It’s not news that FVAP has had struggles developing technology to improve access to the franchise for overseas citizens and the military. But it’s truly important to remember that no system will be successful without the involvement of local election officials. Really, there’s enough blame to go around with this one.

“Arkansas’ county clerks aren’t showing much interest so far in joining a new voluntary federal program to use electronics to help make sure that Arkansans abroad get to vote in the state’s elections. As of Friday, only eight of the 75 clerks had signed up.” […]

“Federal officials originally planned to make the system available last December, but its launch was delayed until July 21 because the system was being tested using U. S. Department of Defense standards for securing messaging systems, said Lt. Col. Les’ A. Melnyk, a spokesman for the Department of Defense.“

This article from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette relays a pretty good account of the trials and tribulations involved when trying to serve UOCAVA voters.

Note: We’ve previously discussed FVAP’s new automated voter registration / ballot delivery tool.

Via Richard Winger’s Ballot Access News, I see Florida’s going to have 13 presidential candidates. Please don’t know this as a knock on ballot access, but I’ll be interested in seeing how those ballot designs turn out.

The College of William & Mary School of Law and the National Center for State Courts have teamed up to provide an interesting video lecture series on election-related litigation. The series includes a series of videos by Prof. Avi Rubin on electronic voting. I encourage anyone working in the area of or interested in elections check it out.

Favorite quote from Prof. Rubin: “we have people who are absolutely nuts and completely sane”

Michael Alvarez at Election Updates, posted about a recent Maytag commercial which features the iconic Maytag man fixing a voting machine. I haven’t been able to find a full video clip, but I did find it featured in a special episode from none other than CNN’s own Lou Dobbs railing against electronic voting. About 30 seconds in you’ll find the meat of the commercial.

See the video here.

Transcript here.

Note to Lou Dobbs: I believe he said “The lever was jammed.” I didn’t here anything about electronic anything.

Voting: The Evolving Political and Technical Landscape

September 11, 2008 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm
George Washington University
Funger Hall, Room 221
2201 G St. NW
Washington, DC 20052
2 blocks from Foggy Bottom Metro

Sponsored by the DC Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery
Read the rest of this entry »

Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice Preparation for the 2008 Election

September 9, 2008 | 9:30 am
2141 Rayburn House Office Building | Washington, DC
U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties

No witness list available yet. See official hearing information.

Webcast will be available

Oversight of the Department of Justice’s Preparations for the 2008 General Election

September 9, 2008 | 2:15 pm
562 Dirksen Senate Office Building | Washington, DC
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to post a link to Thad Hall’s humorous but important post on issues with paper ballots primarily covering Florida’s switchover to a paper-based voting system. It’s a good read.

Also check out this video from the Palm Beach Post. It’s a brief walk through on Optical Scan voting in FL:

[http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1485820810?videoId=1593346833&playerId=1485820810&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&]

From the Federal Trade Commission is we’re hearing news that “scammers” are using unsolicited e-mails or phone calls, claiming to represent local election boards or civic groups and asking for Social Security or credit card numbers to confirm your eligibility or registration to vote.

If anyone out there has received one of these calls or emails, they suggest you contact the FTC online at www.ftc.gov, or by phone at 1-877-FTC-HELP.

Even if you haven’t been contacted, help yourself: Check your registration and find your polling place. Visit CanIVote.org

This was an interesting event from this part Friday. It seems about 5 people attended the including FVAP Director Polli Brunelli and Dpty. Director Scott Wiedmann. While I understand that FVAP has been taking a lot of criticism lately, some of it undue, it was still disturbing to hear the heads of FVAP basically saying UOCAVA voters aren’t voting because they don’t want to.

*Note: My favorite part is the answer to the question whether the remaining barriers to Internet voting were technical.
Video available here.