SPANISH-BASED SCYTL MAY RAISE NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS

Imagine voting through Google, Apple

SCYTL, an international company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm, yesterday announced the successful implementation of technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smart phones and tablet computers.

The company previously has faced questions about the security of its electronic voting technologies, which are now set to be deployed in 900 U.S. jurisdictions via its U.S. subsidiary.

The firm already provides balloting for overseas U.S. military and civilian voting in nine states along with elections technologies in several districts.

Concerns have also been raised about SCYTL’s ties to the Spanish government and to international venture capital firms.

Now SCYTL has unveiled a platform that it says encrypts each individual ballot on a voter’s Google or Apple mobile device before the ballot is then transmitted to an electronic voting system.

Using this technology “Scytl is now able to guarantee end-to-end security – from the voter to the final tally – not only for computer-based online voting but also for mobile voting,” stated a press release by the company.

“By leveraging its pioneering security technology with Google and Apple’s mobile device platforms, Scytl has become the premier election technology provider to offer an online voting system that guarantees the highest standards in terms of both voter privacy and ballot integrity both on personal computers and mobile devices,” said Gabriel Dos Santos, Scytl’s vice president of software engineering.

The U.S. currently does not utilize voting platforms using mobile devices. SCYTL sees such methods as the future of electronic voting.

It is unclear what role SCYTL’s U.S. subsidiary, SOE Software, will take during this year’s presidential election.

This past January, SCYTL, based in Barcelona, acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States.

The press release announcing the acquisition noted that SCYTL is a portfolio company of leading international venture capital funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.

National security concerns

With the purchase of SOE Software, SCYTL has increased its involvement in the U.S. elections process. SOE Software boasts a strong U.S. presence, providing results in over 900 jurisdictions.

In 2009, SCYTL formally registered with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (AEC) as the first Internet voting manufacturer in the U.S. under the EAC Voting System Testing and Certification Program.

Also that year, SCYTL entered into an agreement with another firm, Hart InterCivic, to jointly market a flexible and secure electronic pollbook purportedly to allow U.S. election officials and poll workers to easily manage the electoral roll on Election Day in an efficient and convenient manner.

SCYTL’s ePollBookTM already replaced the paper precinct roster in Washington, D.C.

During the midterm elections in November 2010, SCYTL successfully carried out electoral modernization projects in 14 states. The company boasted that a “great variety” of SCYTL’s technologies were involved in the projects, including an online platform for the delivery of blank ballots to overseas voters, an Internet voting platform and e-pollbook software to manage the electoral roll at the polling stations.

The states that used SCYTL’s technologies during the midterms were New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Just prior to the midterms, however, the new electronic voting system in Washington, D.C., was hacked.

As a program security trial, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics reportedly encouraged outside parties to hack and find flaws in its new online balloting system. A group of University of Michigan students then hacked into the site and commanded it to play the school’s fight song upon casting a vote.

This is not the first time SCYTL’s systems have been called into question.
Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S., sent a lengthy complaint to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”

“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” Voter Action charged.

The document notes that SCYTL was founded in 2001 as a spinoff from a research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, which was partially funded by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

SCYTL’s headquarters are in Barcelona with offices in Washington, D.C., Singapore, Bratislava and Athens.

Project Vote noted that in 2008, the Florida Department of State commissioned a review of SCYTL’s remote voting software and concluded, in part, that:

• The system is vulnerable to attack from insiders.
• In a worst case scenario, the software could lead to (1) voters being unable to cast votes; (2) an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters; and (3) possible disclosure of confidential information, such as the votes cast by individual voters.
• The system may be subject to attacks that could compromise the integrity of the votes cast.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott

FLORIDA STATE SAYS 180,000 NON-RESIDENTS COULD BE REGISTERED TO VOTE IN FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE | An estimated 180,000 non-U.S. residents are registered to vote in Florida, according to state records. It’s a tightly held secret not shared with county election officials or the state’s election chief even after he took the job.

The large number of non-residents potentially on state voter rolls was first identified in early 2011, when the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles turned over residency information to the Department of State.

