November 4, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
In the state of Virginia, voters coming in from the rain have reportedly had problems when water dripped from their clothes, hands or hair onto paper ballots which later need to be optically scanned. Election officials have reported this may “spoil” the ballots, rendering them unreadable by optical scan machines. In many precincts across the country, long lines or computer glitches, or both, caused a scramble for quick fixes, usually emergency paper ballots, for those waiting on long lines.
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November 4, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates.
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November 3, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
We have seen the old punchcard ballots ridiculed for their potential flaws in 2000, in Florida. We have seen the dangers of touchscreen voting machines almost everywhere they have been used, at one point or another. Indeed, the state of New Jersey is using them even after having commissioned a study that demonstrated comprehensively they could be easily manipulated to swing an election. And none of the solutions we’ve heard seem able to guarantee an errorless or tamper-free count.
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November 3, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
2008 has already seen a heated contest for the integrity of the vote, with Republicans smearing groups like ACORN that work to register low-income and minority voters, and Democratic supporters accusing the GOP of trumping up claims about voter-fraud. We have seen repeatedly over the last 8 years, reports of major state-run operations, designed to reduce the number of registered voters able to cast ballots on election day, usingspurious claims of widespread voter fraud as a justification.
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November 3, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 4 Comments
An electronic voting machine made by Premier Election Solutions (Diebold) has been found to flip votes repeatedly to Republican candidate John McCain. A local election official in Adams County responded to the complaint by halting the machine’s use and sequestering it, so it could be examined for evidence of tampering and/or persistent malfunction.
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November 2, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Any individual, be they low-level election officials, state governors, or non-state actors, who participates in an effort to deprive legitimately registered or entitled-to-be-registered voters of their vote, should be prosecuted. The denial of Constitutional rights is not just a civil liberties issue, not simply a matter of accidental incompetence, and when it involves the actual election process, it is an assault on the government of the United States, which is ultimately supposed to be led by the will of the voter.
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October 30, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
There are reports coming out of Virginia suggesting that an unidentified person or group has been distributing fliers targeting minorities and registered Democrats, instructing them incorrectly that Election Day will be Wednesday, November 5. ELECTION DAY IS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, for everyone who has not voted early or by absentee ballot.
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October 17, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
The US Supreme Court has reversed an order to the state of Ohio to allow the Republican party to organize an effort to question or counter the right of newly registered voters to cast ballots on election day. The Republican party had sought to repeat its efforts in the 2004 election, which led to 300,000 voters being denied the vote, in a state Bush carried by just 190,000 votes, and had won the right to challenge at least 120,000 registrations, possibly more than 200,000.
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October 9, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
The state of Ohio was ground zero in the 2004 presidential election for the controversial “voter fraud” issue, which Republican officials in numerous states and in the Bush administration Justice Department used to target organizations that work with underprivileged and minority voters, and to “purge” voter registration lists of names they believe may not favor Republican candidates. Investigations are ongoing in several states and at the federal level, including an Independent-Counsel review of former Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales’ alleged targeting of political opponents.
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October 9, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
A Public Policy Polling survey of North Carolina voters gives Sen. Barack Obama a 6% point lead over Sen. John McCain, in a state no Democrat has carried since 1976. Reports suggest that new voter registration favors Democrats 6 to 1, and some have expressed concern that Republican party operatives may try to stop first-time voters from casting votes, challenging their registration or misdirecting them to incorrect polling places. The state may move toward Obama because he is “connecting” with voters on economic issues.
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September 3, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Eight years after the debacle of the 2000 presidential election, the state of Florida still has not secured its balloting system against errors, missed votes, flawed counts and tampering. In the wake of the flawed electronic counts from the 2006 Buchanan-Jennings race, Sarasota opted for paper ballots, which are counted by optical scanners. The glitch encountered in a recent primary occurred when absentee ballots entering the system would not transfer to the main tally on a central server.
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August 31, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The company now known as Premier Election Solutions —formerly Diebold, long criticized by election integrity activists for unverifiable, unreliable touchscreen machines (achieving maximum notoriety when its chief executive said he would “do anything” in his power to win Ohio for Bush in 2004)—, has acknowledged that its machines have been “losing votes”, malfunctioning, and providing erroneous counts for more than a decade, affecting elections in 34 states.
