Electronic Voting and Other Election Day Issues

People who can't figure out how to mark a paper ballot (or use a punch card ballot) really shouldn't be voting.  How hard could it be?  Even if English isn't your native language, it shouldn't be a great challenge to recognize your favorite candidate's name (or the party name) on a ballot.

As we've seen in places like Louisiana and Chicago and Florida, when there's a close contest and the Democrat is losing, it is likely someone will "find" a bunch of "lost" ballots in a warehouse somewhere that are just what the losing candidate needs to pull into the lead.  If you think such shenanigans are a problem now, just wait until the ballots don't even exist, and all it takes is the manipulation of a few bytes in a computer to change the outcome of an election.  Who will be able to say with any certainty that a fair election took place?  Unfortunately, when that day comes, I predict that it will result in widespread voter apathy rather than a revolt.  And if there is a massive public outcry, it could be that the "solution" will be a National ID Card.
...or a barcode on your forehead.
 Please note that some of the material on this page relates to voting problems in general, not just to electronic voting, but these are problems which will not be solved (as some claim) by switching over to electronic ballots.

Rebecca Mercuri wrote her PhD thesis on the subject of electronic voting, and it is well worth reading."  She says,
"I am adamantly opposed to the use of fully electronic or Internet-based systems for use in anonymous balloting and vote tabulation applications.  The reasons for my opposition are manyfold, and are expressed in my writings as well as those of other well-respected computer security experts.  At the present time, it is my strong recommendation that all election officials REFRAIN from procuring ANY system that does not provide an indisputable paper ballot."
Note:  There are large subsections on this page about Ohio and Voter ID laws and ACORN.


Regarding Rebecca Mercuri's web site, the experts at Counterpane say, "This is the Web site on electronic voting."

Related article:  Computer Experts Fear Fraud in Recall Vote.  California voters will be using touch-screen machines, which don't produce printouts voters can see.  And no paper printouts, the scientists say, would make a legitimate recount impossible.

Ron Rivest's ThreeBallot Voting System.  A new paper-based voting method with attractive security properties.  Not only can each voter verify that her vote is recorded as she intended, but she gets a "receipt" that she can take home that can be used later to verify that her vote is actually included in the final tally.  Her receipt, however, does not allow her to prove to anyone else how she voted.  The new voting system is in some ways similar to recent cryptographic voting system proposals, but it achieves very nearly the same objectives without using any cryptography at all.  Its principles are simple and easy to understand.

Paper trail law for e-voting has fans and foes.  California will require all electronic voting machines to produce a printed record of votes in the June election, but there are still concerns that the expensive overhaul may cause more problems than it solves.

Voter Fraud:  Extensive voter fraud has persisted to this day.  Former Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky discusses in a recent Heritage Foundatioin report a shocking 1982 election for Governor in Illinois in which 10% of the votes cast in Chicago, 100,000 overall, were found to be fraudulent by a federal grand jury investigation that produced 63 criminal convictions for vote fraud.

The coming cataclysm: election by litigation.  In his newly revised book "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy," John Fund of The Wall Street Journal explains that we are on the verge of "election by litigation," and that our civil sacrament of free and fair elections is at risk.  "You can lose your vote through voter fraud as surely as you can through voter intimidation," Fund writes.  Then, in page after page, Fund details voluminous evidence of voter fraud that has been growing in recent years across the nation ... .

E-Voting Fraud?  I have read dozens of anecdotal accounts of "accidents" and "glitches," which have been promptly followed by claims of foolproof "fixes" e.g., memory loss due to low battery, memory overload, key over-sensitivity, software compatibility flaws, keycard malfunctions, physical security of machines and their components.

E-voting machines face tough new standards.  California's elections chief is proposing the toughest standards for voting systems in the country, so tough that they could banish ATMlike touch-screen voting machines from the state.  For the first time, California is demanding the right to try hacking every voting machine with "red teams" of computer experts and to study the software inside the machines, line-by-line, for security holes.

All you need is a screwdriver.  "This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines," says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert.  Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

The Case for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots:  I remain an advocate of paper ballots, counted by hand, at the precinct level, in full public view, on Election Night, no matter how long it takes.  Here is an outline of my reasons….

Revoting:  There are two basic types of voting errors:  random errors and systemic errors.  Random errors are just that, random — equally likely to happen to anyone. … The other kind of voting error is a systemic error. … An example would be a voting machine that mysteriously recorded more votes for A than there were voters.  (Sadly, this kind of thing is not uncommon with electronic voting machines.)

A Wave of Likely Voter Fraud and the Linguistic Ripple.  The solution [to unauthorized voting] is not yet — and perhaps never may be — politically acceptable.  Two possibilities come to mind.  One would be a Federal or State identification card, driver's license or otherwise, which displays not less than full name, home address, voting situs (township, ward, precinct, etc.), date current residence acquired, photograph.  Another would be a document created and certified under State law evidencing that the holder owned the property of his or her residence, fee simple or condominium, or rented pursuant to a written lease.  Simplest of all, State law also could require advance registration of six months, preferably one year, perhaps with an exception for active-duty military personnel and their spouses.

Pro-Obama, Muslim-led voter registration in mosques.  A leading critic of Islam isn't surprised there has been virtually no coverage or action taken against a Muslim group that has been running an illegal "get out the vote" campaign in swing-state mosques.

Black Box Voting Tool Kit 2008:  In the end, this isn't about getting your favorite presidential candidate elected.  This is about more permanent solutions:  getting durable, ongoing citizen-based controls to oversee all elections.  Elections ultimately control your daily life:  your property rights, roads, the public safety, the justice system, and ultimately, the economy, your freedom, and your health.  Regardless of who your next president will be, another election will soon be on the horizon.  Much work remains if we want open, fair elections.

DC Primary votes don't add up... even with a fudge factor.  As District officials continue to investigate errors in the early vote tallies from the Sept. 9 primary, one number stands out:  1,542.  That number appeared in the category for "overvotes" in 13 separate races when the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics released early results on election night.  But those votes inexplicably vanished shortly after midnight, when officials posted what they identified as corrected results.

States throw out costly electronic voting machines.  The demise of touch-screen voting has produced a graveyard of expensive corpses:  Warehouses stacked with thousands of carefully wrapped voting machines that have been shelved because of doubts about vanishing votes and vulnerability to hackers.  What to do with this high-tech junkyard is a multimillion-dollar question.  One manufacturer offered $1 apiece to take back its ATM-like machines.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Paper Ballot:  When it comes to elections, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen opts for blander, more traditional technologies, and that preference is helping her sleep better at night.  Speaking Wednesday [7/30/2008] at the Usenix Security Symposium in San Jose, California, the state's top elections official laid out a decidedly low-tech approach for ensuring that each voter's ballot is recorded as cast.  It involves the use of ink pens to record votes on old-fashioned paper.

PA Lawsuit Seeks Paper Trail for Election Day.  Twenty-five voters from across Pennsylvania sued the state today seeking to stop the use of electronic voting machines that do not provide back up paper records.  The records are necessary for people to verify that their votes were accurately recorded, attorneys said at a news conference at the Philadelphia offices of Drinker Biddle & Reath, one of the law firms representing the plaintiffs in the suit.


Coleman vs Franken

Long after the election is over, votes are still trickling in -- from somewhere.  Miraculously, all of the newly manufactured discovered votes are for the Democrat.  Why does stuff like this only happen when a Democrat is losing?

Why Is Norm Coleman's Lead Slipping?  The gap has gone down from 443, to 437, to 337 as provisional and other straggler ballots are counted.  It was 477 votes last night.  Coleman's lead is now down to 236 votes, but the gap is not tightening because "provisional and other straggler ballots" remain uncounted.  According to the Minnesota Secretary of State's office, the state does not have provisional ballots and all absentee ballots had to arrive on or before Election Day to be counted.

100 votes appear out of nowhere
 Franken's deficit: 238 votes.  Just as Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was explaining to reporters the recount process in one of the narrowest elections in Minnesota history, an aide rushed in with news:  Pine County's Partridge Township had revised its vote total upward -- another 100 votes for Democratic candidate Al Franken, putting him within .011 percentage points of Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

Wait -- I think I see the problem...
 Media Ignore Fact that Minnesota Recount Boss Mark Ritchie an ACORN Ally.  In the Coleman-Franken Senate recount battle developing in Minnesota, almost all media accounts fail to mention that Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who largely controls the process, is not only a liberal Democrat, but also an ally of ACORN and liberal philanthropist George Soros.

SOS in Minnesota.  As Democrats nationwide try to make the climb to a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate by pursuing recounts, an outspoken ACORN ally presides over the tallying of votes in the still-unresolved Minnesota Senate race.  The fact that Mark Ritchie, a Democrat and former community organizer, largely controls the electoral process in the Land of 10,000 Lakes may be important.