Using a 1.4 million voter sample, the state estimated at the time that there were “almost 900,000 voters that may or may not be U.S. citizens” in Florida according to documents obtained by the Times-Union. Verification of citizenship has whittled that number to the current 180,000.

The group, termed “immigrants,” is comprised of people who are in the United States legally on a permanent basis. A separate group of roughly 2,600 “non-immigrants” — people here legally on a temporary basis — also may be registered.

State estimates show 3,600 immigrant voters in Duval County. That number is “less than 500” in Clay County, said Clay County Supervisor of Election Chris Chambliss.

So, how did so many non-residents register to vote?

“From my understanding, it can happen when people go to get driver’s license,” said Duval Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland.

Courtney Heidelberg, a Motor Vehicles spokeswoman, said if a person is not a resident, there should be no option to register.

“A possible explanation would be they could have registered prior to when the department began to collect citizenship information and haven’t renewed or visited us since then,” she said.

THE LEFT’S NATIONAL VOTE FRAUD STRATEGY EXPOSED

This report reveals the Left’s vote fraud strategy for the 2012 elections. Like a KGB operation, it is thorough, multi-faceted and redundant. It has overt and covert, illegal and legal elements, the latter of which are designed, at least in part, to facilitate illegal activities later. It is a deliberate, premeditated, comprehensive plan to win the 2012 presidential election at all costs, and is in keeping with the organizational methods, associations and ethics of the Community-Organizer-in-Chief, Barack Obama. 

The Left seeks fundamental structural change to our entire form of government. In keeping with their amoral, means-justifies-ends philosophy, they will register any voters, dead or alive, legal or illegal, who will then vote as many times as possible, in order to establish a “permanent progressive majority.” As two New York Democrats recently caught in a vote fraud scandal told police, “voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections…”

Low income individuals are the perfect dupes for this strategy. An expanding welfare state makes them increasingly dependent on government benefits, a development that guarantees their vote for liberal-left candidates. At the same time, people with marginal attachment to society may be less inclined to report illegal activity at the polls—or actually participate. The “victim” narrative promoted in popular culture and press may even encourage such behavior. Meanwhile, a growing tax burden and public debt suck private enterprise dry—pushing ever more people onto the dole.

Politicians of both parties are not above engaging in vote fraud. But this kind of corruption is relegated to individual campaigns or areas where corrupt political establishments have been able to develop unchallenged. It is not a systematic component of overall national strategy, as it is with the Left.

This strategy has been under development for decades. They have constructed an entire industry devoted to this task and pursue a multifaceted strategy to accomplish it:

1. Swamp election officials with overwhelming numbers of registrations at the last possible minute, a huge proportion of which are deliberately fraudulent, in order to create systematic chaos. This accomplishes numerous goals:

• Makes verification of registrations difficult, given the small size and limited budgets of state and local election offices.
• Provides multiple opportunities for vote fraud.
• Throws the entire voting process into question, providing pretext for lawsuits where concessions may be obtained from election officials.
• When election officials challenge registrations, they are accused of “voter suppression.” This in turn serves complementary goals:
  • Charge of “voter suppression” reinforces the Left’s narrative about America as an oppressive, “racist” country.
  • Publicity and lawsuits intimidate election officials, who settle on terms favorable to the Left.

2. Activists sue state authorities for “voter suppression,” creating further chaos and pressuring them to become de facto taxpayer-funded voter registration operations;

3. Eric Holder’s Justice Department tacitly supports voter intimidation tactics, sues states and backs private lawsuits, and resists reform as “voter suppression.”

4. Leftist echo chamber discredits allegations of vote fraud, supports “suppression” theme, and promotes advantageous legislation.

The ultimate goal is a systematized, taxpayer-funded voting machinery that will guarantee maximum participation from the Left’s voting demographic while undermining the ability to manage elections and prevent fraud.

 The ACORN Swamping Method

Key to understanding the Left’s vote-fraud strategy is the community organizing group ACORN. ACORN has become synonymous with corruption, complicity in the subprime mortgage crisisand especially vote fraud.

