Also check the [Your State] Voter Registration Information link below to read a detailed profile of your state's voter registration database and state-specific voter registration policies. The report is part of the 50-state national survey titled Making the List, researched by the Brennan Center for Justice. Additionally, we recommend getting and sharing a copy of the book Count My Vote!, a voters' self-defense guide to voter registration, election regulations, and voter ID laws in all 50 states.Looking for Voter Registration Information for Your State?
Project Vote Smart has prepared an excellent guide to voter registration rules, deadlines, and procedures in all 50 states. Click the link below, then select your state from the dropdown list:
http://www.votesmart.org/voter_registration_resources.php [1]
By arrangement with publisher AlterNet, EDA is offering these handbooks at a 40% discount, just $6.00 plus postage.
Available here: Count My Vote [2]
Please inform voter registration and GOTV organizations about this important guide.
Original article appears at: http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2007/12/28/news/doc47748ec0b6ce180... [3]
County will conduct '08 election on paper ballots
By Katharhynn Heidelberg
Daily Press Senior Writer
Montrose, CO -- County residents can consider this year's election a warm-up for 2008's.
"We'll be using paper ballots," Montrose County Commissioner Bill Patterson said Thursday. "We'll be using it the same way we did it in 2007."
Several components of Montrose County's Hart InterCivic voting machines were de-certified by Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman last week. Coffman had required all four of the state's electronic voting equipment vendors to undergo re-certification in the wake of a 2006 court order stemming from a lawsuit over electronic voting machines.
Coffman de-certified some systems manufactured by three of the state's four vendors, including Hart. His report said some of Hart's equipment was conditionally approved for certification, if specified changes were made.
Hart spokesman Peter Lichtenheld previously said the company disagrees with the decision and may appeal. The company also questioned the process Coffman used.
The remedies called for were too expensive, Montrose County Clerk and Recorder Fran Tipton Long said Thursday, and that prompted her decision to use a paper ballot. (Long will retain a disabled access unit at each polling place; these are required by law.) She also plans to obtain a new, larger optical scanner that can count ballots quickly.
The scanner must be approved by the SOS and is expected to cost the county more than its current scanner, the price tag of which was $10,000.
If the new scanner is not certified, the county will resort to hand-counting, which will delay election results.
"But it's better than alternately having to buy DREs (direct recording electronic machines) that have been conditionally approved," Long said of scanner costs.
She was faced with a similar decision in 2007, when the state lagged behind in getting machines re-certified per the 2006 court order. The state said vendors had been sluggish in responding to requests for information.
Rather than spend money on machines that could be de-certified, Long decided to hold a paper-ballot election for 2007 -- and now, for 2008.
To bring equipment up to state re-certification requirements this time around, she would not only have to pay for upgrades, but also hire and train at least 10 more people. "One million dollars is a conservative figure," Long said of the possible overall costs.
"That's why I'm not willing to use an electronic machine at this time. I have full confidence in the electronic machines, but we are not going to expend additional taxpayer dollars," she said.
"It's not that their equipment is bad, it's that the state is looking at higher standards. But in doing so, they've really put a fiscal burden on the counties."
Long also said future elections were an issue, no matter how much money was spent on the current system. "We want something that's going to last for a while."
Coffman said in a Wednesday news release that he supported using paper ballots for the 2008 election, but he couldn't support allowing the all-mail election advocated by the Colorado County Clerks Association.
He said federal law still requires a handicapped-accessible voting machine to be available everywhere that voters are allowed to drop off ballots.
"No matter how the Legislature ultimately decides to conduct the election, we will still need some electronic voting machines," he said.
"Today, voters in general elections have the ability to either vote by absentee ballot or in person at a polling place. I think these choices ought to be preserved."
Long said an all-mail election would give counties breathing room.
"We need a time-out period, only for 2008, so that we're not rushed on picking equipment. We want something for 2008 and the future. We want to do this right and slowly," she said.
"I need to do what is right for our citizens. It's nothing we created ourselves; it's a reaction to what's been handed down by the secretary of state. I'm trying to take a proactive stance and not be sitting on the fence come Election Day."
Go to original article in Rocky Mountain News [4]
Email this story [5] |
Print [6]
An expert would need just 2 minutes to reprogram and distort votes
on a Diebold, one of four brands of computerized voting systems
attacked in the suit, says attorney Paul Hultin. His firm, Wheeler
Trigg Kennedy, has taken on the case pro bono for a group of 13
citizens of various political stripes.
And he's not the only one alarmed as details of the case spread this week.
