Election Issues

Result of State's First Ever Testing of E-Voting Systems Find All Systems 'Vulnerable' to Manipulation and Theft by 'Simple Techniques'

SoS Brunner Recommends Paper Ballots Optically-Scanned at County Headquarters for Buckeye State...

The results of new, unprecedented testing of e-voting machines in the state of Ohio are in, and the findings mirror the landmark results of a similar test carried out earlier this year in California. "Ohio's electronic voting systems have 'critical security failures' which could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State," says Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in a statement which accompanied the release of the report today on the SoS' website. Brunner, a Democrat, was joined in her press conference (video now here), called today to discuss the results of the testing, by Ohio's Republican House Speaker, Jon Husted.

Ohio's Secretary of State announced this morning that a $1.9 million official study shows that "critical security failures" are embedded throughout the voting systems in the state that decided the 2004 election. Those failures, she says, "could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State." They have rendered Ohio's vote counts "vulnerable" to manipulation and theft by "fairly simple techniques."

Indeed, she says, "the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant."

In other words, Ohio's top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolen.

Brunner's stunning findings apply to electronic voting machines used in 58 of Ohio's 88 counties, in addition to scanning devices and central tabulators used on paper ballots in much of the rest of the state.

Not surprisingly in a field of eight contenders, no candidate came close to gaining a majority of the total vote in PDA's recently completed presidential straw poll.  But two candidates--Dennis Kucinich (41%) and John Edwards (26%)--combined for more than 2/3 of the total vote.  Over 15,000 PDA activists voted in the presidential straw poll.  Full results here.

After Kucinich and Edwards, only one other candidate--Barak Obama (13%)-- made it into double digits. All the rest were in single digits: Hillary Clinton (9%), Bill Richardson (5%),  Joe Biden (3%), Chris Dodd (1%), Mike Gravel (less than 1%). In contradiction to media reporting on the primary race, PDA's results parallel those of DFA, Daily KOS, the Texas Democratic Party and others whose polls show very weak support for Clinton.

EDITORIAL: The Columbus Free Press and freepress.org editorial board endorses the following reforms to ensure safe, secure and democratic elections in Ohio in 2008 and beyond.

1. The Secretary of State shall establish statewide uniform voting procedures in Ohio in compliance with applicable federal and state laws.

2. The Secretary of State shall establish statewide uniform election reporting procedures in Ohio in compliance with applicable federal and state laws.

3. The Secretary of State shall establish statewide uniform election terminology in Ohio in compliance with applicable federal and state laws.

4. The Secretary of State shall allow the party’s county central committees to remove party appointments to the county’s Boards of Elections.

5. The Secretary of State shall establish standards for well-trained and fully informed pollworkers familiar with the voting laws and regulations of the state of Ohio.

New Report from The Century Foundation Explores Problems Facing Military and Overseas Voters and Offers Ideas for Assuring Their Rights

New York City — U.S. Troops in Iraq and other places around the world are center stage in this year’s presidential elections. But when it comes to casting votes for the candidates, American soldiers and other U.S. citizens living abroad often face daunting obstacles. A new report from The Century Foundation sheds light on this problem, which has received surprisingly little public attention. It also warns that with a frontloaded primary system and a large number of caucuses, U.S. military personnel and other citizens living abroad could find it more difficult than ever to have their votes count.

In “Bringing Voting Rights to Military and Overseas Voters,” report author Tova Wang, Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation, explains how difficult it is for military and overseas voters to vote, examines the problems encountered in making sure that their votes are counted, and suggests reforms for both easing the procedural problems and improving turnout among this often neglected group of voters. 

Trumpets played “Taps” as members of The Ohio Election Justice Campaign and the public gathered around the coffin with 350 small American flags inside it, each flag representing 100 disenfranchised voters in the 2004 election. 

