May 15, 2008

Providing legal resources and election news to California election officials and the attorneys who represent them.

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January 31, 2007

" County: Instant Run-Off Voting on Schedule"

"The office of the Alameda County Registrar of Voters believes that implementation of Instant Runoff Voting in the county is on schedule for implementation in the fall elections of 2008 and expects software from vendor Sequoia Voting Systems to be delivered sometime this spring.

“Sequoia hasn’t finished writing the program yet, but we understand that it is on a fast track,” the registrar’s Public Information Officer Guy Ashley, said in a telephone interview this week.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) eliminates runoff elections in elections with more than two candidates running by allowing voters to rank the candidates by order of preference. In the past, in elections that required a candidate to get more than 50 percent of the vote to win, runoffs between the top two candidates were necessary in Alameda County in instances where no candidate’s vote total cracked the 50 percent barrier. By allowing voters to choose and rate candidates by order of preference in the original election, IRV promises to mathematically select the candidate who is favored by a majority of voters without the necessity of a runoff.

Under the system to be implemented in Alameda County, voters will be limited to ranking the top three candidates in any given election.

Voters in the Alameda County cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro have all passed referendums in favor of implementing IRV in their elections.

The contract with Oakland-based Sequoia stipulates that test run of the IRV-capable election software must be available in November of 2007, a full year ahead of the first county election in which it is scheduled to be implemented."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:55 AM | Permalink. . .

January 26, 2007

"California Rush Reflects Primary Front-Loading Trend"

From the New York Times

"The push to shift California’s 2008 presidential primary to the earliest date possible in February — promoted by popular Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — has reached the state’s legislature, where passage looks increasingly likely.

If enacted, the rescheduling of California’s primary alone would take the “front-loading” of the presidential nominating process to unprecedented levels.

And California, by far the nation’s most populous state, may very well be joined by other sizable and delegate-rich states, as reported Thursday by Adam Nagourney of the New York Times.

Together, these states, self-motivated by a desire for more influence over who wins the nominations, may accomplish a goal long shunned by the national political party organizations: seriously diluting the primacy of the traditional first-of-the-nation events in less populous states, the Iowa caucuses (currently scheduled for Jan. 14) and the New Hampshire primary (slated for Jan. 22).

The proposed Feb. 5, 2008 primary in California not only would take attention from the contests in those states, but also from two states that the Democratic National Committee has itself moved up to address complaints that Iowa and New Hampshire have had too much say: Nevada, where Democratic caucuses are currently scheduled for Jan. 19, and South Carolina, whose primary is penciled in for Jan. 29.

Lawmakers in both the California Assembly and Senate introduced legislation that would move the presidential primary to the first Tuesday in February.

The shift would not be without recent precedent. Although the statutory date for the primary remains the first Tuesday in June, the state, acting under temporary measures, has progressively moved its presidential primary earlier and earlier: from June 2 in 1992 to March 26 in 1996 to the first Tuesday in that month (March 7 in 2000 and March 2 in 2004).

But in the front-loading frenzy of each of those years, enough states leapfrogged California to determine the nominees even before the Golden State weighed in."

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:20 AM | Permalink. . .

January 24, 2007

"Earlier primary could cost $90 million"

"California will have to spend as much as $90 million to move its 2008 presidential primary to early February, and registrars across the state are hoping they won't get stuck with the bill.

"There are lots of concerns being expressed,'' said Steve Weir, Contra Costa County's top elections official and president of the state's county clerk's association. "No one has money in the budget for an extra election.''

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislative leaders of both parties support a bill that would move the state's presidential primary to Feb. 5 and leave the rest of the state's legislative and congressional races on the traditional June ballot. The earlier election, they argue, would make California a player in the presidential nomination races and force both Republican and Democratic candidates for president to campaign in California and address issues important to the state.

"The state Democratic Party has always been supportive of having the primary earlier so we can have more influence on the presidential race,'' said Roger Salazar, a party spokesman.

It was a different story less than two years ago, when Democratic Party leaders and many other interest groups complained bitterly that the November 2005 special election proposed by Schwarzenegger was both too expensive and completely unnecessary because of the primary already scheduled for June 2006.

An election in February 2008 would be much tougher to pay for than the special election was, said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who has yet to take a position on whether the presidential primary should be moved.

Although the total price tag would be about the same, many California counties already had money budgeted for the local elections scheduled for November 2005, so the state only had to come up with about $35 million in new money, she said.

But since February is typically an election-free month in California, "in this situation you would expect that the total $85 (million) to $90 million would be an additional cost,'' Bowen said.