Tension escalates as recount fluctuates.  A tiny town in the Democratic stronghold of Minnesota's Iron Range emerged Friday as the latest battleground over the state's disputed U.S. Senate race.  Democrat Al Franken gained 100 votes there between election night and when results were officially tallied on Thursday.  Adding to the intrigue -- and suspicion in Sen. Norm Coleman's camp:  The time stamp on the official tape printed out by a ballot machine in the precinct in question carried a date of Nov. 2, two days before the election. ... "Obviously, this is highly suspicious.  They found 100 votes, and it's statistically impossible that all 100 votes went to the two Democrats, even in St. Louis County," said Cullen Sheehan, Coleman's campaign manager.

Guardians of the ballot.  Very few Minnesotans, it turns out, have ever done what [Dave] Nelson, [Sharon] Shaffer and at least two dozen other supporters of Sen. Norm Coleman have been doing since the Senate race ended:  They're standing watch over 2,885,399 ballots in the Senate race.  They're on the lookout for monkey business.

Minnesota Ripe for Election Fraud.  When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes.  By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477.  By Thursday night, it was down to 336.  By Friday, it was 239.  Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 — a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.  Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn't even yet been a recount.  Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported.

Mischief in Minnesota?  Al Franken's recount isn't funny.  The vanishing Coleman vote came during a week in which election officials are obliged to double-check their initial results.  Minnesota is required to do these audits, and it isn't unusual for officials to report that they transposed a number here or there.  In a normal audit, these mistakes could be expected to cut both ways.  Instead, nearly every "fix" has gone for Mr. Franken, in some cases under strange circumstances.

Cheat.gov:  ACORN filed more than 43,000 new voter registration forms in Minnesota, where the razor-thin margin of victory for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman over former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Al Franken evaporated from more than 700 votes to just 221 nearly overnight thanks to "typos" discovered over a week before a scheduled recount.  Fox News reports that much of Franken's mysterious new votes come from one heavily Democratic small town.

Franken seeks names of rejected voters.  In the latest twist in Minnesota's continuing U.S. Senate race, the Al Franken campaign hit Ramsey County with a lawsuit Thursday [11/13/2008], seeking the names and addresses of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected.

27,000 county ballots on hold.  More than 27,000 provisional ballots, needed to call the closest congressional race in the country, will wait for either a court ruling today or a tiebreaker vote Tuesday [11/18/2008] from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.  The Franklin County Board of Elections split along party lines in a stalemate last night that will temporarily delay counting those provisional ballots.

Schumer Accuses 'Hard Right' of Intimidating Minnesota Voting Officials.  By Thursday afternoon, Coleman maintained an unofficial lead of 206 votes out of 2.88 million cast in the state's election for U.S. Senate.  The race, one of three Senate contests in the nation still undecided, is important, because if Democrats win all three races they will capture a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Questions Surround Role of Minnesota Secretary of State in Hotly Contested Senate Race.  Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has pledged to officiate over his state's Senate election recount in a manner that is "accurate and transparent," but his partisan past and ties to ACORN have raised concerns among his critics.

Franken 'Fixes' Stalk Senate Race.  A pickup of 519 votes over 5 days — pretty impressive when you consider this was just from the correction of typos.  A recount won't even start until Nov. 19.  Yet, the particular changes are unlikely to have occurred by accident.  Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate race.  The Senate gains for Franken were 2.2 times the gain from corrections for Barack Obama, 2.7 times the gain Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races and 5.6 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.

Paging Al Franken.  A victory for Mr. Franken is critical to Democratic hopes of winning 60 Senate seats — enough to cut off debate without Republican votes.  Democrats have won 57 seats, and would reach 60 with victories in three Senate races that have yet to be decided — in Minnesota, Alaska and Georgia.  The Minnesota recount is expected to take almost one month.

Al Franken's Minnesota:  Minnesota uses optical scanning machines, which are far more accurate than the punchcard paper ballots of the 2000 Florida recount.  Prior recounts in Minnesota have resulted in few vote changes.  So off to court he goes, with Mr. Franken demanding that the state canvassing board delay certifying the initial election results.  His campaign claims that absentee votes may have been wrongly rejected by election judges.  Team Franken filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County (the state's second largest, and an area Mr. Franken won decisively) demanding a list of these absentee voters, so that the Democrat can contact them, get them to declare their ex post facto preference, and, presto, he wins.

By hook or crook...
 Coleman Campaign Questions 32 Ballots in Close Race With Franken.  With only 206 votes out of 2.9 million total ballots separating Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota from his Democratic opponent Al Franken, every vote counts -- including the elusive 32 absentee ballots first reported to be found in a state official's car three days after the election.  The Coleman campaign claims that Minneapolis elections director Cynthia Reichert said the ballots had been "found" in her car and would be counted.  Reichert denies that account, saying no ballots ever were placed in her vehicle.

In Alaska, more of the same...
 Begich Leads Stevens in Race for Alaska Senate Seat.  Democratic challenger Mark Begich leads by 814 votes in his bid to oust Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, according to the state's elections division.  Alaska is still counting absentee ballots from the Nov. 4 election.  Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, trailed Stevens by 3,257 votes before officials started counting approximately 90,000 absentee ballots yesterday, a process that may stretch into next week.

Begich lead over Stevens grows.  Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is in grave danger of losing re-election after Mark Begich widened his lead to 1,022 votes Friday.  More than 90 percent of the votes are now counted, and Friday's count of absentee and questioned ballots could have been Stevens' best chance to make a comeback.  That's because it included all the ballots left from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, where Stevens has enjoyed his most unwavering support.

Nightmare on Constitution Avenue:  With news that Democratic candidate Mark Begich has taken the lead from incumbent GOP Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska's Senate race, Republicans are beginning to visualize a nightmare scenario in which Democrats actually reach the goal of 60 Senate seats that would allow them to stop any GOP filibuster.

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing.
The people who count the votes decide everything."

— Joseph Stalin    


Arkansas Election Officials Baffled by Machines that Flipped Race.  Bruce Haggard, an election commissioner in Faulkner County, Arkansas, is baffled by a problem that occurred with two voting machines in this month's general state elections.  The machines allocated votes cast in one race to an entirely different race that wasn't even on the electronic ballot.

Some early West Virginia voters angry over switched votes.  At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.  Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk's office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.  "When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain," said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.

The Editor says...
 Uh-oh — a Republican conspiracy?  No, probably just unreliable computer hardware and a fashionable but inappropriate touch-screen interface.  If it were up to me, the software would arrange the candidates in a different random order on the touch screen ballots every time a voter stepped into the voting booth.  That way, errors of this sort would average out to zero, even if they went undetected.  If the software really was designed to change votes from one party to another, there would be no reason to have those changes show up on the screen.

On the other hand, I'll agree that if the software really is crooked, somebody should go to prison.  It is more important to hold honest elections than to have my favorite candidate win.  Unfortunately, some people don't see it that way.

All paper ballots garner a vote in Colorado.  Seeking a way to lead the state out of its voting-machine morass, Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman said Wednesday [12/26/2007] that he favors using paper ballots at polling places for the 2008 elections.  Coffman said he has more confidence in a traditional paper-ballot-and-polling-place system than relying only on electronic-voting kiosks.

Colorado Decertifies Voting Machines.  Secretary of State Mike Coffman cited security or accuracy problems in the decertified machines.  A number of electronic scanners used to count ballots were also decertified, including a type used by Boulder County.  Coffman said the system had a one percent error rate when counting ballots.

Not-so-secret ballots:  Two Ohio activists have discovered that e-voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election's results — including allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes.  Making a secret ballot less secret, of course, could permit vote selling and allow interest groups or family members to exert undue pressure on Ohio residents to vote a certain way.

[Yes, but naturally you're asking, who would sell his vote?  Keep reading.]

Offer of a Vote for Sale Draws Unwanted Attention.  A Minnesota college student looking to profit off his political indifference has been charged with a felony for trying to sell his vote on the auction Web site eBay.  The student, Max P. Sanders, 19, of Edina, was charged Thursday [7/3/2008] with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting, a felony under an 1893 Minnesota law that criminalizes the sale and purchase of votes.

Audit Shows Florida Voting Machines Didn't Err.  An audit of touch-screen voting machines at the center of a dispute in a congressional election found no evidence of malfunction, the Florida secretary of state said Friday [2/23/2007].  The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots were cast in Sarasota County without a selection in the District 13 congressional race in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings.  Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned.

Hamilton Township election result flipped:  programming error.  On election day, 6 Nov 2007, the results were reportedly reversed in one race, for trustee, in Hamilton Township, Lawrence County, Ohio, as a result of "a programming error" in ES&S software. … One of the main problems with many current electronic voting machines is that recounting is not particularly meaningful if the votes are already incorrectly recorded, in the absence of a definitive independent audit trail.

Strange Yahoo! vote count.  The original statement from the Yahoo! Annual Meeting suggested strong support for the Yahoo! board.  However, reportedly exactly 200 million votes seemed to have vanished from some of the expected totals. ...Once again, who knows what really happened?