ACORN and its voter registration arm, Project Vote, hire marginal and unskilled workers at very low rates and use incentive bonuses or quotas to encourage them to collect as many voterregistrations as possible. The resulting flood of registrations are fraught with duplicates, errors and omissions, and a large number are overtly fraudulent, including names like “Donald Duck,” “Mickey Mouse,” “Tony Romo” of the Dallas Cowboys, etc.[2] According to Matthew Vadum, the senior editor at Capital Research Center, a total of 400,000 bogus ACORN registrations were thrown out in 2008 alone.

ACORN was supposedly disbanded in 2010 but resurrected itself under a slew of new names. Former ACORN President Bertha Lewis bragged that they created “…18 bulletproof community-organizing Frankensteins…” These are reproduced in the table below. Most of these groups occupy former ACORN offices, many with the same staff.

ACORN is directly connected to Obama and the Democratic Party. Counsel to The Advance Group, a strategic planning company, is Michael Gaspard, Patrick Gaspard’s brother. Patrick is currently the DNC’s executive director and President Obama’s former political director. He has worked for ACORN, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Working Families Party, a descendant of the ACORN-founded New Party which Barack Obama joined in 1996. Obama has bragged of “fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”

ACORN’s former deputy regional director, Amy Busefink was convicted in 2010 of vote fraud stemming from a 2008 Nevada case. Judicial Watch found that, “while under criminal indictment in Nevada… [Busefink] managed an online program for Project Vote’s 2010 Colorado campaign, the ultimate goal of which is to allow people without a driver’s license or state identification to register to vote online.” Busefink is now national field director for Project Vote.

Barack Obama established his organizing bona fides with Project Vote in 1992, when he registered 150,000 Illinois voters.

Zach Polett (courtesy Anita MonCrief)

Project Vote was created and run for years by Zach Polett, who bragged that he trained Barack Obama in 1992 and said of Obama, “ACORN produces leaders.” Polett is listed in Manta.com as president of Voting for America, one of Project Vote’s former names, although his name is not on Project Vote’s website. Calls to that listing roll into a voice mail identifying the organizations as “CSI.” Polett’s extension is #3. CSI is the acronym for Citizens Services Inc., another supposedly defunct ACORN group that was used to hide over $800,000 paid by candidate Obama to ACORN in 2008.

This kind of duplicitous activity reflects a deliberate methodology. ACORN is a criminal organization. 

The Cloward Piven Strategy

ACORN is the face of vote fraud, but its intellectual foundation is the Cloward Piven Strategy. Sociology professors Richard Cloward (Columbia University) and Frances Fox Piven (CUNY) were founding members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Cloward died in 2001 but Piven lives on.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Cloward

In 1966 Cloward and Piven penned an article for The Nation magazine titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” They posited that if the poor were organized into street armies to demand all welfare benefits available to them, they could overwhelm and crash the system.

It became known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” and is credited with expanding welfare rolls 151 percent between 1965 and 1974 and bringing New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in 1975.

 The Issue is Never the Issue

The Left’s solution to everything is socialism, although they are usually careful not to name it, instead identifying issues that seemingly only their policies can redress. But “the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution” as David Horowitz has explained. The “issues” are mere distractions.

Cloward and Piven initially claimed to be agitating for a “guaranteed national income.” Such a policy is plainly unsustainable; however, it would institutionalize their strategy, creating an enormous, permanent drag on the whole economy precipitating an even larger crash later on. Cloward and Piven’s true goal was to find any instrument to institutionalize their orchestrated anarchy, and poor people were the tool.

Wade Rathke, a veteran of those early efforts, was mentored by Cloward and Piven. Rathke and other radicals created a new organization, ACORN,and sought ways to further extend the Strategy.

