Trial Ordered in Fla. E-Ballot Lawsuit
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Just five weeks before Election Day, a federal appeals court Monday revived a lawsuit demanding that all Florida voters who use touchscreen machines receive a paper receipt, in case a recount becomes necessary.
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Florida's attempts to avoid a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco took another hit late Monday when federal judges ordered a lower court to hear a lawsuit demanding that electronic voting machines be equipped to print receipts for voters.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Oct. 16, 2004 - Florida set new guidelines for recounting touch-screen ballots in close elections, but voter-rights groups said the court-ordered decision doesn&#39;t go nearly far enough to ensure a fair election.
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Florida set new guidelines for recounting touch-screen ballots in close elections, but voter-rights groups said the court-ordered decision doesn't go nearly far enough to ensure a fair election.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Just five weeks before Election Day, a federal appeals court Monday revived a lawsuit demanding that all Florida voters who use touchscreen machines receive a paper receipt, in case a recount becomes necessary...
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Tallahassee, Fla. -- 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.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  - Voters displaced by  hurricanes or given flawed instructions should be allowed to  cast ballots outside their designated precincts, critics of  Florida's provisional ballot law told the state Supreme Court  on Wednesday.
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A seven-member jury was chosen Monday in the first trial for one of the several thousand lawsuits that Louisiana homeowners filed against their insurers in federal court after Hurricane Katrina.
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(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.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  - Florida's highest court on  Friday ruled that independent presidential candidate Ralph  Nader must be allowed to compete in the 2004 election in the  state, delivering a possible boost to President Bush's  re-election chances.
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Florida is already teeming with lawsuits charging the state and its county elections supervisors with voter disenfranchisement.
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A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Gov. Bob Taft should have ordered a special election to fill the vacancy created when James A. Traficant Jr. was kicked out of Congress for a bribery and racketeering conviction.
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WASHINGTON - A coalition of New Jersey residents filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a judge to stop the state from using electronic voting machines in the Nov. 2 election.
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A judge declined to rule Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by Republican voters challenging a decision that allows Iowans to cast provisional ballots outside of their home precincts. He said the challenge was premature.
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A Florida judge ordered county elections officials on Wednesday to issue absentee ballots without the name of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, a possible blow to President Bush in the battleground state.
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Eight days before Election Day, a federal judge ruled Monday that Florida's touch-screen voting machines do not have to produce a paper record for use in case a recount becomes necessary.
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A federal judge has ordered a third trial in a lawsuit by a woman who blamed Merckâs painkiller Vioxx for the heart attack that killed her husband.