Voting Machines:  Make Your Vote Count!  Many outdated paper ballots are being replaced by new, electronic voting machines … But there are many different systems, each with a unique design, set of instructions, buttons — and problems.  Now, human-factors engineers like Killam, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a rigorous, standardized test for all machines.

As Election Day nears, eyes will be on Florida.  After the polls closed on primary-election night in August, workers somehow lost all the ballots cast by voters in Osceola County's Precinct 11.  "We questioned the poll workers and have searched the whole building," said Osceola Supervisor of Elections Connie Click.  "It was only 98 ballots.  My speculation is they got put in the trash."

Is The Vote Rigged?  Effort To Expose Computer Vote Fraud Leads To Lawsuit.  The Constitution Party … points out that since 1988 all but a handful of the 3,142 counties in the US have delegated the "counting" process, done in secret, to several mega companies, Diebold, ES&S, Hart and Sequioa.  All 50 secretaries of state have approved these systems.  The Clean Elections lawsuit, in the process of expanding to all 50 states, charges that the use of any computer (direct-recording-electronic- or DRE) systems which obscure ballots from the people for any period of time before a count is completed and the results are announced are unconstitutional.

A Case Against Electronic Ballot Counting:  By manually counting paper ballots, integrity and trust is restored.  The time savings and convenience don't outweigh the costs when you factor in the distrust a closed, unverifiable system creates.  For almost 200 years, most elections in the U.S. were handled this way.  No, this doesn't alleviate fraud.  It does potentially save billions of dollars to the taxpayer by eliminating unnecessary technology purchases while restoring accountability in the electoral system.

Diebold Strikes Again!  Is it ever going to be possible to have an election in this country where some idiot lefty doesn't believe that voting machines were hacked and the results tampered with? … Diebold, you may recall, became infamous in Ohio during the 2004 election when some on the left tried to prove that the company helped Republicans steal the election.  And now, apparently, the company has switched allegiances and is working for the Clintons and the Democrats.

UK elections vulnerable to fraud — e-voting no solution.  An investigation into the UK's electoral system has found serious failings with security ahead of London's Mayoral elections on Thursday [4/24/2008].  The Rowntree Reform Trust's report Purity of Elections in the UK: Causes for Concern highlighted weaknesses with postal voting and the inaccuracy of the electoral roll as the biggest threats to British democracy.

Where were you when you learned e-voting was unreliable?  For [Hugh] Thompson, the epiphany came after a conference a few years ago when someone asked him to inspect a widely used machine to see if it could be hacked.  "Things can't be as bad as I've heard rumors about them being," Thompson recalled thinking before he delved in.  In fact, he was wrong.  He found two holes that were so gaping they could have allowed someone to secretly throw an election.

Electoral Commission criticises London e-counting.  The Electoral Commission has registered concerns over the electronic counting of votes in London's recent elections.  It highlights a number of issues in a report on the elections for the mayor and the London Assembly.  Among these are apparent discrepancies between the number of ballot papers recorded as having been issued and the number scanned.

In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud.  Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.  Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show.

The Stunning Reality of Voter Fraud:  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel initiated an investigation of the 2004 presidential election in Wisconsin, which had one of the closest results, with Kerry winning the state by only 11,000 votes.  The newspaper investigation resulted in a probe by U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic and Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann that found clear evidence of fraud in the election, including more than 200 felons who voted illegally and another 100-plus people who voted under bad addresses or false names or who voted twice.

Push to register felons to vote could aid Obama.  Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons walking Virginia's bleakest neighborhoods on the hunt for ex-cons — each a potential voter who might cast the decisive ballot in this hotly contested state.  Finding them isn't the hard part.  It's getting them to admit that a past mistake has kept them from the ballot box.

24,000 Felons Getting Ballots, Despite Eligibility Questions.  The [Washington] Secretary of State's Office fired up a new multimillion-dollar computer in 2006.  Its job was to catch, and then cancel, illegal voters.  Well, not all illegal voters.  KIRO-TV recently ran its own data to double check the state's work.  Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne found out the system was set up to ignore the existence of approximately 24,000 convicted felons.

Florida voting rolls contain dead people, duplicates, ineligible felons.  Mattie Lee Blitch has been dead 23 years but she's still registered to vote in Palm Beach County.  Recent college graduate Brett Ackerman is registered three times in two counties.  And convicted felon Joseph Muro just signed up to vote — from a state mental institution for the criminally insane.

Dead People Voting Throughout Florida.  Thousands of dead Floridians are registered to vote and some in Central Florida had ballots cast in their names long after their deaths.  "That is scary," said Jim Branch.  Branch's mother Marjorie died in 2004 but someone voted for her in 2006.  Branch had tried to get his mother removed from the voter rolls.

ID confusion could nullify mail ballots.  More than 35,000 newly registered Colorado voters could see their mail ballots tossed out because of confusion over the need to include a copy of their ID with their votes.  The state requires county clerks to verify the identification of all new voters.  Often, it's as simple as comparing a driver's license number on a voter registration form to the state's motor vehicle database.

Voter fraud charges deserve investigation.  They very well may be innocent coincidences, but voter confidence in the integrity of elections is too important to allow the Palm Beach County Republican Party's allegations of double-voting go without a thorough investigation.  Local party leaders say they found 60 instances in which people with the exact same name and birth date voted both in Palm Beach County and in New York in the November elections.

Charges filed after voter fraud probe.  Some 16 months after Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed boldly declared that she wouldn't tolerate undocumented people "illegally voting in my county," a lengthy voter fraud investigation has concluded with the filing of low-level charges.  The charges filed in late July against just two people, both U.S. citizens, were for perjury, a misdemeanor.

Man convicted of double voting.  Sure, Michael Zore told police, he'd voted twice in last November's election, using the city hall polling stations of two different Milwaukee County suburbs in the space of six hours.  The evidence against him included him signing up to vote using a false address in West Allis, after he'd already voted in Wauwatosa.  But Zore, 44, told a jury Wednesday there was a good reason he shouldn't be convicted of felony counts of double voting and giving a poll worker false information:  He forgot.

Electronic Voting Machines:  In the aftermath of the U.S.'s 2004 election, electronic voting machines are again in the news.  Computerized machines lost votes, subtracted votes instead of adding them, and doubled votes.  Because many of these machines have no paper audit trails, a large number of votes will never be counted.

Hunt for missing ballots widens in Palm Beach County.  Another Palm Beach County election mess, including thousands of missing ballots, stumbled toward a new venue today with county officials leaving it to the courts to decide a disputed judicial race.

Voting machine 'Smartcards' missing, GOP says.  Several electronic voting cards, used to cast ballots, are missing from a polling place in Memphis, according to the Tennessee Republican Party.  In a letter to the Shelby County Election Commission, state GOP chairman Bob Davis Jr. charges the "lack of oversight and control" over the so-called Smartcards "has created a situation which could allow for voter fraud."

 New:   Princeton prof hacks e-vote machine.  A Princeton University computer science professor added new fuel Wednesday [9/13/2006] to claims that electronic voting machines used across much of the country are vulnerable to hacking that could alter vote totals or disable machines.

See video and other documentation of this feat here.

In response to the article above...
 Voting Early and Often.  Can I call 'em, or can I call 'em?  Nearly four years ago, I predicted charges of electoral fraud before the polls had even opened in the 2002 elections.  I was right, and such charges have only grown louder as in recent elections. … But in fact, there are lots of reasons to worry about ballot security.  Computers are inherently insecure, and electronic voting machines are basically computers.

Also related:
 "Hotel Minibar" Keys Open Diebold Voting Machines.  The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet. … A little research revealed that the exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars.  It's a standard part, and like most standard parts it's easily purchased on the Internet.  We bought several keys from an office furniture key shop — they open the voting machine too.

Voters vanish in U.S..  [Edward W.] Felten and his students were able to break into an electronic voting terminal using a devilish piece of hi-tech equipment:  A key from a hotel mini-bar.  Once they hacked in, they installed a memory card infected by a virus that incorrectly recorded votes.  The professor pointed out that a compromised electronic counting program can easily manipulate a close election.  It is also next to impossible to detect.  The virus can pass from terminal to terminal and erase itself from the machine's memory as soon as the election is over.

Update:
 Key made from website image could change your vote.  A hacker, using a photograph of keys to a Diebold touch-screen voting system available on the company's website, successfully duplicated two that were capable of opening the electronic balloting device now used in many states for elections.

Diebold Key Hack Story Updates:  Diebold — incredibly — posted a picture of the actual key which — incredibly — opens all Diebold touch-screen voting systems on their website.  Not so incredibly, the photo was subsequently used to hack the key and create working duplicates by an IT expert.  Just the latest jaw-dropping chapter in the incredible series of blunders by one of America's largest, and most irresponsible, voting machine companies.