 

 

 

 

 

White House ACORN photo: Bill Clinton center; Wade Rathke third to his left; Zach Polett in lower left-hand corner. Courtesy Anita MonCrief

With passage of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN and other activist groups got in the housing business. They began pushing banks to offer high-risk mortgage loans to low/no income borrowers. The Clinton administration aggressively ramped up the effort. To encourage lenders and investors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwrote the risk. Since its passage, CRA lending has exceeded $6 trillion.[ii] The mortgage crisis was Cloward-Piven onsteroids.[2]

Meanwhile, Cloward and Piven had not been idle. In 1982 they created the Human Service Employees Registration and Voter Education Fund (Human SERVE) to build political momentum for a law that would turn state motor vehicle and welfare agencies into low-income voter registration offices.

 National Voter Registration Act

 

 

 

 

 

Motor Voter Signing Ceremony – Cloward in light grey suit, Piven in green. Source: the White House

Throughout the 1980s, Human SERVE field-tested legal and political strategies to promote this plan. The fruits of its labor were finally realized with “Motor Voter,” the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), signed into law with Cloward and Piven standing directly behind President Clinton.

The NVRA requires motor vehicle, military recruiting, public assistance and other state and local offices to offer voter-registration services.

The NVRA has become a beacon for vote fraud. Its minimal verification requirements opened the door to ACORN-style massive voter registration fraud, and in the confusion provide blanket opportunities for vote fraud.

Voter ID laws have become critically important. According to a Pew report, approximately 24 million or 12.5 percent of voter registrations nationally are either invalid or inaccurate, including about 1.8 million deceased individuals, and 2.75 million with multiple-state registrations.

And while the NRVA has provisions for purging the rolls in Section 8, they require a complex, process spanning multiple election cycles. In some cases, the NRVA replaced better mechanisms already in use. Many states have simply not followed these procedures with any regularity. The Left ignores all this, focusing on enforcing NRVA’s Section 7.

Section 7 Lawsuits

While capitalizing on the vote fraud swamping strategy enabled by the NVRA, ACORN, Project Vote and others sue states that don’t aggressively execute the voter registration activities required by Section 7 of the law. The narrative is always “voter suppression,” and settlements have forced state agencies to become de facto low income voter registration drives.

Not only must states develop, maintain and execute plans for assuring comprehensive registration, they are forced to report regularly to ACORN lawyers. A 2009 settlement between ACORN and Missouri’s Department of Social Services is illustrative. DSS must:

• Create an NVRA State Coordinator position
• Designate an NVRA Site Coordinator for Family Support Division offices
• Keep detailed records of client visits and registration activities
• Immediately send a letter offering registration to any individual who “may not have been given the opportunity to register…”
• Report detailed compliance data to plaintiff lawyers every month.
• State coordinator’s performance measured by NVRA compliance
• ACORN will receive $450,000 in settlement.

In these settlements, ACORN effectively assumes an executive role over state agencies. Notably, there is no corollary requirement to ascertain the legality of registrations or to clean up the rolls.

Project Vote has taken recent actions against Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, and New Mexico. They just announced their intention to sue Pennsylvania.

Project Vote formed agreements with Colorado in 2008 and 2010. According to Judicial Watch, after Project Vote’s involvement “the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average.”

Though largely unnoticed until now, this litigation tactic has been used since the 1980s, when Human SERVE’s legal allies sued state authorities for settlements creating localized versions of Motor Voter.

While capitalizing on the vote swamping strategy enabled by Motor Voter, ACORN and Project Vote picked up the torch for SERVE, which closed its doors in 2000. Frances Fox Piven serves today on Project Vote’s Board of Directors. Significantly, President Obama hasnamed the voter registration initiative of his reelection effort “Project Vote.”

Piven also has many other connections to Obama.  She was a founding member of Progressives for Obama. Her Democratic Socialists of America bragged that it was responsible for the success of Obama’s “ground game” in 2008. Piven was one of 130 founding members of the radical left Campaign for America’s Future. Many CAF members also sit on the board of theApollo Alliance, the executor of Obama’s “Green” jobs initiative.