While most of those costs would be paid by the counties, which would do the work of running the new statewide election, "I would expect the counties would demand to be compensated for their costs, as they did in the November 2005 special,'' she added."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:30 AM | Permalink. . .

January 23, 2007

"California bills call for early presidential primary"

"California is considering moving up the date of its presidential primary again in hopes of gaining more clout in picking White House nominees, a little more than two years after abandoning a similar effort.

State Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, said Friday that he plans to introduce a bill on Monday that would move the primary from June to February, making it one of the earliest in the country.

"California is the biggest and most influential state in the union, yet our current June presidential primary virtually ensures that the nominees will be determined long before our voters cast their ballots," Calderon, the chairman of the Senate elections committee, said in a statement.

A February presidential primary will encourage candidates to debate issues important to Californians, he said. Assemblyman George Plescia, R-La Jolla, introduced a similar bill in the Assembly on Thursday.

California, which has 55 electoral votes, has traditionally held its primary elections in June, going back to 1946. But in 1996, it began experimenting with a March primary in hopes of giving its voters a bigger say in determining who wins the White House.

Other states moved up their primaries and caucuses, as well. By the time California's March elections were held, the nominations were locked up.

In 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation moving the primary back to June. The measure's author, then-Sen. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, said the change to March was a failure that had reduced voter turnout, made the campaign season unreasonably long and boosted campaign costs for other candidates.

But Schwarzenegger said earlier this week that he would support a move to February, complaining that presidential candidates only visit California to raise campaign donations."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:49 AM | Permalink. . .

"Report details election delays"

"Riverside County's 25-year-old absentee-ballot system hindered the counting of a record number of absentee ballots in the Nov. 7 election, the registrar of voters said Friday.

In a 22-page report heading to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Registrar Barbara Dunmore detailed reasons for the long waits at polling sites and the delayed posting of many of the 160,000 absentee ballots received by her office.

Candidates and voters in close races where ballots were outstanding -- such as the 80th Assembly District -- waited more than two weeks before learning the final results.

County supervisors in November asked Dunmore to produce the report to help them understand why their offices were deluged with complaints from voters and to propose remedies to the problems.

The report comes as a special elections review panel of citizens, appointed by the supervisors, prepares to meet for the first time Tuesday to begin reviewing and recommending changes to the system

Marcia McQuern, a member of the panel, said she would study Dunmore's report from the perspective of someone who does not work inside the county."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:47 AM | Permalink. . .

"SF TECH EXPERTS TO STUDY ELECTRONIC VOTING"

"The Department of Elections in San Francisco is enlisting software and system security experts in the community to tackle the question of ensuring the integrity of electronic voting.

A task force announced recently is being created to review source code -- the technical language that amounts to a recipe for a computer program -- in its application to electronic voting machines.

Like other local governments across the nation, San Francisco has paid private vendors to provide electronic voting machines.

Though the machines' computer interfaces have generally won acclaim for voter ease-of-use, problems have sprung up with reports of machines not operating properly, or election results that may have been tipped by faulty collection of actual voter preferences.

The manufacturers of voting machines have resisted the public release of the source code underlying their technology, citing security and proprietary information concerns.

The balance sought by the Department of Elections is between transparency -- making sure a voting system is on the level and operational -- and security from tampering.

The task force will also be asked to provide a security analysis of San Francisco's voting system and report on its recommendations."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:44 AM | Permalink. . .

January 10, 2007

More on Secretary Bowen's Appointment of Lowell Finley

"California's electronic voting era could be facing a very quick conclusion as one of the nation's most visible e-voting critics will be supervising the state's approval of voting machinery.

Lowell Finley, a Berkeley attorney who's been involved in suits against voting machine manufacturers, the California secretary of state, San Francisco and Alameda counties and the ongoing dispute over electronic voting in Florida, is taking over as deputy secretary of state.

Finley is one of the first hires made by newly elected Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who took her oath of office Monday.

Finley will be directly involved in reviewing voting systems in the state and it's not much of a stretch to suggest that the companies that build the electronic systems are starting to sweat."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:07 AM | Permalink. . .

January 09, 2007

"E-voting critic earns state post"

"A Berkeley lawyer who has fought electronic voting in California and a half-dozen other states has been tapped by Secretary of State Debra Bowen as her deputy in charge of voting machinery.

Lowell Finley, co-founder and co-director of the election-integrity group Voter Action, has pulled out of lawsuits against elections officials in California, Florida, Ohio and other states in order to accept the post of deputy secretary of state.