The Colorado Democratic Party on Thursday urged all voters to
cast absentee ballots for the November election to avoid potential
fraud, after a key state official said in a deposition that he
certified the computer voting equipment even though he has no college
education in computer science and did little security testing.
But deputy attorney general Maurice Knaizer says Colorado is
protected against tampering because state law now requires a printout
of each computer ballot. The printout can be reviewed by the voter and
is kept at the machine for post-election audits and recounts.
If the electronic and paper tallies don't match, the paper
ballot is used, said Knaizer, who is representing Secretary of State
Gigi Dennis.
Concerns about the machines raised in the lawsuit prompted calls for reviews from both candidates for secretary of state.
State Sen. Ken Gordon, the Democratic candidate who currently is
Democratic majority leader in the state Senate, called on Dennis to
"immediately hire competent staff and perform an adequate and thorough
testing, as the law requires."
Mike Coffman, currently Republican state treasurer, said his
first act if elected would be a full review of all voting systems in
Colorado.
The case goes to trial Wednesday in Denver District Court in front of Judge Lawrence Manzanares.
The four types of computer systems in question are manufactured
by Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart, and are used in some fashion by
every county in the state, affecting hundreds of thousands of voters.
If they are barred just two months before the election, "it
would be impossible, frankly, for a number of these counties to conduct
an election in a reasonable and fair manner," Knaizer said.
Large counties could not print ballots by the Oct. 6 deadline
and could not efficiently hand-count hundreds of thousands of paper
ballots, he said.
But Manzanares could simply choose to order Dennis to come up
with additional security to prevent tampering, said Andy Efaw, one of
the plaintiffs' attorneys.
Threat from hackers, viruses
National computing experts have advised against using computers for voting because they cannot ever be secure, Efaw said.
Just this week, Princeton University researchers experimenting
with a Diebold model said that malicious software can modify all
records. They said the software can be stored on a memory card and
installed by someone in a clerk's office or at the manufacturer's in as
little as one minute. They also found that viruses could spread the
software to all the machines in a system.
Hultin said instructions for tampering with the Diebold machine have been posted on the Internet.
In June, the secretary of state's office warned counties with
certain Diebold machines that an earlier experiment installed
distorting code in just two minutes. In a letter, the office advised
election officials to add three seals to the equipment so any tampering
could be detected.
With this in addition to security procedures and post-election
audits, "we have minimized this threat," wrote Holly Z. Lowder,
director of the elections division.
Gordon and the Democratic Party were alarmed by a deposition in
the case released this week, in which the secretary of state's staffer
in charge of testing the machines says he did only 15 minutes of
security checks.The staffer, John Gardner Jr., also said he had no
college training in computer science, causing Gordon and others to
question whether he was qualified for the job. Gardner also had been
information technology chief for the El Paso County clerk, which runs
elections there.
The plaintiff's attorneys say Gardner's security checks on the
four systems did not include attempts at hacking. Instead, Gardner
merely checked whether the manufacturers included security
documentation.
"Of course" Gardner should have tried hacking, Hultin said. "Isn't that the idea of a test?"
Two elections reversed
Meanwhile, there are concerns about another form of voting
machine that would be an alternative to the machines under attack in
the lawsuit.
Last year, two Colorado elections were reversed when recounts
in tight races found that an Optech III-P optical scanner misread paper
ballots:
• In Salida, Hugh Young initially lost a city council
election to Ron Stowell by three votes. After the recount, he won by
three votes.
• In Clear Creek County, a school issue passed by six
votes, according to the electronic count, and failed by 18 when the
paper ballots were counted. The machines had failed to count more than
100 votes.
The secretary of state's office ordered 10 races audited last
year where the Optech III-P Eagle was used. It was found to have
miscounted ballots where voters skipped some races.
The Optech was decertified and is no longer used in Colorado, said County Clerk Pam Phipps.
Voting machine lawsuit
• What could happen? Computerized voting equipment
in the November elections statewide could be barred from use, forcing
election officials to scramble to come up with alternatives.
• Equipment affected: Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart where voters mark their ballots on a computer screen.
• What happens next: Trial set for Wednesday and Thursday, just six weeks before the election.
• Plaintiffs' claim: Tampering with software can cause votes to be miscounted or undercounted.
• Secretary of state's response: Equipment prints paper record so voters can check their ballots before leaving.
