'Daily Voting News' For October 30, 2007

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org What is going on in Colorado? One has to wonder if the Colorado Secretary of State is truly looking out for the voters. On one hand Secretary Coffman sent a suspension letter to ES&S but on the other hand the Colorado Statesman points out that John Gardner is still employed in his old job, testing and certifying voting systems. Gardner's lack of any experience with voting systems was one of the reasons that the court found that Colorado must test and recertify every system used in the state. Instead of being replaced by someone actually familiar with testing and certification of voting systems or other technical experience Gardner is still in his job. As a check on Gardner the state has hired two consultants to look over his shoulder and review his work. The consultants are Paul Craft who has a degree in Restaurant and Hotel Management and who was, in part, responsible for the qualification of most of the failing voting systems used in the US at this time. He was on the NASED voting systems panel that rubber stamped the reports from the ITAs that were bought and paid for by the vendors. Also a consultant is Glenn Newkirk. Newkirk reviewed and approved many systems for different states. Included in his failures are the Advanced Voting Solutions voting machines that were recently found to have 1946 anomalies in their source code. Neither consultant has met a vendors product he does not like. I ask again, "What is going on in Colorado?"... **"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**