'Daily Voting News' For May 16, 2009
Today I'd like to introduce you to the two men who leapt forward to assist me (Ellen) in continuing Daily Voting News on
an interim basis while we work on getting a permanent plan in place: John Washburn and Dave Klein. Their brief bios,
which they wrote, not only tell a bit about them but should also give you a sense of where some of the flavor of the DVN
intros are coming from. ..
John Washburn has been working in the software field since 1985; as a software developer from 1985-1994 and as a
software tester from 1994 to the present. He fully slipped down the rabbit hole and into the wonderland of elections and
election integrity in December of 2004. At that time he was attempting to reconcile simple elections numbers (for
example, number of ballots counted to number of ballots distributed to voters) for the November 2, 2004 general
election. The inability to examine election records or reconcile election numbers once he had the records set him on the
three paths he has walked since; open records activism, election auditing by citizens, and the testing and certification
of voting machines.
Some the achievements since then have been: Washburn v, Edman, Testing guidelines for pre election testing, Testimony before the US House and EAC, Sunshine Trouble Maker of the Week for Messin’ with Texas and the Sunshine Blogger project which resulted in winning the James Madison award.
Dave Klein dreamt as a child of having some form of involvement with election administration and integrity; however,
living in Ohio in 2004 undid years of therapy that had ended those nightmares. In 2006, he applied for a job offering
whatever assistance he could provide to new SOS-elect, Jennifer Brunner, and to his great surprise, she accepted. From
2007-2008, he served as Elections Research & Operations Specialist at the Ohio Secretary of the State’s Office directing and leveraging expert scientific, analytic,
and technical resources.
The transition to this form of public service was natural given his educational background and his prior private-sector
work, which included implementing best practices/systems to support optimal customer-service at Limited Brands. A
graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, he received a National Science Foundation Fellowship to attend graduate
school at Ohio State University where he studied persuasion, emotion, statistics, psychometrics, experimental
methodology, and social neuroscience.
Supporting his wife's pursuit of her dreams, in the fall of 2008 he left the big-stage election drama of Ohio and moved
to Minnesota, an election Eden. Or so he thought. He now serves on Minnesota Citizens for Election Integrity Organizing
Committee and on the advisory boards of NSF ACCURATE and the Ohio Center for Election Excellence.
And now onto the voting news.
Georgia: Henry County Woman Investigated for Illegal Voting LINK
Illinois: Legally affected parties have five days to contest the new election results LINK
(From the article: More than a month after April's municipal elections it turns out not all the votes were counted)
Michigan: Flint mayoral race remains between Walling, Clack after recount LINK
New York: State voting machine mandate all the 'rage' LINK
Somaliland: Somaliland strives to distinguish itself in troubled region LINK
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Published by VotersUnite.Org
Ellen Theisen, Director and Managing Editor
Dave Klein, Editor
John Washburn, Editor
Daily Voting News was founded on February 6, 2004 by John Gideon (1947-2009). To assist with Daily Voting News, please
send links to news articles to dvn-tips. To donate, click here
"To encourage citizen ownership of transparent, participatory democracy." The Creekside Declaration. March 22, 2008
**Articles and commentary included in "Daily Voting News" do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors of
Daily Voting News, VotersUnite.Org, or Scoop. Articles are selected for inclusion to inform subscribers' ability to draw their own conclusions based on noteworthy
and credible news, research, legislation, and debate bearing on the integrity of elections.**