Butterfly Ballot Designer Loses Election
10176
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The county election supervisor whose confusing ballot design contributed to the turmoil of the 2000 presidential election became the butt of late-night talk show jokes and the target of death threats...
473949
SEATTLE - The second time Duncan M. MacDonald sent in an absentee ballot, an election worker in Federal Way called to ask about the paw print on the envelope. But it took three ballots before the prosecutor contacted the voting dog's owner.
570807
The 100,000 electronic voting machines in use in Tuesday's election have a big downside: Candidates who dispute the results won't have a way to conduct a meaningful recount. Analysis by Kim Zetter.
450374
(InfoWorld) - A California judge is likely to order a Berkeley city initiative back on the ballot because of local officials' mishandling of electronic voting machine data, a public-interest lawyer arguing the case said Friday. In a preliminary ruling Thursday, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County Superior Court indicated she would nullify the defeat of a medical marijuana proposal in Berkeley in 2004 and order the measure put back on the ballot in a later election. A hearing on Friday morning in advance of a final ruling brought out nothing that indicated Smith would deviate from her preliminary decision, said attorney Gregory Luke, who is representing Americans for Safe Access. The medical-marijuana advocacy group is suing the county, assisted by the technology rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. The case points to the dangers of electronic voting systems, which make it harder to ensure fair elections, Luke said. Electronic voting machines have been widely adopted in the U.S. since the disputed presidential election of 2000. Laws in California and some other states now require paper records of all votes, but the California law wasn't in place for the Berkeley election. Both sides argued their cases before Smith on Friday in a last-ditch hearing on the proposed sanctions, according to Luke. The hearing brought out nothing new that suggested Smith would change direction, he said. Americans for Free Access sought a recount of the vote on Measure R, which would have established procedures for opening marijuana dispensaries in Berkeley. It lost by fewer than 200 votes. A recount wasn't possible because the city didn't share the necessary voting records, in violation of election laws, Judge Smith ruled in April. In May,Â the county agreed to share some data. The county reused voting machines from Diebold Election Systems without saving sufficient data to carry out a recount or review the election process, Luke said. Officials failed to save key evidence even after the suit was pending, he said. Data from the vote in question has only been found on 20 of the hundreds of machines used in the election, according to Luke. In addition to ordering another vote on Measure R, Judge Smith's preliminary ruling called for the county to pay the $22,604 cost of the recount as well as attorney's fees and the cost of a trip to Diebold offices in Texas. Ordering a new vote is a rare move for a court, Luke said. "This is a very severe sanction. ... and it's warranted," he said Friday. Luke expects a final ruling in the case within two weeks. The county could appeal to a higher court if the ruling goes against it, he said. Attorneys for the county were not immediately available for comment.
334401
A Libertarian candidate who lost to U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar by more than 1 million votes in the Nov. 7 election has asked for a recount in 10 precincts.
149369
The Democratic nomination is now Barack Obama's to lose.
216494
With the presidential race in full swing, Colorado and other states have found critical flaws in the accuracy and security of their electronic voting machines, forcing officials to scramble to return to the paper ballots they abandoned after the Florida debacle of 2000.
314975
A native of India who lost a bid for a local township committee seat by 12 votes after fliers accused him and his running-mate of accepting contributions from "foreign nationals" is hoping a recount will reverse the outcome.
572674
Can I download an absentee ballot for Election Day from the Web?
563269
A judge on Friday chastised state officials for botching efforts to ensure electronic voting machines are tamperproof but cleared them for use in the November election, saying it was too late now to change course.
23022
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's first direct presidential election was thrust into turmoil hours after it started Saturday when all 15 candidates challenging interim leader Hamid Karzai said they would boycott the outcome because of potential fraud in the system designed to keep voters from casting more than one ballot.    The opponents of the U.S.-backed Karzai - who was heavily favored to win - demanded that the election be abandoned, arguing that problems with the ink used to mark voters' thumbs opened the way for widespread multiple voting...
498555
The League of Women Voters of San Diego asked a court Wednesday to require that all votes cast for a maverick mayoral write-in candidate be counted, including ballots on which voters failed to fill in the circle next to her name.
420839
A former Democratic congressman said on Thursday he dropped out of the crowded free-for-all race against Republican incumbent Rep. Henry Bonilla for a newly-drawn congressional district.
371229
Electoral authorities in Florida say they will resend tens of thousands of absentee ballots on Friday, after failing to determine the fate of 58,000 ballots that were sent out but not received by voters.
615920
Activists and computer programmers Wednesday demonstrated what they said were flaws with electronic voting machines that could allow hackers to change vote outcomes Nov. 2...
491144
Cheryl Roberts was impressed with Florida's new voting machines in the 2002 primary, when she cast an electronic ballot for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride. But a series of computer glitches - including startling cases of corrupted or missing data - has undermined her faith...
723353
People who cast provisional ballots at the wrong precinct are not entitled to have their votes counted, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting an argument by labor unions that the rule wrongly disenfranchises voters.