Diebold voting machine key copied from picture on Diebold site.  In another stunning blow to the security and integrity of Diebold's electronic voting machines, someone has made a copy of the key which opens ALL Diebold e-voting machines from a picture on the company's own website.  The working keys were confirmed by Princeton scientists, the same people who discovered that a simple virus hack on the Diebold machines could steal an election.

 Read this:   Avi Rubin's latest report as an election judge.  A well documented day of serious electronic voting problems at one precint in the Maryland primary of 2006.

What to do now that I have decided not to blame Diebold?  I don't hear those liberals who complained so much about the evil Bush-manipulated machines prior to the election questioning the integrity of the vote now that so many of those machines recorded Democrat wins, so I guess Democrats are having to change their "to do" lists as well.

Activists Sue to Block Electronic Voting.  Computerized voting was supposed to be the cure for ballot fiascos such as the 2000 presidential election, but activist groups say it has only worsened the problem and they've gone to court across the country to ban the new machines.  Lawsuits have been filed in at least nine states, alleging that the machines are wide open to computer hackers and prone to temperamental fits of technology that have assigned votes to the wrong candidate.

Most vote machines lose test to hackers.  State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.  The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested," said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state.

Voting machine chips check out.  A limited check of memory chips from a handful of Sarasota County's electronic voting machines found no anomalies, but more detailed analysis awaits, state auditors said Thursday [12/21/2006].  During a brief return visit to Sarasota, auditors removed the postage stamp-sized chips from six machines and compared their data to Election Day logs.

E-voting machines can be hacked, professor says.  A Princeton University professor is claiming that some of Sequoia Voting Systems' electronic touch-screen machines can be easily manipulated to throw an election.  In a blow-by-blow on his school Web page and in a separate filing for an electronic voting lawsuit in New Jersey superior court, computer science professor Andrew Appel details how he was able to purchase five of the Oakland-based company's AVC Advantage machines off a Web site auctioning government surplus items, pry open the backs and access the computer chips that control the vote count.

Pull The Plug.  You don't like hanging chads? Get ready for cheating chips and doctored drives.

Pull the Plug on Touchscreens.  Forbes Magazine (9/4/2006) included a commentary by Aviel Rubin where he complains about the "Help America Vote Act, which handed out $2.6 billion to spend on voting machines."  Avi's recent recommendation is that voters cast only optically scanned ballots that will be randomly audited. … If humans are deemed capable enough to audit ballot counts, they should also be allowed to directly prepare their own ballots without the intervention of a computer.

Officials Wary of Electronic Voting Machines.  A growing number of state and local officials are getting cold feet about electronic voting technology, and many are making last-minute efforts to limit or reverse the rollout of new machines in the November elections.

Where's the Paper Trail?  Supporters of computerized voting claim that voters with disabilities or non-English languages need computerized voting.  This is false.  Certified computerized ballot-marking machines with assistive attachments can enable voters with disabilities or non-English languages to mark and verify paper ballots.  All ballots, including absentee and provisional ballots, can be the same, thus simplifying the counting procedures.  Counting can be done by hand or optical scanners.  (When votes are counted by optical scanners, a manual audit must be done to confirm accuracy -- optical scanners are computers too….)

Dutch government suspends computer voting.  On 28 Sep 2007 the Dutch government suspended all voting by voting machines.  In a report it was found that the systems were unsafe, not controllable and did not allow recounting.

Jennings, Buchanan camps spar over voting machine source codes.  An MIT political science professor who is an expert on election systems testified Tuesday [12/19/2006] that it's statistically unlikely that nearly 13 percent of Sarasota voters chose not to vote in a Southwest Florida congressional race.  A more likely conclusion to explain the unusually high "undervote" is that something went wrong in the preparation of voting machines, the expert, Charles Stewart, told a judge during a hearing over whether Christine Jennings' campaign can get access to computer codes used to program the electronic touchscreen voting machines.

Florida Judge Rules Against Dem. Candidate.  A judge ruled Friday [12/29/2006] that the Democrat who narrowly lost the race to succeed Rep. Katherine Harris cannot examine the programming code of the electronic voting machines used in the disputed election.  Circuit Judge William Gary ruled that Christine Jennings' arguments about the possibility of lost votes were "conjecture" and did not warrant disclosing the trade secrets of the voting machine company, Election Systems & Software.

Judge rules against Jennings, Democrats to seat Buchanan.  A judge ruled Friday [12/29/2006] that congressional aspirant Christine Jennings has no right to examine the programming source code that runs the electronic voting machines at the center of a disputed Southwest Florida congressional race.  Circuit Judge William Gary ruled that Jennings' arguments about the possibility of lost votes were "conjecture," and didn't warrant overriding the trade secrets of the voting machine company.  Democrats in Congress meanwhile, said they'd allow Republican Vern Buchanan to take the seat next Thursday, but with a warning that the inquiry wasn't over and that his hold on it could be temporary.  The state has certified Buchanan the winner of the District 13 race by a scant 369 votes.

Voting machines give Florida a new headache:  It used to be that everyone wanted a Florida voting machine. … But now that Florida is purging its precincts of 25,000 touch-screen voting machines — bought after the recount for up to $5,000 each, hailed as the way of the future but deemed failures after five or six years — no one is biting.

Human Error Not Machine, Found During Recount. New Hampshire's presidential primary recount has drawn national attention and a great deal of scrutiny from hundreds of voters across the nation who think there could be a conspiracy, but officials said the minor problems that have been found so far were the result of human error.

Wisconsin court:  Voter registration official did not commit a crime.  The supervisor of a voter registration drive did not commit a crime during the 2004 election when he failed to stop others from submitting fraudulent voter registration forms, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday [4/25/2007].  The court reversed the conviction of Damien Jones on one count of falsifying statements relating to voter registration as party to a crime.  Jones, 27, supervised a voter registration drive for a liberal-leaning group in Racine and Kenosha.  The appeals court said he was guilty of poor supervision but that is not a crime.

Voter Registration Is the New Battleground.  In just about every election, understaffed polling sites, malfunctioning voting machines and outdated voter data are reported.  Such bureaucratic problems often are rolled into the divide between Democrats and Republicans over who should vote and how — a battle that has become more intense since the 2000 Florida recount.

Democrat Vote Buying filmed by TV Camera Crew.  The progressive citizens of Wisconsin have reason to worry that Chicago-style vote-buying is creeping north from Illinois.  The NBC affiliate in Milwaukee has just filmed Democratic campaign workers handing out small amounts of money and free food to residents at a home for the mentally ill in Kenosha after which the patients were shepherded into a separate room and given absentee ballots.  One of the Democratic Party workers fled when she saw the NBC camera.

Voter deception bill passes House.  Those who knowingly convey false information with the intent to keep others from voting would face up to five years in prison under voter deception legislation that passed the House on Monday.  The legislation, passed by voice vote, was spearheaded by Democrats who cited alleged incidents during the 2006 elections of minorities, immigrants and other legal voters being misled about election dates, guided to the wrong polling sites or told they were ineligible to vote.

New voting law taking effect.  A key change to Iowa's voting system takes effect Jan. 1.  This year the Iowa Legislature approved same-day voter registration.  That means Iowans will be able to register to vote on Election Day.

EFF sues North Carolina over electronic voting-machine certification.  North Carolina is being called to account for its decision to certify electronic voting machines made by three companies that refused to comply with the state's election transparency rules.

Electronic voting blamed for Quebec municipal election 'disaster'.  Quebec's chief electoral officer is urging the province to stop using electronic voting systems.  In a new report on problems with Quebec's 2005 municipal election, chief electoral officer Marcel Blanchet targets the electronic voting system used to collect and count the votes.  The election was an expensive disaster marked by errors, which produced inaccurate numbers and unreliable results, the report said.  And the new electronic system is to blame, it adds.

Is Florida Ready for Democracy?  According to Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent and candidate [Vern] Buchanan, the undervotes were protests by voters repelled by a negative campaign.  This argument does not pass the straight face test.  To believe it, one would have to accept that the only voters who were unhappy were those who voted on electronic machines in Sarasota County.

Here is one opinion in favor of electronic voting:
 E-voting Upgrades America's Ballot Box.  On Election Day 2006, more than 65 million Americans voted using direct recording electronic (DRE) machines.  Despite the hysteria over ballot booth meltdowns, voters can continue to be confident using e-voting systems, as they make voting simpler, safer, and more accessible than traditional paper ballots.  Historically, ballots were manhandled, facilitating low-level fraud as pre-scored cards and connect-the-line sheets were easily corrupted by poll workers with a simple punch or mark of a pen.

Feds sue Philadelphia over voting rights.  The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday [10/13/2006] sued the city of Philadelphia, claiming it violated the rights of Spanish-speaking voters.  The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said the city failed to provide language assistance at the polls to most Spanish-speaking voters in recent elections, the department said.

