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11 January 2008 The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has issued a statement regarding reports of voter-registration irregularities in Louisiana that allegedly led to the denial of the vote to hundreds of people. The Obama campaign website published the following: "The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after receiving widespread reports from Democrats across Louisiana who reported that they were not allowed to vote because their party affiliation had been switched." [Full Story] ELECTION IRREGULARITIES: WASHINGTON GOP PRIMARY CALLED WITH 242 VOTE MARGIN AT JUST 87% OF COUNT The presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee is "exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses". The state's Republican party halted the count at 87% of votes counted, a margin of just 242 votes separating John McCain from Mike Huckabee, and a reported 12,000 votes tallied to that point. [Full Story] SUPER TUESDAY PRIMARIES: NEW MEXICO FACES QUESTIONS OF PROCESS INTEGRITY IN DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS Reports from New Mexico are demonstrating a range of problems that faced voters during the Super Tuesday "nationwide primary" Democratic party caucuses there. The New Mexico caucus system is run by the party itself, and involves actual paper ballots, cast by each individual voting. But the list of voters eligible to participate is not maintained by the party itself or by the state, but instead by ES&S, an electronic voting-machine manufacturer. [Full Story] SUPER TUESDAY PRIMARIES: BALLOTING IRREGULARITIES REPORTED IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, NEW JERSEY & GEORGIA As the most widespread presidential primary vote in US history took place yesterday, across the continent and beyond (American Samoa also voted), there were glitches, confusion and unjustifiable waits in states across the country. Three examples stand out: touchscreen machines failing in New Jersey, a suspiciously confusing ballot in Los Angeles, and multiple irregularities in Georgia, where long waits, questionable ID laws and more failing Diebold machines made voting a serious challenge by any rational standards. [Full Story] TOUCHSCREEN VOTING MACHINES PUT IN QUESTION INTEGRITY OF US ELECTION PROCESS Across the United States, problems are being discovered with what are supposed to be the state of the art in balloting technology: digital touchscreen voting machines. Security questions were raised initially when the machines were widely distributed, by a handful of companies, with no hard-copy record of voters' intent, which led to a nationwide movement calling for "verified voting", or voter-verified paper trails. [Full Story] IOWA CAUCUSES COMPLICATE, ELUCIDATE MEASURE OF VOTER SUPPORT Often treated by mass media reporting as an "idiosyncratic" or "archaic" process, the Iowa caucuses are voters' first opportunity to weigh the value of the spectrum of candidates running for the office of the presidency. A caucus is not a vote, as such, but rather a discussion that ends with voters standing in the corner —quite literally— of the candidate they support. [Full Story] PUTIN'S UNITED RUSSIA PARTY SAID TO BE USING STATE POWER TO BLOCK OUT RIVALS Reports from across Russia indicate that by various means, state authorities are pressuring organizations and institutions of all kinds to force mass voter turnout for Pres. Putin's United Russia party. The Kremlin denies the allegations, but at least one high ranking election official has said he was given orders to ensure that United Russia receive 'double' the number of votes forecast by current opinion polling. [Full Story] CALIFORNIA ELECTORAL COLLEGE PLAN MAY UNDERMINE NATIONAL ELECTION INTEGRITY The Electoral College is a procedural peculiarity enshrined in the Constitution, initially intended to protect the voting power of slave-holding states, which puts the very concept of majority rule in question. A California plan to "reform" the system would grant electoral college votes to the Republican party even if it doesn't win the state, which would rob the Democrats of votes they would not gain in any state controlled by Republicans. [Full Story] KAZAKH PRESIDENT WINS ALL SEATS IN NEW PARLIAMENT, ELECTIONS CRITICIZED BY OBSERVERS Kazakhstan has never held an election that was considered free and fair by independent observers, but the latest installment of the country's strained effort to grow into a post-Soviet democracy has taken rigged elections to an extreme. No opposition parties reached the threshold of voter support needed to gain even one representative seat, leaving the president with absolute control over the parliament, and essentially totalitarian power. [Full