'Daily Voting News' For March 03, 2009

Yesterday the California Secretary of State released a letter to the Election Assistance Commission and a report of their findings with regards to the problem discovered in early December in Humboldt Co. with Diebold GEMS v. 1.18.19. The letter actually challenges the EAC to take action in “requiring that, for every voting system certified by the EAC, the voting system vendor report any and all flaws and problems with the system to the EAC and to the elections officials in the states where the system is used when such flaws are discovered”. And Secretary Bowen has taken the action herself by sponsoring legislation in California that will do what she has challenged the EAC to do. The report is an amazing report that tells why our voting systems are failing. The issues with the GEMS software go much deeper than just the fact that the system may lose votes. The state also found readily apparent violations of the voting system standards. These violations seem to have been ignored by the test labs, by NASED and their consultants who qualified the voting system, and by past CA Secretaries of State and their consultants. The big question, is will the EAC, staffed by people who were involved in the NASED “rubber-stamp” of GEMS 1.18.19 take any action? Will they post the letter and report in their “clearinghouse”? We certainly hope so. The present Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, and her staff deserve congratulations and appreciation for a job well done so far. It will be interesting to hear what follow-up actions will now be taken on the federal and state levels....

**"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or Scoop.**

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John Gideon
Co-Executive Director
VotersUnite.Org
www.votersunite.org

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