A Repeat of 2004 Philly Voter Chaos, Fraud.  GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in at least half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.  A Pennsylvania judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could [NOT be] removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening, according to sources on the ground.  It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process.

Computer problems with University of Wisconsin voting system.  An attempt to hold a campus election for the student council at the University of Wisconsin failed again due to "significant software errors", according to the University's Division of Information Technology (DoIT) group.  According to their news release, "DoIT detected a disparity between the number of student votes cast and the number of votes confirmed in the online election database."

Analysis of Fancy E-Voting Protocols.  The Neff scheme produces three outputs:  a paper receipt for each voter to take home, a public list of untabulated scrambled ballots, and a final tabulation.  These all have special cryptographic properties that can be verified to detect fraud.  For example, a voter's take-home receipt allows the voter to verify that his vote was recorded correctly.  But to prevent coercion, the receipt does not allow the voter to prove to a third party how he voted.

Fraudproof voting protocols from scientists.  Previous attempts to create such protocols have "succeeded" in mathematical senses, but only by employing very complicated cryptographic algorithms, challenging even for math PhDs.  Humans can't vote in those systems without computer aid, which means that each voter would have to own a small computer "helper" they trusted to be running correct, unhacked, voting software.

Audit finds $3.8 million in election funds improperly spent.  More than $3.8 million in federal election money was spent improperly or without required documentation by former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, federal auditors said in a report released Wednesday [12/21/2005].

US Sues Missouri Over Voters in 2004 Election.  The U.S. Justice Department has sued Missouri, a swing state won easily by President George W. Bush, for voting violations in the 2004 election, including registering more people to vote in some counties than their entire voting-age population.

Study finds the 2004 election was the most accurate of modern times.  The 2004 national elections were the most accurate of modern times with nearly 99 percent of all ballots cast registering a vote for president, according to a new study by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Voting glitches from the Novmber 7, 2005, Election:  [For example,] San Joaquin County [California] workers misplaced a memory cartridge for an optical-scan machine.  They rescanned the ballots but haven't found the cartridge. … Cumberland County, Pennsylvania – Two candidates in a race were both mistakenly listed as being from same party. … Lucas County, Ohio – This one is mysterious: "workers accidentally 'set an option [on the five machines] that prevented the results from being transported onto the memory card.'"

Touchscreen voting troubles reported.  Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on [Election Day], including trouble choosing their intended candidates.  The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

Texas voting recount halted:  On orders from the Texas Secretary of State's office, the recount for the Tom Green County Court-at-Law No. 2 race has been suspended midway through its second day.  About 1:30 p.m. today, county Republican Chairman Dennis McKerley stopped the recount after workers found discrepancies of as much as 20 percent between what was counted Monday and what was reported Election Night.

Study Shows Voting is Harder in Some States.  Some states have enacted laws that make it harder to vote instead of correcting ballot problems that have plagued various parts of the country since the 2000 election, according to a study released Thursday.  Describing their findings as "troubling," voting reform advocates sampled 10 states with past election difficulties.

Problems Plague Election Administrators.  Wendy Noren had all the voting machines she needed.  What she lacked was the stuff that made them work.  So the elections supervisor of Boone County, Mo., didn't sleep Tuesday night.  Instead, she worked furiously into the next morning, outlining a last-minute election plan for a county of 150,000 people, a plan that relied on pen and paper and hand-counted votes and that's with the country's midterm election little more than two weeks away.

Federal judge invalidates Florida 100-foot exit poll restriction.  A federal judge Tuesday [10/24/2006] declared unconstitutional a Florida law that prohibits exit polling within 100 feet of a voting place, finding there was no evidence that such surveys are disruptive or threaten access to voting.

Government Probes Electronic Voting Machine Maker With Alleged Tries to Venezuelan President Chavez.  A U.S. manufacturer of touch-screen voting machines confirmed Sunday it was being investigated by the federal government for alleged ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez but flatly denied any connection.

Voter Turnout or Voter Fraud?  A coalition of liberal groups is attacking any election officials who try to investigate fraud in voter registration drives.  Led by Jesse Jackson, People for the American Way, the NAACP and other groups, the coalition claims that attempts to prevent fraudulent voter registration should be considered "voter intimidation" and "suppression."

Officials Investigate Three Alabama Counties in Voter Fraud Accusations.  Federal and state authorities are looking into accusations of voting fraud in three largely black counties of Alabama, including Perry and Lowndes Counties, which played a historic role in the struggle for black voting rights in the 1960s.  In May, a local citizens group gathered affidavits detailing several cases in which at least one Democratic county official paid citizens for their votes, or encouraged them to vote multiple times.

Obama juices the streets.  It's called "street money" and it is a practice that most big city Democratic machines use to scare up votes on election day.  The actual mechanics vary from city to city but it usually involves hundreds of people getting thousands of dollars in walking around money that they can use at their discretion to get people to the polls.  The prospects for fraud are great, of course.

Widow Fears Voter Fraud.  Voter fraud is a serious concern on the mind of one Jacksonville woman after she said she received a voter registration form in the mail addressed to her late husband.  Della Laliberte, a widow who lives on the Northside, said her husband Horace died 47 years ago.  However, recently she said he was mailed a letter containing special instructions to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

[KPRC-TV] Local 2 Investigates Dead Voters.  More than 1.9 million people are registered to vote in Harris County alone.  But how many of the people listed on the voter roll are actually eligible to cast a ballot?  Investigative reporter Amy Davis shows you how hundreds of voters could sway this year's election — voters who are not even alive. … Texas Watchdog found 4,462 registered voters who appear to be deceased.

Six Alabama counties have more registered voters than adults of voting age.  Greene County, for example, had 7,540 people on its voter rolls at the end of September, but the Census Bureau estimates its adult population at 6,834.  Secretary of State Beth Chapman says her staff is reviewing the numbers because bloated voter rolls can provide an opportunity for election fraud.

Judge Won't Stop Georgia Voter Citizenship Checks.  A federal judge has denied a request by voting groups to block Georgia's attempts to verify new voter applicants' identities and citizenship.  The groups argue in a lawsuit the action is a "systematic purging" of rolls before the election and say the checks must first be approved by the Department of Justice.  U.S. District Judge Jack Camp denied the request Thursday [10/16/2008], saying it could lead to "significant voter confusion."  The plaintiffs' case is still scheduled to be heard by a three-judge panel in U.S. District court next week.

Princess the dead goldfish won't vote in Illinois.  The only "agent of change" Princess ever supported was the person who refreshed the water in her fishbowl.  Now election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs want to investigate out how the dead goldfish received voter registration material.  Paperwork sent to a "Princess Nudelman" likely came from the "Womens Voices, Women Vote" project, said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander, a Republican, who said she has spotted problems with nearly 1,000 voter registrations this year.


The Ohio Subsection

After reading about voting irregularities in the news for the last few year, I've noticed that one state seems to be mentioned more than any other.

Hijinks Mar Ohio Vote.  "Ecuador has more voting integrity than we have here in East Cleveland today."  That is the considered opinion of a Republican attorney who is helping to monitor elections in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.  He requested anonymity to avoid drawing attention to his employer.  I have known him for years as an honest and very serious patriot and consider his comments reliable.  He rang me to discuss the shenanigans that he and other Republican poll watchers have witnessed today in greater Cleveland.

Homeless 'Driven' to Vote for Obama.  Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday [10/6/2008] on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.  The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state's elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency.

Voter-fraud Chaos.  Developments in several states create the possibility that the 2008 vote could result in "Election Month," rather than Election Day.  Court rulings on various absentee-voting procedures — along with early voting and other new forms of balloting — open the door to widespread abuses that could undermine the election.  The possibility of voter fraud or voting irregularities on a massive scale could provide a multistate repeat of Florida 2000.  A perfect example is Ohio.

Campaign Dynamics, Fraud Potential Impacted by Early Voting.  Three years ago, Ohio changed its law to allow absentee voting to begin 35 days before Election Day, which is Sept. 30 this year.  But residents of the state are allowed to register to vote as late as Oct. 6, creating a one-week overlap in which they can register and vote on the same day.  That overlap has come under fire by the Ohio Republican Party and some Ohio voters, who point out that state law requires voters to have been registered for 30 days before they can cast an absentee ballot.  This, they say, creates an unfair situation because it is difficult to immediately verify a voter's identity.

Ohio is a Hotbed of Vote Fraud in 2008.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer is touting triumphantly that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is predicting an 80% voter turnout in the 2008 election.  This would be an amazing statistic if true. ... There is no doubt that Cuyahoga County is "leading" in this year's vote situation.  But, unfortunately, that "leading" seems to be in fraud, not legal, proper votes.

Judge rules Ohio homeless voters may list park benches as addresses.  A federal judge in Ohio has ruled that counties must allow homeless voters to list park benches and other locations that aren't buildings as their addresses.  U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus also ruled that provisional ballots can't be invalidated because of poll worker errors.