Bowen, who was sworn in Monday, still is figuring out the management structure for her office, but she expects Finley to have a lead role in her promised "top-to-bottom review" of voting systems used in the state, according to chief deputy secretary Evan Goldberg.

"She thinks Mr. Finley is an excellent person to help her do that top-to-bottom review," Goldberg said. "He will be the lead person dealing with voting-system technology issues."

Finley, 54, could not be reached Monday night, but Holly Jacobson, co-director of Voter Action, cheered his new job in an open Internet letter to supporters.

"Lowell's appointment to one of the nation's most important state positions, overseeing election standards and voting machine certification for approximately one-fifth of the nation's voters, is a victory for Voter Action, election integrity advocates and voters across the United States," she wrote.

Finley is a longtime elections lawyer who co-founded the California Political Attorneys Association 15 years ago and handled several redistricting and minority voter access cases before he saw the spread of touchscreen voting machines in his home county and elsewhere in California. Working with Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, Finley sued Diebold Election Systems Inc., alleging that the firm made misrepresentations to Alameda County and California to sell its voting machines. Diebold settled the case for $2.6 million."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:49 AM | Permalink. . .

January 08, 2007

Debra Bowen's Innauguration

You can watch Debra Bowen's innauguration here today at 2:00 p.m.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:34 AM | Permalink. . .

"Testing the Testers"

From the New York Times editorial:

"There is by now no doubt that there are serious problems with electronic voting machines: they fail to record votes, and even flip votes from one candidate to another. Election officials like to defend the machines by noting that they have been certified by independent testing labs. But the certification process has long been deeply flawed, and last week there was even more disturbing news — that the leading testing lab has been unable to meet the federal government’s standards.

Since last summer, Ciber Inc., the largest tester of voting machine software, has been unable to meet federal quality standards that will take effect later this year.

It is disturbing that if Christopher Drew had not reported this in The Times, the public still would not know. The Election Assistance Commission, the agency that evaluates the labs, did not reveal that Ciber fell short, and is still not saying what is wrong. Ciber, which is still working on meeting the standards, did not return our phone call.

Many Americans are using electronic voting machines that were certified by Ciber. Were those certifications done properly? Did whatever deficiencies Ciber has now exist then? No one is saying.

Since many jurisdictions, and some whole states, now use electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper record, certification is extremely important. It is one of the few ways of determining whether a machine wrongly records votes, either by accident or by design.

Even before the news about Ciber, certification was a troubled process. The biggest problem is that the voting machine manufacturers pay the labs to do the examination and certification. This is a conflict of interest. If a lab raises too many concerns, it risks losing a client to a more compliant competitor.

There is also too little transparency. The labs, which see themselves as working for the voting machine companies, do not tell the public when they find problems or what those problems are.

Congress should pass legislation fixing the system. The vendors should continue to pay the costs, but the government should choose and pay the labs. That would make the labs responsive to the correct customer — the public.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 08:23 AM | Permalink. . .

January 05, 2007

"3 sentenced in California voter scam"

"Two signature gatherers charged with tricking Orange County voters into registering as Republicans were sentenced to three years’ probation.

Jason Holly, 36, and Jessica Sundell, 23, were among a dozen people arrested last fall and charged with fraudulent completion of affidavit of registration, a felony.

According to prosecutors, the recruiters went to shopping malls and campuses and asked residents to sign petitions for lower taxes or stricter sex offender laws, then tricked them into signing voter registration cards for the Republican party. The registration drive paid up to $10 per registrant."

The article is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 11:54 AM | Permalink. . .

"Feds Failed to Warn on Flawed E-Vote Lab"

"The Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which is responsible for accrediting testing labs that inspect electronic voting machines, failed to notify local officials that it has refused to accredit Ciber, which tests the software for most of the electronic voting systems currently in use.

Ciber was allowed to certify software patches, such as the ones that fix problems that surfaced in the run-up to November's mid-term elections, notably in Maryland, where e-poll book devices caused havoc during the 2006 primaries.

Officials in California and other states also relied on a report from Ciber that dismissed concerns raised by computer experts who demonstrated security flaws in electronic voting machines.

Local election officials were not made aware of Ciber's status, however, reinforcing claims by election integrity activists that the EAC is more concerned with protecting voting machine vendors than the rights of the electorate.

In testimony given to the House of Representatives on July 19, 2006, EAC Commissioner Donetta Davidson noted that her agency had enacted "a certifying process for the first time," but made no mention of Ciber at the hearing.

The initial assessment of Ciber was completed on July 20."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at 09:08 AM | Permalink. . .

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