DOJ and ACORN Team Up for 2012

Judicial Watch obtained several documents showing coordination between DOJ, Project Vote and the White House.[i] In one email, Project Vote demanded action on NVRA cases. Less than a month later, DOJ sued Rhode Island for NVRA noncompliance. Similarly, DOJ’s Louisiana NVRA suit followed Project Vote’s by a few months. Project Vote is promoting prospective employees for DOJ’s Voting Rights section.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The VRA outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests for voting. Section 5 requires certain states and other political subdivisions to obtain “preclearance,” or permission, from either DOJ or the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, on any change affecting voting. Currently, preclearance states covered in whole or in part include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia. Set in 1982 to expire in 2007, Congress extended the VRA for another 25 years in 2006.

The VRA has come into sharp focus this year as the Holder administration has used VRA preclearance requirements to stall or prevent voter ID laws from being enacted. Non-preclearance states have faced stiff court challenges from other leftist groups.

Alabama – Alabama’s new photo ID law has a 2014 effective date. Alabama has not yet applied for pre-clearance.

Arizona – 9^th Circuit upheld ID requirement of new law; struck requirement that voter provecitizenship.

Mississippi – A Voter ID amendment was approved by voters with a 62 percent margin in 2011. A bill to implement the amendment passed April 10, 2012. Requires preclearance. No word yet from Justice.

South Carolina – DOJ denied pre-clearance for new ID law in December 2011. State filed for reconsideration.

Texas – DOJ denied pre-clearance for new ID law. Texas filed suit with three-judge panel seeking pre-clearance; DOJ asked court to postpone trial.

Wisconsin – State judge ruled Wisconsin’s voter ID law unconstitutional (read the opinion). State will appeal.

The Wisconsin case is an example of independent groups working to sabotage reform efforts. In a suit brought by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and others, the judge found ID laws “unconstitutional to the extent they serve as a condition for voting at the polls.” This was a bizarre ruling. Wisconsin’s Constitution clearly allows mechanisms to establish voter eligibility.

Despite the Left’s best efforts, voter ID laws have been proposed this year in 32 states.

A Personal Testimony

J. Christian Adams is a former DOJ election lawyer who worked on the Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case. He resigned in protest of Eric Holder’s race-based application of the law. According to Adams’ new book, Injustice, Eric Holder became directly involved in the Black Panther case. Mr. Adams agreed to be interviewed for this report. Some highlights: 

• DOJ is engaged in a massive campaign to force states to… become aggressive voter registration offices…
• DOJ announced they would not enforce Section 8 because it won’t increase turnout.
• States are infested with dead voters on the rolls.
• Investigations into eight states with widespread voter roll problems… were spiked
• Because of Motor Voter, voter rolls in many states seeing influx of illegal aliens.
• Data show that illegal aliens are participating in American elections.
• DOJ is using [VRA] Sec. 5 to stop voter integrity initiatives.
• Every one of Holder’s 113 new attorney hires is a far-left radical.

Famed civil rights attorney Bartle Bull was a poll watcher at that Philadelphia location when the Black Panthers appeared. He testified in the case, calling it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” he had ever seen.

ACORN’s swamping method is now being replicated all over the country, especially in swing states or those with critical elections like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recall vote. Even local communities are affected. For example, the Wake County (Raleigh/Durham) registrar described a swamping effort conducted by North Carolina’s Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

While these organizations are nominally independent, closer inspection often reveals interlocking directorates and/or shared staff. Many are supported directly or indirectly by George Soros foundations. The chart below, compiled by North Carolina Civitas Institute, includes many organizations that worked with ACORN there.

 

 

 

 

 

North Carolina Left/Liberal Organizations

A Textbook Case: Houston Votes

In July 2010, a newly-formed voter registration group named Houston Votes (HV) announced it intended to register 100,000 Houston, Texas area voters in a few months. Catherine Engelbrecht, Leader of True the Vote (TTV) and King Street Patriots (KSP), was skeptical. Her group checked about 1,000 HV registrations. The number of erroneous registrations submitted by HV and Democracia—a group targeting unregistered Hispanics—was, she said, “off the charts.”

They brought their results to Harris County Registrar, Leo Vasquez, who reviewed HV registrations. He found that of 25,640 submitted, only 7,193 were “apparently new voters.” On August 24, Vasquez held an unprecedented press conference, announcing:

Evidence shows that the Houston Votes and Texans Together organization is conspiring in a pattern of falsification of government documents, suborning of perjury and a deliberate effort to over-burden our processing system with thousands of duplicate and incomplete voter registration applications.