Story] VOTER FRAUD & JUSTICE FIRINGS PROBES REVEAL DISAPPEARING PRESSURE GROUP, THE ACVR The American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) was supposed to be a non-partisan NGO pushing for government action to combat what it alleged was a widespread problem with ballot fraud across the United States. When investigations revealed it was founded and operated by Republican campaign operatives, and that its allegations were largely fabricated, the organization literally disappeared from public view. And now it is increasingly difficult to find documents it published or links to information about its founders online. [Full Story] ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES FLAWED ACCORDING TO UC STUDY A California government-sponsored study has "found that virtually all voting machines used in the state are vulnerable to hackers", creating a whirlwind of complaints from activists and defiance from manufacturers. Secretary of State Debra Bowen, along with voting rights activists have said the problem needs to be solved before next year's presidential primary elections. [Full Story] SARKOZY WINS FRENCH PRESIDENCY WITH 53% OF VOTE When the French socialist party put forward Ségolène Royal as the candidate to be the nation's first woman president, there was a general consensus that the conservative party, for all its luminaries, would not have a figure palatable enough to replace Chirac and defeat Royal. Now, Nicolas Sarkozy, an inflammatory and charismatic figure, has won the presidency with a hard-line platform that takes on some of the nation's most prized political idiosyncracies. [Full Story] RISK OF RETURN TO CIVIL WAR IN D.R. CONGO Reports suggest there is a new risk of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the opposition party leader announced he rejects the election results that returned the presidency to Joseph Kabila. The Roman Catholic archibishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frédéric Etsou, also denounced the election result as a rigged vote designed to deliver Congo's mineral wealth to western powers, telling Radio France International "results that are coming out are not the results that are being published". [Full Story] VIRGINIA GIVES DEMOCRATS CONTROL OF THE SENATE The concession of Sen. George Allen (R-VA) to challenger Jim Webb gives the Democrats 51 seats in the Senate chamber, guaranteeing an outright majority, and control of both houses of Congress. The concession appears to seal the results of the midterm elections as a rejection of the methods and ideas of the party that has held power throughout the Bush presidency, and could significantly weaken his position as top executive. [Full Story] DEMOCRATS WIN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, REPUBLICANS SUFFER HEAVY LOSSES AT POLLS Among the early news emerging from the 2006 midterm elections: Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy win by wide margins; embattled Republican senator Rick Santorum is ousted by Bob Casey, Jr., by margin of nearly 59% to 41%; Rep. Weldon loses seat in PA, largely due to corruption scandal; Democrats take control of House of Representatives. [Full Story] MANUAL FOR MARYLAND REPUBLICANS APPEARS TO OUTLINE PLAN TO BLOCK VOTES The Republican Party of Maryland has distributed an instruction booklet for party volunteers it plans to station at polling places which instructs them in how to prevent voters casting ballots. The document outlines the need to ensure that the law is followed and that no voter is denied their legal right to cast a vote, but includes language urging volunteers to tell judges they may face jail time if they do not do as asked by the Republican party voter challengers. [Full Story] D.R. CONGO VOTES IN FIRST FREE ELECTIONS IN 40 YEARS The Democratic Republic of Congo voted Sunday in its first free and decisive presidential elections in four decades. It is hoped that a peaceful transition with a recognized, elected government, will bring peace to the war-ravaged country. More than four million people have been killed in civil war, just since 1998, and decades of instability and violent conflict have taken many more lives. [Full Story] TOP MEXICO ELECTORAL COURT TO DECIDE ELECTION TUESDAY Mexico's special court, established to resolve electoral protests in a constitutional process, has announced it will decide what the final official count is for the 2 July balloting, and whether or not the established count is valid. Felipe Calderón currently holds a 240,000 vote advantage in the official tally, and nothing points to the court annulling the election. [Full Story] ALL VOTES MUST BE COUNTED, ALWAYS It is no secret that Mexico's electoral system is undergoing a period of extreme strain and an important test of