Building the People’s Voting System

Category: Uncategorized

The Machineries of Democracy: Failed Trust, Elections in Courts

As you might imagine, it is hard to choose from the many
events of Election Day 2008 to report and reflect on! But I thought that I’d
pick a handful of events that show just how vitally important it is the
election equipment be designed carefully – and the consequences of products
that aren’t, and vendors that don’t seem to care. I have to say, it’s
potentially dire, which is why I’ve picked as many as 3 events to support my
claims.

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A Proposed Voter Bill of Rights

On this Election Day I am back in the blog saddle here (more or less), and have been very busy in recent months working on development issues for the Foundation and relocating to our new Portland, OR offices from San Francisco, although I am down in the Silicon Valley twice monthly.

While I tweet myself to carpel tunnel death, monitoring several channels of streaming news data on voting, I want to pass along this interesting item on a proposed voter bill of rights.

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Virginia: Secrets, Lines, and Preventing Coercion

The state of Virginia
looks like a state-full of Election Day trouble spots, to many elections
experts and activists. I agree with one of the main concerns (long lines at the
polls) but I also wanted to share the beneficial flip side of the VA scene,
recalled to me by the eloquent words of colleague Doug Jones of University of Iowa.

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Tennesseeans Confused by Voting Machines’ BAR

With early voting continuing apace (often a slow pace with
long lines), so does the stream of news on election dysfunction, usually with
an e-voting system as a culprit. But today’s news from Knox County
TN shows how a seemingly
simple question can create some serious – but wholly unnecessary – confusion.

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Early Voting: Reliability and Reluctance

The 2009 U.S.
Presidential election is now underway, with early voting having started in many
states. And pretty much right off the bat, we’re seeing problems with
reliability and reluctance. The story in New Jersey
is a familiar one writ large, but the contrast with Texas
and Florida
shows that often the same concerns– reliability and trust — lead to similar
reluctance about both using e-voting technology, and about avoiding it. The
kicker is the reluctance to avoid it, in Florida
– read on.

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The Dark Side of Voter Registration

I’ve noticed more coverage of election integrity issues relating to voter registration. It’s good to see some focus on VR-related problems, but I don’t see much about a deeper issue — transparency and publc accountability of the (im)proper use of voter registration systems and processes.

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Palm Beach Lost Votes: Paper is not the Problem

The dust has settled – sort of – in the “lost ballots snafu”
in Palm Beach County Florida, enough that I can correct a very serious
mis-reading of the events, and briefly summarize the two completely
contradictory “outcomes” of investigation: (1) it’s an accounting problem, not
a technology problem, and (2) it’s a technology problem. Either way, the result
is a failed election – not just a clouded outcome, but a completely failed
election. The very short story: a recount was needed, 3000+ ballots couldn’t be

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