A Look at Lawsuits, Voting Problems
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Many states are facing legal challenges over possible voting problems Nov. 2. A look at some of the developments Friday:
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Scattered problems were reported in the balloting in Florida as early voting began in 10 other states.
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Inside the battle for a critical chunk of votes
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(InfoWorld) - A coalition of voting rights groups on Monday called on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that would require electronic voting machines to have printers attached as a way to audit the touch-screen results. But the lack of a paper trail for many e-voting machines was only one problem among many during the 2006 U.S. elections, said speakers at the Elections: Looking Forward conference, sponsored by Common Cause, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and other groups. Many of the problems attributed to e-voting machines were caused by a lack of training for poll workers or administrative mistakes, said Efrain Escobedo, director of voter engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Poll workers observed by his group didn't know how to change the paper in machines with paper trails or didn't know how to reboot machines, he said. Participants in the event also described several other problems not related to e-voting: poll workers demanding photo identification when it wasn't required by law, polling places lacking voting materials in languages other than English, polling places inaccessible to disabled people, and long lines. But several speakers called on Congress to pass the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which would require paper trail printouts with touch-screen e-voting machines. Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, introduced the bill Feb. 5, after a similar piece of legislation failed to pass during the 2005-06 congressional session. The Holt bill has 183 cosponsors, close to half of the House of Representatives. Congress needs to act in the next six to eight months for the legislation to affect the 2008 elections, said Ralph Neas, president and chief executive officer of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group. Neas pointed to the 2006 vote in Sarasota Country, Florida, where e-voting machines did not record a vote from more than 18,000 people in a congressional race decided by less than 400 votes. "Sarasota was a disgrace," Neas said. "Eighteen thousand votes ... inexplicably disappeared into cyberspace. But it's a teachable moment. We've got 18,000 faces now that we can put on the problem." Not all speakers agreed that Congress should move ahead immediately with paper trails. Many visually impaired voters were able to vote without assistance on touch-screen machines for the first time in 2006, said Christina Galindo-Walsh, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network. Paper trail printouts would again create a two-tier voting system in which some disabled people don't have access to the same information as other voters, she said. Galindo-Walsh and Jim Dickson, vice president for government affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, also said it was too late for Congress to mandate paper trail ballots by the 2008 presidential election. E-voting machine vendors wouldn't be able to produce enough printers by 2008, Galindo-Walsh said. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in 2002, mandated standards for voting machines, and those standards are just being completed now, Dickson added. Those standards still need to be tested, and new machines meeting those standards need to be built, he said. "Either you lower the standards for the election equipment, or you live with the timeline that looks like 2010," he said. "You cannot have it both ways." But many voters now question e-voting systems, added Melanie Campbell, executive director and CEO of the Coalition for Black Civic Participation. "The reality is voters are losing confidence in the system," she said.
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âThe Appealâ is John Grishamâs handy primer on a timely subject: how to rig an election.
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is about to plunge into an agenda laden with issues affecting the business sector. Tobacco companies, the biotech industry, and operators of coal-fired power plants have a stake in cases the court will hear in the next month.
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The justices are set to hear a number of big cases, and their docket may also include any election disputes.
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The legal question that has dominated court fights over the coming election &#151; the fate of voters who mistakenly try to vote outside their home precinct &#151; appears nearly settled.
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More weaknesses appear in the Diebold electronic voting system that activists say could be used to rig the November election. The company says auditing procedures would catch any vote fraud. By Kim Zetter.
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A dispute over the unusually high number of abstentions in November 7 legislative elections in Florida reached the courts this week, with voters and a losing candidate calling for fresh elections in echoes of the state's 2000 election debacle.
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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 lawsuit filed in Florida state court Tuesday alleges that electronic voting machines in a portion of Florida's 13th Congressional District were improperly maintained and selected, causing problems in the House race there.
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Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.
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When Americans go to the polls in November, they will confront a voting system beset by many of the same problems that produced the bitterly disputed outcome four years ago.
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A year ago, my colleague Katie Hafner wrote a story about the growing number of lawsuits facing Google. The cases ranged from copyright claims, to challenges to Google&#8217;s use of other companies&#8217; trademarks in its advertising system, to complaints about how some Web sites were ranked in Google&#8217;s search results. It now looks like some people [...].
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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court session starting Monday features many of the same wrenching issues that splintered the justices during the last term and led to some unusually acrimonious dissents. The death penalty, free speech and prison sentences are back on the agenda, along with new topics such as medical marijuana and out-of-state wine purchases that are likely to produce significant disagreement...
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Lawsuits! Cameras! Action! How Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for the 2004 vote