resilience. While the ruling PAN party's candidate Felipe Calderón enjoys a narrow but contested lead, challenger López Obrador seeks to effect at least a full hand-count of all ballots cast, or a reversal of the election results on the grounds of fraud. The stickiest part of the controversy is what justifies examining only a small percentage of the contested ballots. [Full Story] SECURITY OF U.S. ELECTIONS, VOTING RIGHTS NOT GUARANTEED The 2000 election process gave clear evidence that the established system for running elections and counting votes in the United States is not cohesive, not fool-proof and not secure against tampering. Congress took action to reform voting standards nationwide to "Help America Vote". But that legislation suffered one fatal flaw: while promoting the shift to touchscreen ballots, it did not require that electronic balloting machines produce a paper record that could be hand-checked. [Full Story] TWENTY-SIX STATES HAVE PASSED LEGISLATION REQUIRING PAPER TRAILS FOR ELECTRONIC BALLOTS Since the 2000 election, voting technology has become a major issue in US elections regimens and regulations; touchscreen balloting machines, which legislatures seem to have favored as a way to record votes accurately, eliminating the 'hanging chad' problem, were designed with no paper record and have proven insecure and susceptible to tampering. Now, 26 US states have passed laws requiring paper trails, and 13 more, plus Washington, DC, have proposed laws "not yet enacted". [Full Story] SAN DIEGO COUNTY SENT VOTING MACHINES HOME WITH POLL WORKERS ON EVE OF ELECTION Reports have emerged that according to the San Diego registrar of voters, poll workers in San Diego county took tamper-susceptible Diebold voting machines home on the eve of the election. In some cases, poll workers may have had unsupervised access to the machines for a week or longer. [Full Story] BELARUS POLL "SEVERELY FLAWED", GOV'T TO FACE SANCTIONS In the weeks before the election, held yesterday, Belarus pres. Lukashenko imprisoned an estimated one-third of the top campaign staff of his lead rivals. The state openly called any opposition to his reelection a threat to the nation and warned of "bloodshed" if there were protests. The EU says the vote took place in a "climate of intimidation" and opposition leaders say the state-orchestrated results were an illegal "seizure of power". [Full Story] BELARUS PRES. THREATENS TO "WRING THE NECKS" OF OPPONENTS Belarus president Lukashenko has spent years stamping out opposition through a combination of abuses through the state police (still KGB), jailing of dissidents, press censorship, expropriation and propaganda. Opposition to democratic means is almost total under his rule, and the state mobile phone provider has warned of bloodshed. [Full Story] OBSERVERS WARN UGANDA ELECTION PROCESS NOT FAIR Uganda is a complex political fabric in a volatile regional patchwork. The nation has been ruled for 20 years by one man at the head of one party (NRM), and now President Yoweri Museveni will face his first multi-party election contest. Recent weeks have seen arrests, allegations of intimidation and use of single-party government structures to impede opposition campaigns. [Full Story] PRÉVAL DECLARED WINNER IN HAITIAN ELECTION René Préval will be the next president of Haiti. After a week of violent protests and allegations of "massive fraud", with the candidate calling for peace and responsibility from supporters and an investigation into manipulations, the government of interim president Boniface Alexandre has declared Préval the winner of the 7 February elections. [Full Story] CHILE ELECTS FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT Michelle Bachelet has a long and turbulent political biography. She and her mother were kidnapped and tortured by the Pinochet government, after her father was murdered for his political affiliation with the Allende government. They were forced into exile by the military regime and Bachelet has worked to restore democratic principles to Chilean government. Like Ricardo Lagos before her, she is a moderate socialist, intent upon leading Chile's governing center-left coalition, while continuing free-market policies, evening the wealth divide. [Full Story] TEXAS REDISTRICTING FOUND ILLEGAL BY JUSTICE LAWYERS, FINDINGS OVERRULED New documents show Justice Department lawyers unanimously found the Texas Congressional redistricting plan to be illegal. But that finding was overruled by top Justice officials and the staff involved in the research and analysis "were subjected to an unusual gag rule", this according to the Washington Post. [Full Story] EGYPT ELECTION MARRED BY MASS OPPOSITION ARRESTS Egypt is facing its final round of national elections. The nation's oldest Islamist political organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, says at least 500 of its representatives have been detained in the last 2 days, including many election activists. The BBC reports "the second round of voting on Saturday was marred by violence between rival political groups, voter intimidation and fraud"... [Full Story]