He raised concerns that HV was, like ACORN, paying employees based on the number of applications they turned in, and cited specific examples of problematic registrations:

3,531   No match for SSN or driver’s license number

1,597   Multiple apps for the same person

1,014   Pre-existing voters

1,030   Incomplete apps

25        Non-citizens

325      Minors

129      Ineligible felons

1,133   No ID

1,323   Filed past deadline

Three days later, a massive warehouse fire destroyed Harris County’s 10,000 voting machines. The fire’s timing bred suspicions, fed almost exclusively by the Left, which sought through innuendo to implicate KSP. A Huffington Post headline two days later was typical: “Possible Arson and the Right’s Texas Voter Suppression Effort.” This theme was repeated ad nauseam in the liberal media echo chamber. The Houston Fire Department later cited “an unspecified electrical short” as the cause, an explanation that satisfied no one.[iv]

 

 

 

 

 

Maria Isabel, One of Houston Votes’ “non-partisan” Leaders

 

 

 

 

 

HV held a press conference the day of the fire, calling Vasquez’s allegations “reckless and false” and “an apparently coordinated, partisan effort to suppress voter registration and to intimidate citizens into not voting…” Theydemanded the Justice Department investigate.

HV dismissed mistakes with the familiar ACORN refrain, blaming a few low-level employees who were fired when errors were discovered. However, Vasquez specifically cited 180 erroneous registrations turned in by Directors Sean Caddle and Neil Hudelson—more errors than usually submitted in total by traditional voter registration drives.

HV boasted their group was “non-partisan” but an attentive blogger quickly proved otherwise. One of the people training volunteers for Houston Votes was Maria Isabel, an Obama operative made famous by the photo of her office sporting a poster of Che Guevara.

BarackObama.com advertised HV’s “volunteer” deputy training. Participating groups included,Atascocita Texas for Obama, Houston For Obama, Houston Obama Leadership Team,Houston Women For Obama, and other similar groups.

HV Directors Hudelson and Caddle were quickly discovered to be long-time Democratic activists. At last notice they had returned to Caddle’s home state of New Jersey, working for Democratic Jersey City Council-at-Large candidate Sue Mack. She lost.

A little more digging revealed Houston Votes to be part of America Votes, a Soros-funded organization tied to ACORN, SEIU, and a universe of other leftwing groups.

America Votes specifically targeted Texas in its 2010 Redistricting Control Project. With 38 electoral votes, Texas is only exceeded by California’s 55. Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in Texas, not coincidentally home to the second largest illegal immigrant population in the U.S.

One quarter of Texans reside in the Houston metropolitan region and there are 25 state house seats in Harris County. Prior to the 2010 elections, Republicans held a slim majority of three seats in the Texas House. Winning in Houston had the potential to flip the House, giving Democrats control over redistricting. They wanted to “turn Texas blue.”

The Advisory Board of HV’s parent organization, Texans Together Education Fund, included a number of prominent left-wing Democrats. One was Grande Dame of Texas politics, Sissy Farenthold, who worked with the radical left Institute for Policy Studies in the 1980s. Another was Democrat Kristi Thibaut, a state legislator trying to hold her District 133 seat. She had worked for ACORN and was under investigation by the Texas Ethics Commission. Yet another was Sue Schechter, running for Harris County Clerk. Not only was HV extremely partisan, but plainly the Texas arm of Soros’s project.

America Votes failed in 2010. Republican control of the Texas state house increased by 44 seats in a nationwide sweep that brought Republican control to statehouses not seen since 1928. America Votes is targeting Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2012.

But the Left still wasn’t finished in Texas. The Texas Democratic Party sued the Harris County Registrar’s office, the Registrar and other employees.

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee illegally campaigning at Houston poll during early voting in 2010. Credit: Warner Todd Huston

 

 

 

 

 

Harris County had settled anothersuit with the Democrats in 2008 stemming from 67,554 rejected applications, mostly submitted by ACORN. Democrats had charged “voter suppression” then too, over registrations rejected for incomplete or inaccurate information—the kind ACORN excels at.

