Daily Voting News For January 23, 2007

Today is a mixed bag of articles. Officials in South Carolina have been told to have the proper amount of emergency paper ballots at the polls for the Democratic primary election this Saturday. It seems that Republicans were forced to vote on any scrap of paper available in Horry Co last Saturday.

The Registrar of Voters of Sacramento Co California, Jill Lavine, has revealed that the counties ES&S M-100 precinct-based optical-scan machines failed “Logic and Accuracy” testing for the Feb 5 primary. “Many of the county's M100 machines, which have been tested and used for several previous elections without incident, had a variety of problems. With some machines, the ballot could not be loaded at all, or only accepted if loaded in backwards. In some cases, Democratic votes were not being recorded by a scanner. With other machines, it would be Republican votes that were not recorded. And with some machines, there were no problems at all. With the election within two weeks, Lavine decided to fore go using the scanners altogether, and count the ballots centrally at the county election office.” We applaud Lavine and her staff for doing a thorough L&A test and for making the correct decision. One can only wonder as to whom ES&S will blame for this problem.

Meanwhile Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman has changed his mind again and he is now backing the state’s county clerks association which wants vote-by-mail. The governor and legislative leaders today announced legislation that will require all counties to keep poll site voting but do away with the state’s DREs and require paper ballots. It cannot be long before Coffman changes his mind again and announces his support for paper ballots at the polls....

• NAtional: Editorial - Voters don't need photo identification LINK
• National: Report: Touch Screen Ballot Design Can Cause Voter Errors LINK
• National: Columnist - Servatius: The chads are still hanging America's democracy is flawed at the most fundamental level LINK
• National: Why We Need Democracy Promotion at Home LINK
• Arkansas: Benton County - Democratic poll watchers to be on hand for Feb. 5 vote LINK
• California: Judge rules against counties in vote count dispute LINK
• California: Kings County - South Valley Voting Machines Gathering Dust LINK ` CA: Monterey County - Panel observes voting process Elections Department: Group formed to meet state requirement` LINK
• California: Sacramento County - Long election night likely Sacramento County machine flaws to delay results LINK
• California: Sacramento County equipment problems will delay primary election results LINK
• California: Sacramento County - Voting equipment problems in Sacramento lead to change of plans LINK
• California: San Diego County - Judge rejects county's election recount challenge LINK
• California: San Diego County - Hand counting of ballots can increase, judge rules LINK
• California: San Francisco County - S.F. settles suit with voting machine vendor LINK
• California: San Francisco County - City may get $3.5M from e-voting company LINK
• California: Solano County - Election oversight proposal rejected LINK
• Colorado: Ritter backs paper ballots at polls LINK
• Colorado: Ritter proposes paper ballot LINK
• Colorado: Paper Ballots Will Be Used In This Year's Elections Electronic Voting Equipment Was Disqualified In December LINK
• Colorado: Ritter: State should use paper, not electronics, to vote LINK
• Colorado: Federal election official talks about Colorado voting problems LINK
• Colorado: Garfield County's clerk and recorder says she needs an answer on voting machines LINK
• Colorado: Weld County - Weld clerk calls Ritter's paper ballot proposal "step back" LINK
• Florida: Pinellas County – Editorial - Plan for early voting snubs half the county LINK
• Florida: Sarasota County - Sarasota backs off mail-in election A special vote this spring will be done traditionally, just to be on the safe side LINK
• Iowa: Mauro: Update all of Iowa's voting machines LINK
• Massachusetts: Swampscott set to debut new voting machines LINK
• Maryland: Study Author Pans Scrapping of Maryland's Touch-Screen Voting Machines LINK
• New Mexico: Ballot Busters Will the state’s election software be reliable? LINK
• New York: Brennan Center to New York State Board of Elections: Don't Even Think About It LINK
• New York: Opinion - Voting machine deadline approaching County election commissioners face crucial choice by Feb. 8. LINK
• New York: Republican resigns from state elections board LINK
• New York: Illness might delay state's choice of new voting machines LINK
• Ohio: Brunner's election plan given rebuff Secretary of state hoping elections officials will compromise on replacing touch screen machines with paper ballots. LINK
• Ohio: Brunner: Security over cost Most counties want to stick with touch-screen voting LINK
• Ohio: Brunner wants officials to compromise LINK
• Ohio: Ohio’s vote machines lacking controls LINK
• Ohio: Lake County - Lake officials estimate cost of changing voting equipment LINK
• Pennsylvania: Editorial - Could online voting be far in the future? LINK
• Pennsylvania: Lawrence County - County to address voting machine complaints LINK
• Pennsylvania: Wayne County - Wayne considering leasing machines for April primary LINK
• South Carolina: Legislators call for more paper ballots after Horry Co. primary problems LINK
• South Carolina: Officials working to fix voting machine problems from GOP primary LINK
• South Carolina: Horry County - Staff changes not expected over primary LINK
• South Carolina: Orangeburg County - School election appeal before Supreme Court LINK
• Utah: Utah's AccuVOTE Proves to be Safe and Successful 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 Scoop.**

John Gideon Executive Director www.votersunite.org

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