Bam Staffers Pull Their Bogus Ohio Ballots.  Thirteen campaign workers for Barack Obama yesterday [10/24/2008] yanked their voter registrations and ballots in Ohio after being warned by a prosecutor that temporary residents can't vote in the battleground state.  A dozen staffers — including Obama Ohio spokeswoman Olivia Alair and James Cadogan, who recently joined Team Obama — signed a form letter asking the Franklin County elections board to pull their names from the rolls.

Hall adviser fired, linked to Ohio voting fraud probe.  Congressman John Hall (D-Dover Plains) fired one of his long-time campaign advisers Tuesday, after learning that she's embroiled in voter fraud investigations in Ohio.  Amy Little, 49, has been a registered Democrat in New York since 1991, and Ulster County election officials said she voted in the party primary here in February.  But in October, Little registered to vote in Ohio.

Ohio official mulls new voting machine rule.  Ohio's elections chief is reconsidering a plan to prohibit poll workers from taking voting machines home for safekeeping in the days before the November presidential election.  Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced plans in February to scrap the practice known as "sleepovers" because of security concerns but is now facing opposition from county elections officials who say the custom makes it easier to transport machines polling sites.

Update:
 Ohio says no to voting machine 'sleepovers'.  Poll workers will not be allowed to take voting machines home for safekeeping in the days before the November presidential election because the practice known as "sleepovers" is an unacceptable security risk, the state elections chief said Tuesday [8/19/2008].  Taking machines home makes it nearly impossible to keep track of what happens to a machine or memory card once it goes into the custody of a poll worker, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said.

Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes.  Premier (formerly Diebold) has admitted to a software flaw in its GEMS system used in 34 states that can cause votes to be dropped while being transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point.  This flaw has existed for at least 10 years….

Glitches galore as US votes.  Programming errors and inexperience with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts during Tuesday's US elections, delaying voters in Indiana and Ohio and forcing some in Florida to cast paper ballots instead.  In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly.  "We got five machines — one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a trouble-shooter from the Cuyahoga County elections board.

Brunner declares Ohio's voting systems vulnerable.  All of the voting systems used in Ohio have "critical security failures" that make them vulnerable to tampering and should be replaced with paper ballots counted at a central location, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner concluded after a top-to-bottom review of the systems.

Ohio voting law may be a boon for Obama supporters.  Never mind the last days of the presidential campaign.  The busiest days for Barack Obama's campaign in this perennial swing state are likely to be a month before Election Day.  Ohio has created a window in the election calendar that would allow residents instant gratification — register one minute, vote the next.

Critics see voting loopholes in new rules.  With Ohio expected once more to play a deciding role in the presidential race, the battle over state voting rules that plagued the 2004 election has begun again in earnest.  Republicans are raising concerns about Ohioans registering to vote and immediately casting absentee ballots during a five-day window after absentee voting starts Sept. 30 and before the deadline for registration Oct. 6.

Supreme Court rejects Ohio GOP bid.  The Supreme Court sided Friday [10/17/2008] with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.  The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.

No Righting Voting Wrongs in Ohio.  Topping the list of most important legal cases this election year may be one in which the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits, and about which the U.S. Department of Justice turned a blind eye to justice.  Rampant voter fraud may well result.  The nation's highest court ruled Friday [10/17/2008] that, for now, a federal district court cannot force Ohio's Secretary of State to enforce federal elections laws that she is flagrantly ignoring.

Lawyers demand vote fraud probe.  The lawyers pointed to Ohio and Wisconsin, where the Justice Department has decided against requiring state officials to confirm voters' identities by releasing their names to local election authorities as "difficult to fathom."  At issue in both states are thousands of voters whose names did not match listed Social Security and driver's license numbers in other government databases, or otherwise did not pass identity verification standards.  "This appears to be a dereliction of the department's obligations to enforce federal law," the attorneys wrote.

Ohio Secretary of State Linked to ACORN, Project Vote.  The national development director for Project Vote, an affiliated organization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has been linked to embattled Ohio Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner.  Karyn Gillette of Project Vote was a campaign consultant for the Brunner campaign, according to information found in a post made by Rick Brunner on April 11, 2006 on the secretary of state's own blog.


The ACORN Subsection

People who conspire to commit large-scale voting fraud are the reason for Voter-ID laws.

Lawyers who supervise voting rights are Obama donors.  If voter fraud would ever be ripe for investigation, this would seem to be the year with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) having been caught filing thousands of bogus voter registrations in at least 14 states.  Acorn's history of deceit and the national sweep of today's scandal demand a federal probe.  Safeguarding the integrity of the vote is every bit as important as protecting access to the polls, yet Democrats want Justice to pay attention only to the latter.

O's Dangerous Pals:  One key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott — an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama.  She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.  Long the director of Chicago ACORN, Talbott is a specialist in "direct action" — organizers' term for their militant tactics of intimidation and disruption.  Perhaps her most famous stunt was leading a group of ACORN protesters breaking into a meeting of the Chicago City Council to push for a "living wage" law, shouting in defiance as she was arrested for mob action and disorderly conduct.  But her real legacy may be her drive to push banks into making risky mortgage loans.

ACORN:  A Clear and Present Danger.  What I have not been able to figure out is why the leaders of the group have not been indicted under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) for taking part in an ongoing criminal organization.  The only logical reason that the feds have backed off is because of ACORN's close ties to organized labor.  Tragically, in 2008 America, it's not only individuals who are easily intimidated, but the government itself.

Financial Affirmative Action:  After [the Community Reinvestment Act] came into effect, Saul Alinsky-inspired "community organizer" groups such as Greenlining, ACORN, and National Council of La Raza got into the shakedown business.  They preach the hateful class-warfare rhetoric of their fellow community organizers Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Michael Pfleger.  They rage against capitalism and demand crushing taxes and aggressive wealth redistribution programs.  They demand more government spending on social programs, a higher minimum wage, and gun control.

From a little ACORN.  ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a busy hive of left-wing agitation and "direct action" that claims chapters in 50 cities and 100,000 dues-paying members.  ACORN is where 1960s leftovers who couldn't get tenure at universities wound up.

The Acorn Indictments:  A union-backed outfit faces charges of election fraud.  So, less than a week before the [2006] midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board.  But hey, who needs voter ID laws?

ACORN's Suspect Voter Drive:  ACORN … has received wide attention for claiming to have registered more than one million new voters nationwide.  But in state after state allegations are surfacing that ACORN activists are padding the registration books.  In Colorado hundreds of voter registration forms are suspect.  On October 12 Denver television station KUSA reported that one woman admitted to forging three people's names on 40 registration forms to help her boyfriend earn an extra $50 from ACORN.  According to the Associated Press, she also signed herself up to vote 25 times.

Law puts thousands of Florida voter IDs in question.  About 3,200 new voters are in the cross-hairs of Florida's new and controversial "no-match" law, which could force them to cast provisional ballots on Election Day if officials can't confirm their identities.  The law, designed to prevent potential election fraud and remove joke names from voter rolls — "Ricco Suave" and "Joe Blow" among them — requires local elections officials to mail letters to anyone whose registration information doesn't match the state's driver's license or Social Security databases.

Liberals Would Let Dogs Vote.  Nowadays dogs, the deceased, convicted felons, illegal immigrants and imaginary people are registered to vote.  This shouldn't be.  But to hear some liberal groups, any rules and restrictions on the franchise are intolerable.  One liberal group seems to think that everyone should get to register to vote no matter whether they're legally entitled to vote.  The only disqualifying factor might be if the prospective voter doesn't support the group's radical agenda.  That group is ACORN….

Voter Fraud Made Easy:  ACORN Shows The Way.  The Wall Street Journal reported that an Ohio ACORN worker was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent voter registration cards.  Many of the newly registered voters were deceased, underage or were named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy or Jive Turkey.  In Minnesota, authorities founds hundreds of voter registration cards in the trunk of a car owned by a former ACORN worker suspected of registering voters twice so he could double his fees.

ACORN's Hypocritical House of Cards:  The Consumers Rights League has published a collection of whistleblower documents that suggest "consumer advocacy" group ACORN has reaped substantial financial gains by misusing taxpayer dollars for political ends and attacking lending corporations for the same 'predatory' lending practices it regularly engages in.  These internal emails and policies suggest that ACORN has failed to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive political activities.  ACORN and its affiliates are then able to extract resources from financial lenders seeking abatement from its public relations assaults and force financial settlement agreements that benefit ACORN but are harmful for consumers.

ACORN's mandate today includes all issues touching low-income and working-class people.  The organization runs schools where children are trained in class consciousness; it oversees a network of "boot camps" where street activists are trained; and it conducts operations that extort contributions from banks and other businesses under threat of trumped-up civil rights charges.

