared and checked in time for a mandatory test Monday, election officials said. The supplier, Election Systems & Software of Nebraska, still has not delivered the ballot files for these machines. The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:13 AM | Permalink. . . April 13, 2006 EAC Meeting on Vote Counting and RecountingThe EAC will meet on April 20 in Seattle to hear the following presentations on voting counting and recounting: Panel 1: Perspectives from states Panel 2: Research on Vote Counting and Recounting The agenda is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 05:02 PM | Permalink. . . Lawsuit Filed Over Electronic Voting Machines"A group of Allegheny County residents along with national nonprofit organization People for the American Way, have filed suit today in federal court in Pittsburgh against county, state and federal officials. They are trying to prevent touchscreen machines from being used in next month's primary election. Just five weeks ago, Allegheny County officials decided to switch voting machine companies. The lawsuit filed today says that decision risks chaos on Election Day because of the lack of time to train election officials and educate voters about the change from lever machines which have been in use for 40 years. “This rush to a new and flawed technology just weeks before the election threatens to sow chaos in the primary and compromise the fundamental rights of thousands of voters for years to come,” says Harry Litman, the former United States Attorney in Pittsburgh and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “It’s a bad deal for Allegheny County, and, we believe, a violation of federal law.” The suit, Celeste Taylor v. Dan Onorato asks the court to prevent use of machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software until the County has spent the time necessary to identify voting systems that are secure; reliable; and accessible to voters with disabilities. The plaintiffs cite elections in Texas, Florida, California, Ohio, and North and South Carolina where ES&S machines failed on Election Day." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:56 AM | Permalink. . . Vernon Saga ContinuesFrom the LA Times: "The ballots in Vernon's first contested election in 25 years remained locked at City Hall on Wednesday as the already bizarre election reached strange new heights. Election experts and veteran city clerks described the small industrial city's decision to not count the ballots in the City Council race — pending resolution of legal disputes — as unprecedented. Critics, meanwhile, said it was the latest troubling sign that the election might be tainted. "I've never heard of not counting ballots you have on hand," said Deborah Wright, executive liaison to the Los Angeles County registrar. "But you know, Vernon kind of keeps falling into this category of behavior you just don't find legal citations for. I don't suppose it's illegal, but it's very, very strange." But Angelina Reyes, city clerk in Hayward, Calif., and other cities for more than 20 years, said she believes the city was required to immediately count ballots unless it published a notice of the delay beforehand. "Usually you go to the election code as the bible, and it says as soon as the polls close, the semi-official count must begin," Reyes said. "Did they publish a notice [that] they were not going to count the ballots? City clerks are supposed to be nonpartisan and neutral." The challengers immediately called for a federal investigation into the election, suggesting that the delay occurred because the three incumbents who have been in office for as long as 50 years worried that they might lose." The city clerk, and other city officials declined to comment Wednesday. Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:51 AM | Permalink. . . April 12, 2006 Vernon officials refuse to tally election votes"City officials are refusing to count the votes from the first municipal election in 25 years, prolonging a soap opera that began in January when a trio of newcomers filed papers to challenge three longtime incumbents. After the polls closed Tuesday, City Clerk Bruce Malkenhorst Jr. said the ballot box would remain locked until pending litigation over the election is settled. The tiny city south of downtown Los Angeles has 86 registered voters - mostly city employees and relatives of the employees and elected officials. The challengers are trying to unseat Mayor Leonis Malburg, Mayor Pro Tem Thomas A. Ybarra, and Councilman W. Michael McCormick, and have filed a lawsuit that seeks to disqualify most residents from voting." You can read the article here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:30 AM | Permalink. . . April 11, 2006 Registrar files list 240-year-old voter"Local pollster Raul Furlong said he couldn't believe his eyes when he recently began reviewing the Registrar of Voters' demographic data on age groups in the lead-up to today's 50th Congressional District special election. The data showed that among the 353,000 registered voters living in the 50th Congressional District, 5,677 of them were 106 years old. One was 240 years old. Furlong said Monday the law prohibits him from releasing the name of the decidedly senior citizen, without getting permission from the registrar's office. Registrar officials said Monday that due to a heavy schedule, they would not have time to