Holt bill voted out of committee
By Mike Surrusco
Posted on Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 02:20:52 PM EST
Baby steps. Who knows if and when this thing will get to the floor, but you have to celebrate even small victories. The bill that was just passed out of the House Administration Committee would allow states that choose to upgrade their voting machines to ones that have a paper trail to use money made available under the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the wake of the 2000 Florida debacle. As we all know, there are some pretty sketchy voting machines out there, and some states are having buyers remorse after rushing to replace their antiquated lever systems.
Colorado's Elections Need Rethinking
By Meg Costello
Posted on Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 12:20:46 PM EST
Colorado's Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, announced yesterday that most of the voting machines used in the state have been decertified. In a highly anticipated decision, the Secretary said that the machines are unreliable and unsecure and therefore cannot be used for the 2008 elections. It's not yet clear if the move means counties will need to purchase new equipment or if they can work with machine-makers and the secretary of state to reassure voters and the state that the equipment works. It is clear that Coffman's decision to "decertify" machines made by three of four manufacturers -- Sequoia Voting System, Hart InterCivic and Election Systems and Software, or ES&S -- will have far-reaching impact, Coffman and others said. At Common Cause, we fight to ensure that our votes are counted accurately and with integrity. If that means decertifying our electronic voting machines because they are unreliable, then the decision was a necessary one. However, we also believe that we cannot take away options for voters. Encouraging participation in our elections should be a top priority for our election administrators. "About 55 percent of the voters, the majority of Colorado, vote at polling places," said Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Colorado Common Cause. "If we eliminate that option, we run the risk of leaving voters out." Flanagan said the situation is "challenging" and that all sides need to put their "heads together to come up with a solution." Florida House and Senate pass paper ballot law! And more!
By Barb Burt
Posted on Thu May 03, 2007 at 04:29:41 PM EST
Here's an update on the fast changing world of election reform. Florida's House unanimously passed the same bill that passed the Senate and that Governor Crist will sign. Who'd have thought this was possible a year ago! Kudos to the activists in Florida who've fought night and day for years for this. Word has just come in that the scheduled committee mark-up on HR 811, "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessiblity Act of 2007" (AKA the "Holt bill") has been postponed due to next Tuesday, May 8, due to the number of proposed minority amendments. See this DailyKos comment by Ian Storrar. Yesterday, the U.S. House voted to ask the GAO to investigate the case of Sarasota's District 13 voting problems. For more, read The Hill's report. The Kansas legislature has killed a Photo ID bill. And evidence continues to mount in the link between the DOJ U.S. Attorneys Firing scandal and efforts to create a perception of rampant voter fraud, as described in this hard-hitting McClatchy article, " 2006 Missouri's election was ground zero for GOP." I'll end with this juicy quote: The preoccupation with ballot fraud in Missouri was part of a wider
national effort that critics charge was aimed at protecting the
Republican majority in Congress by dampening Democratic turnout. That
effort included stiffer voter-identification requirements, wholesale
purges of names from lists of registered voters and tight policing of
liberal get-out-the-vote drives.
Bush administration officials deny those claims. But they've
gotten traction in recent weeks because three of the U.S. attorneys
ousted by the Justice Department charge that they lost their jobs
because they failed to prove Republican allegations of voter fraud.
They say their inquiries found little evidence to support the claims.
Few have endorsed the strategy of pursuing allegations of voter
fraud with more enthusiasm than White House political guru Karl Rove.
And nowhere has the plan been more apparent than in Missouri.
"Unprecedented challenges" this November
By Andy Ramish
Posted on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 06:25:01 PM EST
An op-ed in the Washington Post today warned that electronic voting machines may not be ready for prime time this November. The op-ed, written by former Republican governor Dick Thorburgh of Pennsylvania and former Democratic governor Richard Celeste of Ohio, states that:
...we believe it will be essential this year that jurisdictions have backup and contingency plans that anticipate a wide range of possible failures in their electronic voting systems, including those that occur in the middle of the voting process on Election Day (or days).
As Thorburgh and Celeste point out, this year's election is likely to be a contentious one. Even Adam Duritz is telling people to vote (incredible concert on Saturday at Nissan Pavilion). The bottom line is that democracy only works if election results are credible. The op-ed offers a few solutions:
Jurisdictions need to come up with contingency plans for such November problems, if they haven't done so already. One possible example: Make preparations to fall back to paper ballots if necessary. ... applicable backup technologies such as paper trails, which provide an independent, permanent record of activity on a voting machine, might already be in place.
Here's hoping that the states are listening. And Congress, too -- H.R. 550 is set to go in front of the House Administration committee this September. Common Cause and Governor Richardson Promote Paper Ballots
By Matt Brix
Posted on Thu Jul 13, 2006 at 04:45:14 PM EST
From left to right: Larry Norden of the Brennan Center, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Common Cause VP for Election Reform Barbara Burt.
Hey everyone. This is Matt from Common Cause New Mexico. This week, secretaries of state and election officials from all over the country converged on Santa Fe for the annual meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State. The three-day meeting was attended by Common Cause Vice President for Election Reform, Barbara Burt, as well as Common Cause New Mexico Board Chair Jack Taylor. Jack also serves on the Common Cause National Governing Board.
Taking a break from the panel discussions, meetings and talking with various elections officials, Barb held a press conference on Wednesday with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. You can read about the press conference here and here.
Barb had this to say about the press conference:
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