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June 29, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Zimbabwe’s 5-term president Robert Mugabe, the only one since liberation from the British nearly 3 decades ago, looks poised to serve a 6th term after holding a “presidential runoff election”, in which his opponent was forced to withdraw due to allegations of constant violence and intimidation from ruling-party supporters and paramilitaries. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had asked his supporters to vote for Mugabe if they felt their safety would otherwise be in jeopardy.
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June 23, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Robert Mugabe has been accused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, as well as numerous independent observers, of using state-backed and paramilitary violence to intimidate his opponents and “rig” the vote scheduled for 27 June. Now, the MDC’s leader Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn his candidacy for the vote, calling the entire process illegitimate. Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe in the 1st round of voting, even by the state’s official count, which many believe may have been manipulated in order to force a runoff.
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June 7, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
In a not-too-thinly-veiled effort to rig the outcome of the 27 June runoff election, in which Robert Mugabe (Zanu-PF), incumbent with 28 years in power, will contest Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC), the Mugabe regime has attacked foreign diplomats looking into charges of state-sponsored violence, banned all NGOs from the country, cracked down on foreign press, and beaten and detained members of the opposition. Tsvangirai has been detained twice in the last week.
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June 2, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has won the primary vote in Puerto Rico, over rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) by a “2 to 1″ margin, as reported by the New York Times. She claims that this most recent victory is evidence she should be the candidate in the fall: the problem, however, is that she trails in both popular vote and pledged delegates, and faces the near mathematical impossibility of surpassing Obama, who long ago had wrapped up a majority of possible primary victories, including the deep south, Texas and rural plains states.
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April 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The Zimbabwe opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, has been meeting with African leaders in an effort to shore up support against the regime of Robert Mugabe, which preliminary vote counts suggest may have lost the recent election, both for parliament and the presidency. Mugabe’s suppoerters have been fighting to keep down opposition support, while Mugabe has refused to allow vote counts to be made public.
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February 18, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The Democratic party is again facing questions about its handling of the primary process in some precincts in New York City, where initial “unofficial” tallies reported zero votes for Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, rival of local junior senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination. The undercounts occurred in precincts bordering on precincts […]
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February 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has issued a statement regarding reports of voter-registration irregularities in Louisiana that allegedly led to the denial of the vote to hundreds of people. The Obama campaign website published the following:
The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after […]
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February 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee is “exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses”. The state’s Republican party halted the count at 87% of votes counted, a margin of just 242 votes separating John McCain from Mike Huckabee, and a reported 12,000 votes […]
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February 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has issued a statement regarding reports of voter-registration irregularities in Louisiana that allegedly led to the denial of the vote to hundreds of people. The Obama campaign website published the following:
The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after […]
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February 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee is “exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses”. The state’s Republican party halted the count at 87% of votes counted, a margin of just 242 votes separating John McCain from Mike Huckabee, and a reported 12,000 votes […]
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January 10, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Across the United States, problems are being discovered with what are supposed to be the state of the art in balloting technology: digital touchscreen voting machines. Security questions were raised initially when the machines were widely distributed, by a handful of companies, with no hard-copy record of voters’ intent, which led to a nationwide movement […]
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January 10, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Across the United States, problems are being discovered with what are supposed to be the state of the art in balloting technology: digital touchscreen voting machines. Security questions were raised initially when the machines were widely distributed, by a handful of companies, with no hard-copy record of voters’ intent, which led to a nationwide movement […]
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January 1, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
1 January 2008 :: Le Monde has acquired a document that outlines irregularities recorded by observers of the Kenyan presidential poll, appearing to demonstrate fraud amounting to the altering of millions of votes: according to Le Monde, the report shows that opposition leader Raila Odinga led by as much as one million votes, a lead […]
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August 30, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
CRITICS SAY PLAN DESIGNED TO GIVE GOP UNFAIR ADVANTAGE IN NATIONAL VOTE
The Electoral College is a procedural peculiarity enshrined in the Constitution, initially intended to protect the voting power of slave-holding states, which puts the very concept of majority rule in question. A California plan to “reform” the system would grant electoral college votes to […]
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August 6, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
A California government-sponsored study has “found that virtually all voting machines used in the state are vulnerable to hackers”, creating a whirlwind of complaints from activists and defiance from manufacturers. Secretary of State Debra Bowen, along with voting rights activists have said the problem needs to be solved before next year’s presidential primary elections.
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