'Daily Voting News' For January 24, 2007

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org The collusion on the part of some national elections officials is beginning to come to light due to the hard work of some researchers like Michael Richardson who reports [see below] "Election Assistance Commission Executive Director Thomas Wilkey moved to the EAC after serving on the National Association of State Election Directors Voting System Board, which he chaired. Wilkey's current boss at the EAC is Donetta Davidson, Chair of the federal commission. Davidson is a former president of NASED and served with Wilkey on the Voting System Board, which was tasked with certifying "independent testing authorities" to perform tests on electronic voting machines used throughout America." Richardson also mentions that an "ex officio" member of that board was Shawn Southworth, the voting systems tester for Ciber labs. // According to an article in TheHill [see below] "A new academic study of voting in Florida's 13th district congressional race refutes the prevailing opinion of experts that the large undervote in the race in November was likely due to poor ballot design. The new study points to an error message that the experts say correlates with the undervotes, as well as to voting patterns that show unusually high undervote rates for Democratic voters. The study's authors say more information, specifically the secret software used by the voting machines, is required to draw any real conclusions." // Today was also a big news day. Two election workers in Ohio were found guilty of misdeeds during the 2004 presidential recount and Virginia has taken one step closer to ridding themselves of DRE voting machines....

National: EAC's "New York Brother" and "Sis" responsible for NASED's certification of banned test lab Ciber, Inc. LINK

National: Diebold Voting Machine Key Copied From Photo At Company's Own Online Store! LINK

National: "Tiered Election Audits" for the Layman LINK

National: Elections Official Calls 2006 Vote a "Success" LINK

CA: Nevada County - Group probes viability of Diebold LINK

CA: Riverside County - Overhaul sought for Riverside County's absentee ballot system Nearly one third of county's voters in November mailed in their ballots, and many went uncounted for weeks, a report says. LINK

CA: Riverside County - Registrar report: Voter turnout overwhelming LINK

CO: Larimer County - State officials eye voting machine security standards LINK

FL: Lawmakers told Fla. needs paper trail to restore voter confidence LINK

FL: 'Paper trail' proposal for elections advances in state LINK

FL: Sarasota County - Recount method a touchy issue LINK

FL: Sarasota County - Jennings campaign to tout study discounting ballot design theory LINK

FL: Sarasota County - New Report Examines Undervotes in Florida's 13th District LINK

IN: Editorial - Avery concerned with election reform LINK

IN: Opinion - Lee Hamilton - Other Voices - We urgently need to fix our voting system LINK

MD: Lamone: Don't ditch the touch-screen voting machines Paper receipts on electronic machines is 'a non-solution to a non-problem,' expert says LINK

NY: New voting-machine delay arises LINK

OH: New secretary of state says trust of voters must be won LINK

OH: Cuyahoga County - 2 election workers convicted of rigging '04 presidential recount LINK

PA: Northampton County - Committee to review voting process sets meetings LINK

TX: Washington County - County trims voting machine rental charges LINK

VA: Touch-screen machines voted out LINK

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or OpEdNews.Com**