— Discover the Networks      

Incidentally...  Activist group ACORN, a longtime proponent of a "living wage" for workers, has been stiffing its own employees, the Baltimore City Paper reported July 26.  Sandra Stewart, a $250 a week intern at the Baltimore branch of the group, complained to the newspaper that the advocacy group had failed to pay her for six weeks of work.  "I find it completely ironic that an organization that fights for social justice" has trouble paying its workers, Stewart wrote in a letter to the paper that sparked its interest in the story.  The paper reported that other ACORN ex-employees have also complained about not being paid back wages.

Minimum Wage Hits $9.50 in Santa Fe.  This month, in the liberal bastion of Santa Fe, New Mexico, they are raising the minimum wage in the city to $9.50 per hour.  The measure applies to all businesses with 25 or more employees.  The driving force behind this decision was Acorn, the 'national community organization,' as Jon Gertner describes it in The New York Times Magazine for January 15, 2006.  Acorn has discovered that the way to win on the minimum wage issue is to cast it not as an economic issue but as a moral issue.

Rotten ACORN:  In what is being called the "worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history," seven employees of the liberal advocacy group ACORN have been charged with filling out fake voter registration forms. … The defendants allegedly faked more than 1700 voter registration forms.  They, like all ACORN employees nationwide, are paid by for every name they sign up.  This has led to widespread charges of fraud in Missouri, Ohio, and 12 other states.

Missing headlines:  leftwing voter fraud guilty plea.  Readers may recall that the state of Washington was in the news in 2004 for the closeness of the election for Governor (won by Christine Democrat Gregoire by all of 133 votes; her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi, has since announced plans to run again next year).  That race was subject to claims of voter fraud.  While the defendants who worked for ACORN did not plead guilty for acts that led to actual voting... where there is smoke there is usually fire.

Obama's Ties To ACORN More Substantial than first believed.  You've heard of Moveon.org and Code Pink — two radical leftist groups seeking to elect out and out socialists to public office and who are fierce opponents of the capitalist system.  But have you heard of ACORN? … Not surprisingly it turns out that Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger — two radical clergy closely associated with Obama — have extensive ties to ACORN.  Their views fit nicely within the ACORN anti-capitalist agenda that they have been pushing for years.

ACORN's Nutty Regime for Cities:  If you thought the New Left was dead in America, think again.  Walk through just about any of the nation's inner cities, and you're likely to find an office of ACORN, bustling with young people working 12-hour days to "organize the poor" and bring about "social change."  The largest radical group in the country, ACORN has 120,000 dues-paying members, chapters in 700 poor neighborhoods in 50 cities, and 30 years' experience.  It boasts two radio stations, a housing corporation, a law office, and affiliate relationships with a host of trade-union locals.

Obama's Alliance with Marxists.  Erik Ericson of RedState.com has a very detailed article today on Barack Obama's connection to a neo-Marxist political party called the "New Party."  Basically, Obama sought out the group as a result of his work with another far left organization ACORN — a "non-partisan" acvitist group whose members have been convicted in several states of vote fraud.

Whistleblower Documents Reveal ACORN's Apparent Misuse.  The ACORN Housing Association (AHC), an ACORN affiliate that receives over 40% of its funding from government sources, claims to be a consumer advocate.  In a newly-released report from CRL, however, a series of documents obtained from a whistleblower source reveals hypocritical and potentially illegal use of taxpayer dollars by ACORN and its related organizations.  These documents — which include staff emails and internal organization policies — suggest that ACORN has failed to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive political activities.

$1 Million Scandal is the Latest to Hit ACORN.  ACORN and its affiliates have a multi-decade history of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds.  Recently, the Consumers Rights League released a whistleblower report that uses internal ACORN documents to highlight alleged misuses of taxpayer money by ACORN Housing Corp, which took in 40% of its funds from the government and sent more than a million dollars to ACORN's affiliate, Citizens Consulting.  Now, The New York Times reports that ACORN has hid since 2001 the embezzlement of nearly $1 million by the brother of ACORN's founder from that same organization — Citizens Consulting.

ACORN will hold national board meeting in N.O. Friday.  At its national board meeting in New Orleans Friday [10/17/2008], the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now will try to resolve whether two board members overstepped their authority by filing a lawsuit seeking access to financial records that might shed light on an embezzlement scandal involving the founder's brother.

Missing ACORN funds spark lawsuit, power struggle.  Leaders of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are locked in a legal dispute stemming from allegations that the brother of the group's founder misappropriated nearly $1 million of the nonprofit's money several years ago.  The embezzlement case, a recent revelation to some board members, has spawned a lawsuit and set off a power struggle inside ACORN at a time when the liberal group's voter registration practices are the subject of fraud investigations and fodder for presidential campaign attacks.

Acorn falls into more trouble.  The lawsuit filed in August by two board members accuses ACORN founder and former chief organizer Wade Rathke of either concealing or failing to properly report that his brother Dale embezzled around $948,000 in 1999 and 2000.  Instead of reporting the allegations to police, ACORN executives allowed the Rathke family to repay the money, according to the lawsuit brought by board members Karen Inman and Marcel Reid.

Authorities probe voter registration.  A voter registration drive by a national organization is being investigated by Dauphin County authorities after election officials raised questions about more than 100 of the forms.  Charles Jackson, a spokesman for [ACORN], said that his organization fired a temporary employee involved in collecting registrations and that it has been cooperating with Dauphin County detectives.

Obama Finds An ACORN.  Acorn has been in the lead in opposing voter ID laws and other efforts to ensure ballot integrity.  Acorn has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus registration schemes in Ohio and at least 13 other states.  voter ID laws.

ACORN's tactics are controversial.  The group has drawn accusations of voter fraud and criminal investigations in several states.  Last year, authorities in Washington state brought felony charges against ACORN workers for filing false voter registrations.  Some ACORN workers pleaded guilty and went to jail, while the organization paid $25,000 and agreed to have its registration efforts monitored in a settlement with Washington state authorities.  [Larry] Lomax said while he supports the goal of getting more people registered to vote, he sees rampant fraud in the 2,000 to 3,000 registrations ACORN turns in every week.

Another Acorn Scandal:  The folks at the far-left radical activist group ACORN are embroiled in a financial corruption and cover-up scandal that they managed to keep hidden from their donors and political partners for eight years.  Now their deception has been uncovered for all to see.  But is ACORN's leadership apologetic?  Not in the slightest.  "We did what we thought was right," said the group's president, Maude Hurd.

ACORN Cracks Wide Open.  For several weeks ACORN has been reeling over accusations that [Wade] Rathke's brother, Dale, had embezzled nearly $1 million during the turn of the decade — and that both had conspired to cover up the offense.  That triggered Wade Rathke's resignation on June 2 as chief organizer.  Sometime this spring an internal whistle-blower forced ACORN leaders to admit if not complicity in all this, then at least a moral blind spot.

ACORN fires 2 who were probing embezzlement allegations.  Community organizing group ACORN, investigated this year for filing fraudulent voter registration forms, has fired two board members it had asked to investigate allegations that an ACORN founder's brother embezzled nearly $1 million.

Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending.  Money flows back and forth between ACORN, Citizens Services Inc., Project Vote and Communities Voting Together.  ACORN posts job ads for Citizens Services and Project Vote.  Communities Voting Together contributed $60,000 to Citizens Services Inc., for example, in November 2005, according to a posting on CampaignMoney.com.  Project Vote has hired ACORN and CSI as its highest paid contractors, paying ACORN $4,649,037 in 2006 and CSI $779,016 in 2006, according to [Jim] Terry of the Consumers Rights League.

Cuyahoga board probes ACORN voter registration drive.  A national organization that conducts voter registration drives for low-income people has curtailed its push in Cuyahoga County after the Board of Elections accused its workers of submitting fraudulent registration cards. … Board employees said ACORN workers often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards, but showing that person living at different addresses.  Other times, cards had the same name listed, but a different date of birth.  Still another sign of possible fraud showed a number of people living at an address that turned out to be a restaurant.

Head of Foundation Bailed Out Nonprofit Group After Its Funds Were Embezzled.  In 2000, Acorn discovered that Dale Rathke had embezzled $948,507.50 from it and affiliated charitable organizations.  The management committee that controlled the organization decided not to alert law enforcement officials, and negotiated an agreement with the Rathke family to repay the money.  That agreement was carried on the books of an affiliate, Citizens Consulting Inc., as a loan to an officer.

ACORN's board sues over records in funds theft.  Board directors at ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — are demanding the organization turn over financial records relating to the embezzlement of nearly $1 million by the brother of ACORN's founder.  Board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman are seeking a court order that also would sever ties between ACORN and founder Wade Rathke, The New York Times reported Tuesday [9/9/2008].

Bad voter applications found.  Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families.  The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs.  ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees.

More ACORN Vote Fraud Attempts.  It is looking like fraud on a massive scale in Detroit as ACORN tries to fill the Democrat voter rolls with fake Democrat voters. ACORN is being investigated after several Municipal Clerks discovered fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications.