locate the person's name in their database nor grant a release to Furlong for him to release it. "My first reaction was that I knew North County was wealthy, but not so wealthy that they could live forever," said Furlong, president of El Cajon-based polling and marketing firm Datamar, Inc. If there were that many 106-year-olds living in the district, the 50th would have more people of that age than the entire country. An official with the U.S. Census Bureau said Monday the most recent census in 2000 showed 3,521 people that old living in the United States, 356 in California and just 30 in San Diego County. San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said Monday that if there are any 240-year-olds living in the county, " I'd like to meet them ---- I bet they would have lots of interesting stories." He said there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the database showing so many very senior citizens in North County. Up until about five years ago, when people filled out voter registration applications, they were not required to declare their date of birth. In those cases, registrar's officials would use the default date of 1900 in updating the database, Haas said. "These people have been on file for years and years," he said." You can read the story here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:26 AM | Permalink. . . April 10, 2006 Padilla v. Lever, continuedRick Hasen has the latest here, noting that a federal judge has concluded that Padilla applies to initiative petitions, but not referenda petitions. Posted by Randy Riddle at 10:34 AM | Permalink. . . Voter Fraud Charges ProbedFrom the LA Times: "Investigators for California's attorney general and secretary of state have launched an inquiry into allegations of voter registration fraud in Orange and Riverside counties, state officials said Friday. The investigation comes a month after the California Republican Party suspended its paid voter registration program, following the discovery by elections officials in Orange and San Bernardino counties of thousands of flawed registration forms submitted by private firms the county parties had hired. Elections officials turned over those forms to local prosecutors and the secretary of state. The state Democratic Party requested that the attorney general investigate, calling the allegations "even more disturbing than first thought." A statement released Friday by the California Republican Party said it welcomed the inquiry and that "one instance of voter fraud is one too many and any suggestion of voter fraud must be investigated." Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties have recently received complaints from residents who said they had been improperly registered as Republicans, elections officials said. It was unclear Friday whether the allegations in Riverside County stemmed from those complaints. "To my knowledge, we don't have any gross irregularities in our registrations in Riverside County," said county Registrar Barbara Dunmore. Orange County officials did not return phone calls seeking comment. The San Bernardino County district attorney's office has chosen to head its own investigation, though there appears to be "significant overlap" in the conduct of signature-gatherers in the three counties, said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer."
Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:04 AM | Permalink. . . April 07, 2006 Doubts raised about Vote-Pad voting system for disabled voters"The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors approved this week the allocation of funds necessary to implement a pilot program that will provide assistive devices for blind, deaf and disabled voters aimed at making voting more accessible. New information has raised doubts whether the county is going down the right path. The board approved Tuesday the transfer of $3,730 from the general fund to pay for a scaled-back strategy of implementing the Vote-Pad assistive devices. But at the Humboldt County Elections Advisory Committee meeting Thursday night, elections officials discussed a Wisconsin-based disability advocacy group that is questioning whether the Vote-Pad devices from Vote-Pad Inc. actually comply with federal laws and qualify for local jurisdictions to be reimbursed for federally mandated accessibility requirements. The Vote-Pad devices, which are similar to an oversized spiral-bound booklet, house the ballots and use several different tactile cues, along with programmable audio tapes, as well as a battery-powered verification tool, to guide disabled voters through the voting process. Although the Wisconsin State Elections Board approved the Vote-PAD for use in Wisconsin for municipalities that currently hand-count paper ballots, Disability Rights Wisconsin raised concerns in a March 15 letter to the state that the Vote-PAD devices have not been formally tested or federally certified and meet no minimum accessibility standards, according to the letter. In addition, based on its expert opinion, the group says that Vote-PAD is not accessible to people with a range of and disabilities. Although it is uncertain how the Wisconsin group’s concerns will affect California’s certification of the devices, Humboldt County Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich told the board Tuesday that there were two good reasons for opting for a pilot project instead of a full deployment. Although the more than $200,000 cost for enough devices for all of the county’s polling sites would likely be reimbursable from federal Help America Vote Act funds through the state, she said that large of an amount of money would gut the county’s contingencies reserves. In addition, Crnich said Vote-Pad representatives indicated that they were not sure they could get all of the materials prepared in time for the June 6 primary election." