Overview
Nov 06 2008
It is important not only that everyone be able to cast a ballot, but that every vote is counted and meaningful. Voters too often feel their vote won’t matter, whether because they don’t believe in the integrity of the voting system or because they are stuck in non-competitive voting jurisdictions.
Several fundamental reforms, from improved election integrity measures to redistricting reforms can support the integrity of the electoral process and create elections that enhance voters' ability to influence electoral outcomes and have their voice truly heard in the political process.
From The Dispatch
Core Analysis
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Clean and Fair Elections: Policy Options for 2009 - Clean and Fair Elections: Policy Options Download a PDF copy of "Clean and Fair Elections: Policy…
In the News
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TN: Election Reform Activists Go on High Alert Against Senate Attack - The Nashville Scene - Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is making good on his pledge to give his top priority to delaying the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act. Ramsey has placed it on Tuesday's Senate agenda, one of only five bills up for votes before the start of the special session on education reform.
Election reform activists have been spurred into action and hope to mobilize in time to stop Ramsey and the Republican-run Senate. "This means we have only one day to flood the Capitol with calls," Liberadio(!) cohost Mary Mancini tells supporters in an email alert.
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Diebold May See Recount - NY Post - The Department of Justice could vote down an already-completed merger of the two biggest makers of voting machines.
The Justice Department, Florida and 13 other states have opened investigations into the September marriage between Election Systems & Software and Diebold's Premier Election Solutions, which played a controversial role in the 2004 presidential election, according to a source with direct knowledge of the process.
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Black leaders urge census to change how it counts inmates - Washinton Post - A coalition of African American leaders concerned about minorities being undercounted in the 2010 Census called Wednesday for inmates at federal and state prisons to be tallied in their home communities instead of the towns where they are incarcerated.
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FL: Voting-machine firm merger investigated - Miami Herald - Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting an anti-trust investigation of a voting-machine company merger that would create a near-monopoly over the levers of democracy in Florida and much of the United States.
McCollum's office has issued at least six subpoenas covering every major voting-machine company as part of a civil investigation of Election Systems & Software's $5 million acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s elections division -- a merger that would give a private company too much power over the machines used to castvotes, voting-rights groups say.
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TN: Ruling on Voting Machine Law Leaves Wiggle Room on Both Sides - Memphis Flyer - Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and state Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins may have dodged the bullet, but it would appear from a ruling Thursday by Chancellor Russell T. Perkins in Nashville that a pistol is still pointed at them on the matter of enforcing the 2008 Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA).
Chancellor Perkins denied the immediate injunctive relief sought by Common Cause of Tennessee and associated counsel, including University of Memphis law professor and county commissioner Steve Mulroy, but explicitly invalidated the persistent claim by defendants Hargett and Goins that no acceptable voting machines are available to carry out the act’s mandates.
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PA: Election results in question after voting machine glitch discovered - Times-Tribune - A glitch in Lackawanna County voting machines might have cost Councilwoman Janet Evans and tax collector candidate Bill Courtright as many as 2,452 votes each, and is spurring questions about the accuracy of other counts.
Director of Elections Maryann Spellman Young blamed the glitch on a lack of specific computer coding for straight-party voting by the machine manufacturer, Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb.
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US: Schumer Announces Senate Committee to Conduct Review of Proposed Diebold Merger - U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), the Chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised new concerns Friday over Diebold’s proposed sale of its voting machine business to its biggest competitor, and announced that his Rules Committee staff would begin a formal review of potential problems posed by the merger. Schumer announced he would be seeking input from state and local election officials to investigate the deal’s impacts on the administration of elections across the United States. The findings will be compiled into a public report that could be shared with the Department of Justice.
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Op-ed: Voting Machine Variety - Virtual Monopoly Dangerous - Lakeland Ledger - When an important product is under the control of a virtual monopoly, it rarely gets better. And make no mistake: U.S. voting technology needs to improve.
That cause is not likely to be helped by the recent merger of ES&S (the dominant Election Systems & Software) and Premier Election Solutions (formerly a subsidiary of Diebold). Together, they will serve nearly 70 percent of the nation's voting precincts.
Even before the merger, the field had few manufacturers able to compete for contracts with elections supervisors. Now, there will be even fewer.
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Common Cause sues Tennessee over paper ballot law -
Memphis Commercial Appeal - The citizen-advocacy group Common Cause Tennessee filed a lawsuit in Davidson County Chancery Court on Thursday seeking to compel the state to deploy paper ballots and to have scan voting systems in use statewide by the November 2010 elections.
The legislature in 2008 overwhelmingly approved the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act, requiring the replacement of the paperless voting systems in use in 93 of the 95 counties with paper ballots and precinct-level optical scan systems. Advocates say those systems allow for recounts and audits of actual ballots.
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Voter group challenges Diebold voting machine sale - AP - A voter advocacy organization asked the U.S. Justice Department Tuesday to undo the sale by Diebold Inc. of its voting machine business, saying the transaction promotes a monopoly.
Voter Action, based in Washington, D.C., said in a letter to the department's antitrust division that the transaction is a grab for market share. The sale creates monopoly power in violation of federal antitrust laws, the group said.
Resource Organizations
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Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) - EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. They work on a variety of privacy and integrity related voting issues, and host the National Committee for Voting Integrity.
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National Committee for Voting Integrity - The National Committee for Voting Integrity (NCVI) is an EPIC project that brings together experts on voting issues from across the country to promote constructive dialogue among computer scientists, elections administrators, voting rights advocates, policymakers, the media and the public on the best methods for achieving in practice: fair, reliable, secure, accessible, transparent, accurate, accountable, and auditable public elections. In keeping with the goal of public election administration we are working to ensure that election systems preserve the secret ballot, accuracy, privacy, integrity, and the proper tabulation of the voter's intent regardless of his or her physical condition, language of origin, or literacy ability.
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Voter Action - Voter Action is a national non-profit organization that seeks to ensure election integrity in the United States through legaladvocacy, research, and public education. We aim to protect an openand transparent election process, one in which our elections at thefederal, state, and local level are accessible and verifiable. Wesupport the basic civil and political rights of all voters to casttheir ballots in an independent manner and to have to their votesaccurately recorded and counted. We seek to reclaim our elections forthe public domain, controlled by the voters and not by privateinterests.
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Voters Unite! - Voters Unite! is a national non-partisan organization dedicated to fair and accurate elections. It focuses on distributing well-researched information to elections officials, elected officials, the media, and the public; as well as providing activists with information they need to work toward transparent elections in their communities.
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