Ohio vote hinges on absentee ballots, provisional votes
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The nation will have to wait one more day to find out who the next president of the United States will be. It could be a week and a half before there&#39;s any official word on who claimed Ohio.
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Voters in Ohio delivered a second term to President Bush by a decisive margin. But the way the vote was conducted there, election law specialists say, exposed a number of weak spots in the nation&#39;s election system.
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Can I download an absentee ballot for Election Day from the Web?
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COLUMBUS, Ohio  - President Bush carried Ohio by  118,775 votes in last month's election, 17,708 fewer than  reported at the time but not enough to change the outcome in  the crucial state, officials said on Monday.
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NEW YORK - The US presidential election remained undecided into the early morning hours as the race for Ohio&#39;s 20 electoral votes remained too close to call.
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A watchdog group tries to stop an Ohio county's elections board from rejecting thousands of provisional ballots until they are hand checked against voter registration cards.
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Is Saturday the end of a football season or Election Day? Between speculation about polls and appeals to voters, it&#39;s difficult to tell.
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Ohio&#39;s devoutly Republican secretary of state has finally certified the vote in favor of President Bush, but activists are seeking a statewide recount and demanding he explain voting irregularities to Congress.
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The Democratic Party said Monday it will examine reports of voting problems in Ohio, where President Bush's victory clinched his re-election.
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With voters jamming phone lines saying they haven't received absentee ballots in the mail, elections officials planned to mail out thousands of replacement ballots.
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Nearly two-thirds of the provisional ballots cast in Florida on Election Day were not counted, mostly because the voters were not registered, officials said Monday.
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WASHINGTON: The crucial battleground state of Ohio was too close to call as polls in the US presidential election closed Tuesday, networks said.
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Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell signs the certifications of the votes of Ohio&#39;s delegation to the Electoral College during the voting ceremony at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, Monday, Dec. 13, 2004.
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Fears that thousands of absentee election ballots had gone astray in a hotly contested Florida county appear to have been allayed on Thursday when officials said a far small number were missing.
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A Denver-based e-voting testing laboratory and experts from three universities have been hired by the state of Ohio to undertake independent evaluations of the states&#39; e-voting hardware, software, and processes. The move is aimed at finding and fixing potential problems before the 2008 presidential election.The work is being done under a $1.7 million contract awarded earlier this summer by the state to get an in-depth picture of how the e-voting system is working. Since the 2000 presidential election,&#160;critics of e-voting systems have voiced concerns&#160;about the accuracy, integrity, and security of e-voting results and have pushed for tougher means of ensuring that every vote cast is properly counted.Ohio has faced e-voting problems in several elections in which electronic machines were used, including a&#160;May 2006 primary election,&#160;when a host of accuracy problems were reported.The evaluation process was announced by newly elected Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner after she took office in January. Chris Nance, Ohio&#39;s assistant secretary of state, said Tuesday that the review will test a representative sample of the 40,000 e-voting machines and systems used in Ohio&#39;s 88 counties to determine what changes and improvements need to be made. &quot;This is a risk assessment&quot; being done to identify potential vulnerabilities in the related systems, Nance said.After a competitive hiring process this summer, Ohio tapped Denver-based SysTest Labs to conduct the evaluation. SysTest Labs is accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission for e-voting system certification and testing.In a first for Ohio, and perhaps the nation, three computer security researchers from three major universities -- Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California, Santa Barbara -- are also conducting independent evaluations of the state&#39;s e-voting systems. Those reviews will be submitted along with the ones being done by SysTest Labs.Having evaluations from various sources &quot;creates this range of feedback,&quot; said Nance.The e-voting hardware in the state is primarily from Omaha-based Election Systems &amp; Software and Allen, Texas-based Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold Election Systems. Two counties use machines from Austin-based Hart InterCivic.Brian Phillips, president of SysTest Labs, said that the testing processes began Sept. 24 and will be completed by Nov. 30. The performance testing covers hardware and election management software, as well as the polling place devices and the central counting applications that tally all the votes, he said.The company is conducting configuration management testing to ensure that the e-voting system hardware and software matches the specifications of the certified systems allowed in elections across Ohio, he said. Also being reviewed are systems that prevent any changes or updates in the hardware or software without the approval of election officials.Final reports from the reviews will be delivered Dec. 14 to Brunner&#39;s office. Those reports will then be evaluated by the governor and legislature for any action that may be needed, Nance said.&quot;It is certainly the intention... for any secretary of state... to put in place a set of policies and procedures&quot; to ensure that every vote is properly counted, Nance said. &quot;The American electorate has seen that there are issues related to electronic voting. We would not have spent $1.7 million for this study if we felt we were on a fool&#39;s errand. It is our responsibility to put together our very best effort to do that.&quot;&quot;Is this a perfect plan? Is this the perfect approach? I don&#39;t think there is anything that is a perfect plan or approach. This is our best plan.&quot;Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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President Bush pulled within striking distance of a second term early this morning, although Sen. John Kerry&#39;s campaign vowed to stage a come-from-behind victory in the pivotal state of Ohio.
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As the primary season continues, observers of the electronic-voting scene ask whether it's possible to tally the ballots efficiently while restoring Americans' faith in the process. Random, mandatory audits of cast ballots show promise, but even after demonstrated successes, not everyone's on board.