4 July 2005 National elections are underway in Burundi, with observers citing parties linked to the former rebel group Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) as likely to win a majority. The UN has called on all parties to accept the outcome of the vote, use election as opportunity to move toward lasting rule of law. [Full Story] PHILIPPINES PRES. UNDER FIRE FOR ELECTION NIGHT PHONE CALL President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines is mired in a major political controversy regarding audio footage of a call she placed during last year's election to an election official. In the tape, she is heard asking if she will win by a margin of one million votes. Though she has admitted making the call on national television, and has apologized, she denies the call was intended to influence the count. [Full Story] FREEMAN DEFENDS STUDY OF EXIT POLLING DISCREPANCIES Steven F. Freeman, who published findings shortly after the November election which indicated statistical aberrations in the relation between historically reliable exit polling and at least 10 states' official ballot counts, has defended his findings of a probability of 250 million to one that the result which occurred would occur in those 10 states simultaneously. [Full Story] WASHINGTON GOVERNOR STILL FACES ELECTION ISSUE The governor of Washington state, a Democrat, Christine Gregoire, elected during a heated post-election recount contest by a margin of only 129 votes, is still facing calls by Republicans for a revote. The election was the last major contest in the nation to be decided, and the Governor has been struggling to free herself of the vote question in order to begin to govern... [Full Story] BUSH BEGINS AGAIN George W. Bush took the constitutional oath of office today in Washington, DC, officially entering his second 4-year term in service at the White House. The speech was oddly both hopeful and aggressive, and as expected, he immediately created global controversy by announcing his aim to rid the world of tyranny. [Full Story]
BUSH WINS 2ND TERM WIth tens of thousands of votes still in dispute in Ohio, and still no official final tally, the Democratic campaign to replace George W. Bush in the White House with Sen. John F. Kerry, has conceded defeat. Sen. Kerry spoke of the need to recognize the civil nature of the democratic process and of his desire to continue the fight on behalf of his supporters. Many Democratic faithful were displeased to hear the concession before a final count of Ohio's votes, and several court cases still pending put over 300,000 votes in question, many of which have not been counted even once. FEAR NOT THE ACT OF VOTING (FEAR ITS BEING WILLFULLY DIMINISHED) 51.3% of the voting age population of the United States took part in the 2000 presidential vote. That was 3.8% less than in 1992, and 11.8% lower than in the 1960 presidential election. But in between, there has been a consistent pattern of turnout under 60%, a disturbing if enigmatic aspect of American political life. Some have said it means the US is a democracy without the people. And polls show that a significant majority of American citizens believe the government does not represent their interests. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the psychological motivations for resisting the right to choose one's government. [Full Story]
31 October 2004 The state of Florida is still struggling to overcome its mercilessly complex and disorganized voting system, which failed in 2000, leading to the Supreme Court's intervention in the vote count and effective deciding of the Electoral College vote. That system has continued to be plagued by problems ranging from confusing ballots, to law-abiding voters being wrongfully "purged" when their names appear on lists of convicted felons stripped of the right to vote, to accusations of deliberate election fraud. During the last month, international observers, election experts invited by Democrats and by independent organizations to monitor the integrity of the November elections, reported that Florida's electoral system would not be prepared to produce a legitimate or fair democratic election... [Full Story] ALL THAT WE DON'T KNOW: THE PURPOSEFUL FOLLY OF POLLING We are hearing constantly that the Republican National Convention has yielded a political windfall in public opinion for President Bush, with polls shifting from a Kerry lead of 