News from other states

by Catherine Dolinski, The Tampa Tribune
 

TALLAHASSEE — What's the use of paper ballots if no one looks at them? That is the question that election watchdogs continue to press, even as the state's election supervisors race to implement the 2007 election law requiring every Florida county to vote on paper ballots.

By SaveOurVotes.org      Yesterday the Maryland General Assembly approved the Fiscal Year 2009 budget, including funding to move Maryland by 2010 to a less expensive, recountable voting system based on optically scanned paper ballots. This highly popular switch, favored by nearly two thirds of voters statewide, was enacted last year in matching bills sponsored by Sen. Edward Kasemeyer (D - Baltimore and Howard Counties) and Del.

New York Times

Voters nationwide have seen that electronic voting cannot be trusted, and New Jerseyans are the latest to learn this unfortunate lesson. It is now clear that the state’s machines produced suspicious results in the Feb. 5 presidential primary. Rather than working to put doubts to rest, the machines’ manufacturer is resisting a proper inquiry. New Jersey needs to quickly get to the bottom of the problem to ensure voters that in November their ballots will be counted accurately.

By Common Cause and Iowans for Voting Integrity      Press Release - Iowans for Voting Integrity and Common Cause applauded the state House of Representatives' passage of Senate File 2347 Thursday night by a 92-6 vote. The bill requires all counties to use optical scan voting systems in the November election. Last week, the measure passed the Iowa Senate 47-1.

Independent analysis requested after lack of explanation from Sequoia
BY DIANE C. WALSHStar-Ledger Staff

New Jersey's county clerks remain troubled by the errors uncovered in the February presidential primary election, and yesterday a statewide association representing the clerks called for an independent study of the state's voting machines.

BY DIANE C. WALSH
Star-Ledger Staff

As Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi tried to verify returns in this month's historic presidential primary, she kept coming up with errors for a handful of voting machines.

The numbers from the cartridges that print out vote tallies and the paper-tape backup within the machine didn't match. Rajoppi asked her colleagues in other counties to perform the same test, and similar problems were found in voting machines for Bergen, Gloucester, Middlesex and Ocean counties.

By Verified Voting Foundation        Limited Scope Investigation Not Conclusive

Verified Voting Foundation concluded after reviewing a leaked copy of a draft GAO test report that the findings were not sufficient to exonerate the voting machines in determining what caused a massive undervote in the Florida District 13 contest of 2006.

by Jennifer Jacobs, The Des Moines Register
January 23rd, 2008  

By Ohio Secretary of State Jenniefer Brunner MEdia Release     

EVEREST Report of Findings (PDF)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s electronic voting systems have “critical security failures” which could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State, according to a review of the systems commissioned by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

By Edward B. Foley, The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is concerned that computers used to count ballots at precincts are vulnerable to hacking. In a major report released last Friday, she recommends instead counting ballots centrally at Ohio's 88 county boards of election.

Whatever the risk of hacking, however, it is a mistake to eliminate the counting of ballots at local precincts.