Denver Goes "Back to Paper" -- Sort Of

A news article from Denver notes that the city is reversing its experiment from its last election, and going "back to paper."

It's Back to Paper Ballots, Precincts, For This Year's Elections 

This only sort of true. Yes, it's true that Denver is using a voting method that election officials say they're more comfortable with, and that some voters will likely view as more trustworthy. 

Reflection on Independence Day

Yesterday, on July 4th, I took some time to reflect on nearly 400 years of elections in North America, in the hopes of having something meaningful to share in this blog, not about technology, but something fundamental. With little immediate success, I picked up a book, and re-read some email from a friend.

"Privatized" Elections and Internet Programming

Attending and speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum last week, I came across a good phrase, "privatized elections," used to describe the widening role that private companies play in running U.S. government elections.

Test results on New Jersey e-voting machines will be released

Good news from New Jersey! A judge there has reversed her earlier decision that test results on Sequoia voting machines could not be made public -- a story that we discussed a few months ago here. The new ruling means that conmputer experts at Princeton University will be able to analyze the machines starting next week, and publish their results in late September before the November election.

More on OSDV at PdF2008 -- How to Trust Voting Technology

I have a couple of updates on OSDV’s participation at next week’s Personal Democracy Forum ( PdF2008 ). As mentioned earlier, Greg Miller and John Sebes will be hosting a table in the Idea Market--now with the new and improved title “How to Trust Voting Technology.” In addition, PdF organizers have

Real Viruses, Real Voting Systems, Real Concern

The notable election systems snafu news items of the week is a virus infection of Windows-based election systems sold by Premier Systems (Diebold) and used in Florida's Pinellas county.

As a cause for alarm, the incident is pretty low, in that the infection was by ordinary Windows OS viruses, which can cripple a Windows system in a generic way. That's not the much-speculated "targeted malware" that acts to change election data in the cases where the virus gets a foothold on an actual voting system machine.

OSDV at Personal Democracy Forum (PdF2008) -- How to Trust the Vote

My colleagues Greg Miller and John Sebes will be participating in the upcoming Personal Democracy Forum (PdF2008) in New York City, June 23-24. Specifically, they will be hosting a presentation table in the Idea Market on the topic of "How to Trust the Vote."

Arkansas E-Vote Flipping: Force 9 Gale?

It seems like e-voting snafus are like weather: there’s always a bit of a storm somewhere, and now and then you get a big one. Although we can thank our lucky stars that we haven’t had a real hurricane, an electronic equivalent of Florida in 2000, the recent Arkansas vote-flipping snafu might qualify as a force 9 gale.

And because this time it is clear the outcome of the race was also flipped, this case of Arkansas State House District 45 in 2008 might

Get Out the Vote Posters from AIGA -- Great Design on Display

The AIGA, the professional association for design, is once again sponsoring its Get Out the Vote poster design contest for its members. AIGA designers are asked to create nonpartisan posters that inspire Americans to vote in the 2008 general election. Almost 200 posters under consideration are available for viewing here. It is a great collection ... and lots of fun to peruse.

Blogged.com rates OSDV blog as "Very Good" -- Tell us what YOU think!

The editors at the blog review site Blogged.com have given the OSDV blog a "very good" rating -- based on frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design, and writing style. This is a very nice thing to see. But besides reviewing blogs, Blogged offers blog readers the opportunity to add their reviews. We would love to hear what our readers think.