3 to 5%, to an astonishing Bush lead of 11% in a post-convention poll. But this is not the whole story. According to CNN, as reported today, polling data put Bush ahead by 3% prior to the convention and by 5% afterward, a bounce of only 2%... the smallest increase in polling for an incumbent since before Richard Nixon's presidency... [Full Story] MORE THAN HALF OF FLORIDA VOTERS DENIED VERIFIABLE BALLOTS 15 counties in Florida, which include more than half of the state's registered voters, will use touchscreen voting machines which produce no paper trail and allow the voter no verification that their vote was cast accurately. Anecdotal reports suggest voters are turning to absentee ballots in order to secure the right to a paper ballot and to recountability. An estimated 48 to 60 million voters nationwide will cast votes on machines that offer no verifiable or recountable paper trail. [For more: ABC]
FLORIDA'S LOST & FOUND ELECTRONIC VOTES The Supervisor of Elections for Miami-Dade County, Florida, announced Friday that her office had recovered missing electronic records of touch-screen votes from the 2002 primary elections in the race for Florida Governor. The records had been reported lost, after a series of computer crashes appeared to have wiped out the electronic files containing the record of the votes. [Full Story] EAC RECOGNIZES NEED FOR "ENHANCED SECURITY MEASURES" IN TOUCHSCREEN BALLOTING The Election Assistance Commission, set up by the 2002 Help America Vote Act to provide nationwide oversight of election processes and to seek to prevent any debacle resembling the 2000 Florida recount, has voiced support for "paper verification" and "enhanced security measures" to guarantee legitimacy of touch-screen votes. For some time, verified voting activists have been troubled by the unwillingness of members of Congress to support legislation to require a paper record of electronic votes until the EAC makes its recommendations. [Full Story]
191 CONGRESSIONAL SIGNATURES URGE RIDGE TO STOP POSTPONEMENT OF ELECTION This week, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) circulated a petition among her colleagues in Congress, which called for an immediate halt to all planning for postponing the election. Within the first hour, it had 100 signatures, and was ultimately signed by 191 members of Congress, including Ms. Woolsey. Only 1 Republican member signed the petition, which again has raised concern among observers... [Full Story] ACLU WARNS OF LOOMING DISENFRANCHISEMENT, POLLING IRREGULARITIES IN FLORIDA The ACLU is reporting that current processes underway to prepare for November's elections in Florida are likely to cause many of the same incidents of disenfranchisement that turned thousands of voters away with no remedy in 2000. The State of Florida has said it cannot guarantee that information used to erase 40,000 names from the state's voter registry was accurate. Despite this shortcoming, the State ordered all county supervisors to begin the "purge" of names said to belong to legally disenfranchised felons, without any instruction reminding them of their legal obligation to ensure that the names actually match felons who have been barred from voting. [Full Story] ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES FAIL IN PRIMARIES
5 March 2004 As the United States shifts as much as 20% of its balloting devices to electronic voting systems, new doubts arise about the integrity, security and fairness of the systems being implemented. In the "Super Tuesday" primary vote across 10 states, serious glitches occurred, erasing and preventing votes: 10% of machines in San Diego county experienced technical problems; 1 in six voters in Alameda county were turned away by machine glitches. The CEO of Diebold, which makes most widely used electronic balloting machines has declared partisan allegiance and his desire to "deliver... electoral votes to the president" in 2004. [Full Story]
29 January 2004 Since the 2000 presidential election, and the revelation of flaws in the Florida process, the nation has moved toward new balloting techniques. Today, an article in the New York Times reported that a "Red Team" security test conducted for Maryland's legislature revealed troubling security gaps in the state's new electronic voting system. The test demonstrated a wide range of rudimentary tactics that could be used to taint or even steal an election. Over 100,000 votes were lost in Florida's 2002 elections, "due to a software error". VerifiedVoting.org recommends a Google News search for "electronic voting", to locate a wide range of newspaper reports on the subject. [Full Story]
"To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public." - Noam Chomsky |
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