Voter Fraud:  More Than 1,000 Voter Cards Suspect.  Some of the estimated 1,100 registrations list Social Security numbers for people who already are in the county's database of registered voters, Toulouse Oliver said.  Other cards list the same name — but a different birth date — of already registered voters.  Some of the people whose names appear in the list of possibly phony registrations, when called by the clerk's office, said they never filled out the new cards changing their voter data, Toulouse Oliver said.

Republicans, ACORN feud over suspicious voter cards.  An ACORN spokesman said the group spotted what appeared to be forged registration cards weeks ago and fired a worker over them.  Seminole's election chief, Mike Ertel, said he was still "tremendously concerned," but stopped well short of calling the incident "fraud."  The Republican National Committee, though, levelled the accusation and blasted the housing and wage advocacy group in a nationwide conference call with reporters, saying this wasn't an isolated incident.

Workers from Community Voters Project implicated in voter fraud.  ACORN and the Community Voters Project are among five activist groups, all from the liberal side of the political spectrum, that have launched massive voter registration drives in advance of the Nov. 4 presidential election.  Those developments have revived partisan debate over whether Wisconsin should require voters to show photo identification to prevent fraud or whether such measures would dampen turnout among poor and minority voters.

An ACORN Falls from the Tree.  ACORN has often been in the news since 2004.  Officially, they work to register voters and support housing.  In reality, everyone in public life knows that they are hardcore supporters for the Democratic Party, and employ bare-knuckle tactics.  Their organization is plagued by repeated investigations of voter fraud and other crimes.  In Ohio, where as secretary of state I oversaw elections for eight years, ACORN has been busy.  One ACORN man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of voter fraud, and another was indicted in Columbus.  Other such problems surfaced in Cuyahoga County, where criminal investigations are ongoing.  It's not just Ohio.  ACORN personnel are facing criminal charges in over a dozen states.

ACORN:  The Poisonous Nut that Ended Democracy in America.  In truth, ACORN is the most virulent, organized crime group in this decade... and it is funded by you.  Put simply, ACORN is ripping off the taxpayer through Congressional hand outs.  In fact, ACORN was recently due to receive nearly $700 million of the $700 billion dollar bailout bill until Republicans in the Senate redlined it.

ACORN's 1st hearing canceled.  The initial court hearing over a leadership crisis at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and a possible coverup of a $1 million embezzlement scandal was scuttled Thursday [10/3/2008] when it became clear that defendants had not been properly served notice of the proceedings.  "It appears that due to Hurricanes Ike and/or Gustav, there was a service problem," Civil District Court Judge Michael Bagneris said after an hour and 45 minutes of delays.

ACORN vote fraud continues.  ACORN, responsible for so much vote fraud in Wisconsin and elsewhere, violated Wisconsin law by employing felons for its voter registration drive. Milwaukee election officials approved this and were caught out at it.

Alleging fraud, authorities raid ACORN Las Vegas office.  The secretary of state's office launched an investigation after noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members of the Dallas Cowboys appeared to be registering in Nevada to vote in November's general election. … Agents with the secretary of state and state attorney general offices served a search warrant on the headquarters of [ACORN] … shortly after 9 a.m. [10/8/2008]  They seized voter registration forms and computer databases to determine how many fake forms were submitted and identify employees who were responsible.

Non-Profit Raided In Voter Fraud Probe.  The Las Vegas headquarters of the nation's largest grassroots community organization for low-income people was raided today by Nevada state authorities as part of a voter-fraud probe.  The raid was initiated by Nevada's Secretary of State, Ross Miller, after a series of accusations that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, was submitting voter registration lists to the state that contained false or duplicate names of voters.

Fraud Raid Sacks Bam Activists.  Officials yesterday raided the Las Vegas headquarters of a major pro-Obama community-organizing group as part of a probe into alleged voter fraud that includes using the names of Dallas Cowboy players on sham registrations.  At least four Nevada agents swept into the offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, in the morning with a search warrant.

ACORN Vegas Office Raided in Voter Fraud Investigation.  Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday [10/7/2008] from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.  Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state's office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about "erroneous" registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

Smells from the shadows:  An investigation of ACORN, a cabal of "political activists" hired to register voters in the neighborhoods where few friends of John McCain abide has now spread to 10 states.  Investigators discovered that the entire offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys had signed up to vote in Las Vegas, unless it turns out that someone forged their signatures to make a quota.  The rules for this game were written in Chicago.

Liberal group's fraud shows voter ID need.  My introduction to ACORN was in the 1990s.  When the savings and loan debacle occurred and large numbers of S&Ls had to be taken into receivership, I was the eastern U.S. director of investigations for the Resolution Trust Corporation, the agency established to clean up the mess. … The history of ACORN fraud and intimidation makes a long list.  While Cynthia Tucker makes readers mad at mean Republicans trying to intimidate voters by asking them to show ID that proves who they are, ACORN is just one example that proves the need, for those of you who need proof.

Is ACORN trying to steal the election?  A radical group Barack Obama used to work for is committing voter-registration fraud in several states, ahead of the election.  What does Obama know about this scam?  It's a legitimate question to raise now that the FBI has raided the offices of the nonprofit [ACORN] in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Obama and John McCain are running neck-and-neck.  ACORN has registered bogus voters in both states.

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration.  Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.  Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

ACORN: Look, We Can't Weed Out Fraudulent Voters. It's What We Do.  As I noted back in July 2007, ACORN members have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and had various forms of reprimand, investigation, indictment, and other run-ins with the law and state election authorities in Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, New Mexico, North Carolina, Missouri, Michigan, Florida, and Arkansas.  Yes, this is the ACORN that Obama worked for.

RNC Says ACORN is Undermining the Electoral System.  Nevada authorities raided the offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on Tuesday [10/7/2008], as part of an investigation into suspected voter-registration fraud.  The Republican National Committee (RNC) responded on Wednesday by accusing ACORN of a "significant and blatant" effort to undermine this year's election.

Voter Fraud Ignored by Government and Media.  I'm happy to announce that the mainstream news media are beginning to cover the story of rampant voter fraud perpetrated by liberal organizations such as ACORN.  I've been covering this story for years as part of my overall coverage of illegal aliens and immigration.  While Barack Obama is scolding AIG and corporate America, he's served as an attorney for ACORN in the past, and has not once mentioned the federal investigation of that organization.

ACORN should be Obama's undoing.  We will never know exactly how many fraudulent votes ACORN will be responsible for in the upcoming presidential election, but If the whole truth about ACORN and its long and intimate relationship with rookie United States Senator and 2008 Democrat presidential nominee Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.  becomes fully and generally known, on Election Night 2008 Obama and his ACORNites will moan.

How ACORN Got Me Into Vote Scam.  Two Ohio voters, including Domino's pizza worker Christopher Barkley, claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they'd already signed up.  Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.

Did ACORN Take Obama's 'Get In Their Face' Rallying Cry Literally?  When Barack Obama was on the boards of the Joyce Foundation and the Woods Foundation, the two groups gave "tens of millions" of dollars to ACORN.  In 1992, Obama headed the efforts of Project Vote in Illinois, an ACORN affiliate.

1 Voter, 72 Registrations.  A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday [10/9/2008] he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.  "Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Fictitious Donors Found in Obama Finance Records.  An analysis of campaign finance records by The New York Times this week found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. … It is unclear why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name.  Some perhaps did it for privacy reasons.  Another, more ominous possibility, of course, is fraud, perhaps in order to donate beyond the maximum limits.

The Editor says...
 Not only is the New York Times lagging weeks behind the internet on this story, their reporter can't figure out "why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name."  That doesn't sound to me like the work of major-market journalists.

Boehner escalates war on ACORN.  House Republican leader John A. Boehner of Ohio escalated the war on ACORN today [10/9/2008], calling for it to be cut off from all federal money and going so far as to call for a ban on ACORN contracting with candidates for federal office.  ACORN, a community organizing group allied with Democrats, has been blamed by the GOP for pushing housing policies that Republicans say contributed to the housing crisis.  It has been the subject of investigations for voter registration fraud and its Nevada offices were recently raided.

Connecicut looking into voter cards submitted by ACORN.  Joseph Borges, Bridgeport's Republican registrar of voters, filed the complaint.  He said he has found problems with numerous voter registration cards submitted by [ACORN], which works to register low-income people.  In one instance, he says a card was filled out for a 7-year-old girl, whose age was listed as 27 on the card.  ACORN filed more than 8,000 cards in Bridgeport.  The complaint involves 10, but Borges said there were problems with many others.

7-Year-Old Gets an Acorn Vote.  O'jahnae Smith is ready and registered to vote this November.  There's only one problem:  She's 7 years old.  The Connecticut girl is 11 years too young -- and nobody in her family knows how she ended up on a voter registration form submitted by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Hoosiers turn out in masses for Obama rally