This November 2nd, in contrast to that cold and rainy day three years ago, was sunny and clear.  Downtown Columbus was silent save for the sound of the wind whipping the Ohio flag against the Statehouse flagpole, a sound which punctuated Tim Kettler’s opening eulogy:  

“We will visit the office of Ohio Secretary of State and Ohio Attorney General and ask why have they have permitted a system to exist that ignores election crimes, that allows private corporations to own and control our elections, and allows those most vulnerable and least heard, the poor and working poor, to be ignored once again.”

After the eulogies, the trumpets played, the pallbearers raised the casket, and the mourners followed the casket as it proceeded down E. Broad Street, past the Franklin County Board of Elections, the Secretary of State’s Office, and the Attorney General’s office. 

Cornucopia, WI—The Cornucopia Institute has sent a formal request to the Chief of the USDA’s Dairy Promotion and Research Program, requesting that the program collect almost three years’ worth of unpaid dairy promotion “check-off” assessments from the Colorado-based Aurora Dairy.

Since February 2005, the USDA has exempted organic dairy producers from paying the 15 cents per hundredweight assessment that it requires of all conventional dairy producers. Aurora initially claimed the organic exemption, but following a comprehensive investigation of improprieties, the USDA's national organic program found that its milk did not qualify as organic.

The exemption rule states that a producer must not only be certified organic, but must also “handle or market only products that are eligible for a 100 percent organic product label under the NOP as described in 7 CFR part 205.”

When I was an adolescent, Canandaigua, my small hometown in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, got its first radio station, WCGR. You can hear it to this day, at 1550 on the AM dial.

Back then, beaming out a signal of 250 mighty watts, WCGR (announcers said it stood for "Watch Canandaigua Grow Rapidly"), broadcast music, news and farm reports to a radius extending about as far as you could throw a rock.

Nonetheless, I thought it was a wondrous and glamorous place – show business! -- and often climbed the stairs to their dusty studio, up above a Main Street storefront. The twin sons of the station’s owner were schoolmates and my father bought on the air advertising time for his drugstore, so no one paid much attention to my hanging out.

One day, I came across some promotional 45 rpm records. They were interviews with celebrities – with spaces left for any given announcer at any given station to ask the pertinent questions, which were conveniently provided by the record company. In an instant, you could make it appear as if your local DJ was actually interviewing Nat King Cole or Bobby Vinton or Carol Channing.

With record low approval ratings for the Bush/Cheney regime and the albatross of an unpopular war hanging from the GOP's neck, do you think that a Democratic presidential candidate will win the White House, get us out of Iraq, and end our long national nightmare?

Think again – the mighty election theft machine Karl Rove used to steal the US presidency in 2000 and 2004 may be under attack, but it is still in place for the upcoming 2008 election.

With his usual devious mastery, Rove has seized upon the national outrage sparked by his electoral larceny and used it as smokescreen while he makes the American electoral system even MORE unfair, and even EASIER to rig. Thus the administration has fired federal attorneys when they would not participate in a nationwide campaign to deny minorities and the poor their access to the polls. It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to install electronic voting machines that can be "flipped" with a few keystrokes. And under the guise of "reforming" our busted electoral system, it is setting us up for another presidential theft in 2008.

The notoriously pro-Republican Columbus Dispatch is on another of its bizarre crusades. They're out to make Ohio safe for easily hacked and illegally manipulated computer voting machines. Using the disgusting tactics pioneered by the tobacco, nuclear and Big Oil companies, the Dispatch has endorsed a position where compromised vendors who work for the secretive voting machine manufacturers are unbiased and independent academics who come to informed, factually-based opinions, are biased.

In the Dispatch's editorial fantasy land, the "...busy election [of 2006] went ahead without significant problems, and there was no evidence that the results were tainted." Apparently, Dispatch reporters and editors aren't allowed to read other Ohio newspapers or, for that matter, their own website.

On August 7 of this year, Dispatch reporter Mark Niquette wrote: "Voting machines used in more than half of Ohio's counties were determined to be vulnerable to tampering in studies completed in California and Florida, reports show."