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:10 AM | Permalink. . . April 04, 2006 ES&S explains voting system failures"At its meeting this morning, an official from Election Systems & Software, the Omaha, Neb., maker of the county's new optical scan voting system, explained to the board why computer memory cards in the new system have failed repeatedly. The memory cards store vote tabulations data. Problems with memory cards began when the cards were switched from an Asian manufacturer to one in the United States, Janet Buchanan, director of account services for ES&S, told the board. Once the problems were discovered, ES&S sent one of its engineers to the Vikant Corp., the Illinois contractor that makes the cards, to help correct the problem. She said the faulty cards had a circuit board error and did not have their batteries properly charged in the manufacturing process, which caused them to have repeated low-battery or dead-battery issues. The problems have been corrected, she said. Buchanan told the board that 349 new memory cards would arrive in Akron today, all of which were made after the manufacturing errors were addressed. The county voting equipment includes 525 of the cards -- one for each of the county's 475 precincts and 50 extras. An initial batch of 176 were made overseas and never had problems. ES&S had sent several batches of cards to replace the other 349, and had believed they were all working properly. However, in additional testing Friday, more failures were discovered, resulting in the company again replacing all 349 cards." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 04:18 PM | Permalink. . . More Padilla Fallout: Petition may need Spanish translation"City officials are trying to determine whether a petition challenging a San Juan Hills Golf Course housing proposal for older adults and an amendment to the general plan was done correctly. The city was alerted today by the Orange County Registrar of Voters Office because the petition was not translated into Spanish, Assistant City Manager Bill Huber said. He said he wasn’t sure whether the petition needs to be written in a second language." The article is here. Posted by Randy Riddle at 04:16 PM | Permalink. . . Ohio Official Invested in Vote Machine Co.From the AP: "The state's top elections official said Monday he accidentally invested in a company that makes voting machines. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said he discovered the shares for Diebold Inc. while preparing a required filing for the Ohio Ethics Commission. "While I was unaware of this stock in my portfolio, its mere presence may be viewed as a conflict and is therefore not acceptable," he said in a letter included in his filing. Blackwell said his investments are directed by an accountant and financial adviser without his knowledge or help, "similar to a blind trust." He said a manager of his investments account at Credit Suisse First Boston bought 178 shares of Diebold stock at $53.67 per share in January 2005. Blackwell said the manager did not follow instructions to avoid such investments. He said 95 shares were later sold at a loss but he still held 83 shares until discovering them and liquidating them Monday, also at a loss. The state negotiated a deal with Diebold last year for $2,700 per touch-screen machine. In a statement given in May as part of a lawsuit, Judith Grady, who oversees the secretary of state's compliance with the 2002 federal voting act, said Blackwell was not involved with price negotiations." Posted by Randy Riddle at 07:18 AM | Permalink. . . April 01, 2006 Casting Vote for Easier RegistrationFrom the LA Times: "Under fire from county registrars and voter advocates, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said Friday that he would press for changes in state election law to avert widespread voting troubles that some elections officials have predicted for the June 6 primary. Trudy Schafer, program director for the League of Women Voters of California, said the changes would be a step in the right direction but do not resolve all concerns about voters' being kept off the election rolls. The dispute concerns California's new method for confirming the identities of people who register to vote or those already registered who change their addresses or other information. In January, McPherson established a statewide database to double-check registration forms by comparing names and driver's license numbers with state and federal records. Congress required the statewide database as part of a 2002 overhaul of election laws. But county officials have complained that many registration forms submitted to the database for verification have been rejected, some because voters did not list their driver's license numbers and others because of typos or slight variations in spelling." Posted by Randy Riddle at 06:02 PM | Permalink. . . |
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