True the Vote and the Wisconsin Recall

Union groups used the swarming method earlier this year in a recall petition of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They reportedly submitted one million petitions, needing only 540,208. The Democrat-controlled Government Accountability Board (GAB), responsible for verifying petitions, flatly refused to do so.

In an astonishing, heroic effort, True the Vote joined an effort called Verify the Recall and developed a method to verify recall petitions online. They built a nationwide network of 14,000 volunteers almost overnight, who checked 92 percent of the petitions in 22 days. The findings were stunning:

819,233 records (not 1 million)

534,685 verified legitimate (65 percent)

In addition to numerous bogus “Donald Duck” petitions, signers included:

• 29 Wisconsin judges—one who later issued a restraining order against Walker’s Voter ID law.
• A deputy DA, 19 attorneys and dozens of other DA employees. Some had been working on a heavily criticized “secret” John Doe investigation of Governor Walker at the time.
• 25 Gannett News journalists
• Several members of WTMJ-4 news staff
• School board members
• Four University of Wisconsin regents and the university’s chief spokesman.
• A Democratic activist charged with seven felony ID theft counts and two of felony vote fraud. He signed up family members and neighbors, including a deceased man, without their knowledge or consent.

The GAB refused to consider VTR’s work and certified 900,000 petitions, but it was clear that Walker opponents had committed extensive vote fraud. The fraud would have gone undetected if not for the work of TTV.”

Leftwing “Reform” Efforts

THOUSANDS OF FOREIGNERS MAY BE ILLEGALLY VOTING IN FLORIDA

SCYTL: VOTER FRAUD FACTS AND FICTION

With six months until Election Day, conspiracy theories are percolating on the Internet like bubbling mud pots at Yellowstone: Left-wing billionaire George Soros is going to rig the election for Barack Obama. Foreigners will oversee the nation's entire vote-counting system. The fix is in, and all is lost.
   
Before conservatives go all Michael Moore-moonbatty, let's calm down and separate voter fraud facts from fiction. There's no time to waste worrying about manufactured scares. And there are plenty of legitimate threats to electoral integrity without having to inflate or concoct them.
   
FACT: Scytl is a Spain-based business that specializes in "electoral security technology" and electronic voting applications. Its cryptographic research initially was funded by the Spanish government's Ministry of Science and Technology and later was spun off as a private-sector e-voting venture.
   
FACT: In January 2012, Scytl acquired U.S.-based SOE Software. SOE writes "election management" programs that assist officials with everything from "Internet voting to election night reporting and online poll worker training."
   
FICTION: According to alarmists, Scytl's acquisition of SOE amounts to a complete takeover of America's election system. No, not really. While SOE boasts of a presence "with 900 jurisdictions as customers in 26 states," there is no single contract that the federal government has entered into, or could, with Scytl to count the 2012 presidential election votes. Much of the work Scytl/SOE analysts do is number-crunching and graphics software work after local and state officials have done the vote-counting.
   
Scytl does have a contract with the feds to use its technology to help overseas and military voters participate in elections. In 2009, the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act mandated that U.S. jurisdictions allow uniformed and overseas citizens to receive and track their ballots electronically. Scytl's online ballot program was used in 14 states during the 2010 midterms.
   
FACT: The security risks of e-voting are still a legitimate concern. University of California at Berkeley computer science professor David Wagner wrote a critical report for the Pentagon about the privacy and accuracy shortcomings of Scytl's military voting program in 2004 — which prompted the feds to cancel the initial program, according to PBS.
   
In October 2010, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics encouraged outside parties to try to find security holes in their online balloting infrastructure operated by Scytl. A group of University of Michigan students successfully hacked into the system, commandeered passwords, doctored ballots and programmed audio of the school's fight song to play whenever an e-ballot was submitted.
   
Hackers from Iran and China also came close to breaking in. "After the hack," according to AOLNews.com, "(D.C.) administrators decided to relaunch under a download-only format, allowing users to access ballots but forcing them to fax or mail them rather than cast a vote online." The D.C. official who oversaw the system, Paul Stenbjorn, now works for Scytl.
   