• Other responses: State Democratic Party called
for voters to cast absentee ballots this fall; Democratic candidate for
secretary of state Ken Gordon called for stringent recertification of
equipment; Republican candidate for secretary of state Mike Coffman
promised to review the equipment if elected.
imsea@RockyMountainNews.com [7] or 303-954-5438
Original article published by Craig Daily Press at: http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2007/dec/27/craig_briefs_dec_27/ [8]
Craig, CO — Mike Coffman, Colorado Secretary of State, will make a recommendation to the state Legislature that a polling place election using paper ballots be utilized for the 2008 presidential election, he announced Wednesday.
“I have more confidence in having votes cast on paper ballots at the polls rather than relying exclusively on electronic voting machines or in voting by mail,” Coffman said, in a press relase. “If Douglas County had paper ballots available for voters at their vote centers in the 2006 mid-term election they would not have the distinction of having the last vote cast in the country sometime after 1:00 a.m. on the following day.”
Coffman recently decertified many electronic voting machines and optical scan devices used in Colorado. He questioned the security and accuracy of the voting equipment and wants the problems resolved in time for the 2008 election.
The Secretary of State does not support a majority of county clerks across the state who want the legislature to approve an all-mail ballot for next year’s presidential election.
“Today, voters in general elections have the ability to either vote by absentee ballot or in person at a polling place,” Coffman said in the release.
“I think these choices ought to be preserved.”
Though he disagrees with the growing sentiment among county clerks for an all-mail ballot, Coffman acknowledges the clerks are overwhelmed with managing an election process that is “continually changing and becoming more and more challenging.”
“County clerks are the hardest working elected officials in Colorado, and I fully understand that switching to an all-mail ballot system will lighten their load considerably, and that’s something for the Legislature to consider,” he said. “Whichever way the Legislature chooses to go, I will work with them as well as the county clerks to make it the best election possible.”
Attached is the Colorado Voter Registration Information as set forth in Making the List, Database Matching and Verification Processes for Voter Registration as published by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University on March 24, 2006. This document contains available information about voter regtistration current as of the date of publication.
Federal law now requires, as of January 1, 2006, that states create and maintain statewide databases to serve as the central source of voter registration information. Citizens’ ability to get on the rolls (and thus their ability to vote and have their votes counted) will now depend on the policies and procedures governing the use of these databases in the voter registration process. Evidence demonstrates that poor policy and procedure choices could result in the unwarranted disenfranchisement of millions of eligible citizens attempting to register to vote. The new statewide databases, and their role in the voter registration process, are poorly understood, but extremely consequential.
This report, issued just as the state databases begin to come online, presents the first comprehensive catalog of the widely varying state database practices governing how (and in some cases, whether) individuals seeking to register will be placed on the voter rolls.
The report covers the state’s voter registration process, from the application form up through Election Day - including the intake of registration forms, the manner in which information from the forms may be matched to other government lists, the consequences of the match process, and any opportunity to correct errors. Each variation at each step of the process has tangible consequences for voters seeking to register and vote in 2006 and beyond.
IMPORTANT: Because of the possibility that voter information may differ from database to database (abbreviations, street designations, etc.) or because of data entry errors, valid voter registration data may be rejected. Individual voters are urged to contact their county clerk or local election board to determine that they are properly registered. Many such election authorities maintain online services for this purpose, other will require a telephone call or perhaps a written inquiry to determine the voter's eligibility.
As an addendum to this state report, a fill-in form for voter registration is presented which can be completed, printed and sent to the appropriate registratrar of voters (generally the county Clerk or local election board). The proper form of submission and location is included on the registration form.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Colorado_Voter_Registration.pdf [9] | 238.74 KB |
PBS News Hour profile of Colorado's 7th Congressional District and another close election in midterm 2006: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2006/profile/co_7.html [10]
Election Defense Alliance is a program of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.
Links:
[1] http://www.votesmart.org/voter_registration_resources.php
[2] http://electiondefensealliance.org/store/?page_id=4&product_id=34
[3] http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2007/12/28/news/doc47748ec0b6ce1806600932.txt
[4] http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_4994042,00.html
[5] http://electiondefensealliance.org/javascript%3Apopup%28%22/cr/cda/email/article/1%2C1249%2CDRMN_24736_4994042%2C00.html%22%2C400%2C350%29
[6] http://electiondefensealliance.org/javascript%3Apopup%28%22/drmn/cda/article_print/0%2C1983%2CDRMN_24736_4994042_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT%2C00.html%22%2C700%2C500%2C1%29
[7] mailto:imsea@RockyMountainNews.com
[8] http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2007/dec/27/craig_briefs_dec_27/
[9] http://electiondefensealliance.org/files/Colorado_Voter_Registration.pdf
[10] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2006/profile/co_7.html