FICTION: Chain e-mails about Scytl claim that George Soros owns, operates or controls Scytl. In reality, the company's investors are Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker SCR. Soros doesn't "own" any of these international venture capital firms — and as far as my research shows, he has no involvement whatsoever with any of them. Moreover, Scytl's board of directors doesn't include anyone with Soros financial or management ties. Pressed for evidence, one Internet conspiracy nut cited an "invitation only event" in Moldova that listed both the "Soros Foundation Moldova" and Scytl as attendees.
   
Soros has enough explicit ties to President Obama's administration and campaign without having to embellish them. Just this week, The New York Times reported that he will donate $1 million each to a Democratic super-PAC and a leading progressive get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation. Soros previously funded Project Vote, the notorious voter-mobilization arm of fraud-perpetrating ACORN for whom Obama canvassed in Illinois.
   
And that brings us to the less exotic, but far more routine, kind of election insecurity that plagues the country. Hardware and software will never be completely fail-safe, no matter where it originates. But it's the people, personnel and voter registration and verification rules in place right here at home that matter most.
   
FACT: Over the past five months, investigative journalist James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas team have exposed systemic lapses at precincts in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington, D.C. The ballots of famous public figures have been forked over to complete strangers; disenfranchisement of legitimate voters is routine. While Minnesota and New Hampshire legislators have passed new voter integrity/identification laws, O'Keefe now has been targeted for investigation and possible prosecution for blowing the whistle. And Attorney General Eric Holder is striking his usual see-no-evil, shoot-the-messenger, play-the-race-card pose.
   
The solution isn't to sit back and bemoan a fantastical global conspiracy. The solution is to get off the couch, support election integrity activists like O'Keefe, and turn out in force on Election Day to eject Obama's voter fraud coddlers. Like the old saying goes: If it ain't close, they can't cheat.

THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME – NOVEMBER 2012

LOCAL NEWS INVESTIGATOR UNCOVER POTENTIAL VOTER FRAUD

2.com WBBH News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, FloridaNBC2 Investigates: Voter fraud

NBC2 Investigates: Voter fraud

Two elections supervisors are taking action after an NBC2 investigation uncovers flawed record keeping and human error allowing people who are not citizens of the United States to vote.

No one knows how widespread this problem is, because county election supervisors have no way to track non-citizens who live here.

So NBC2 did something election officials never thought to do, and found them on our own.

"I vote every year," Hinako Dennett told NBC2.

The Cape Coral resident is not a US citizen, yet she's registered to vote.

NBC2 found Dennett after reviewing her jury excusal form. She told the Clerk of Court she couldn't serve as a juror because she wasn't a U.S. citizen.

We found her name, and nearly a hundred others like her, in the database of Florida registered voters.

Naples resident Yvonne Wigglesworth is also a not a citizen, but is registered to vote. She claims she doesn't know how she got registered.

"I have no idea. I mean, how am I supposed to know."

Records show Wigglesworth voted six times in elections dating back eleven years.

"I know you cannot vote before you become a citizen, so I never tried to do anything like that," Samuel Lincoln said.

He isn't a U.S. citizen either, but the Jamaican national says he doesn't know how he ended up registered to vote.

"It's their mistake, not mine," said Lincoln.

We obtained a copy of his 2007 voter registration application. It's clearly shows he marked U.S. citizen.

"This is under oath, that document, they are attesting that it is true and by falsifying, it's a third degree felony," said Tim Durham, Collier County's chief elections supervisor.

County supervisors of elections tell me they have no way to verify citizenship. Under the 1992 Motor Voter Law, they're not required to ask for proof.

"We have no policing authority. We don't have any way of bouncing that information off any other database that would give us that information," said Lee County Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington.

NBC2: Does that need to change??
Harrington: "I think it needs to be looked at."

Until that happens, the only way supervisors of elections can investigate voter fraud is if they get a tip.

So that's what our list became. After showing them the nearly 100 names we compiled, both county election offices sent letters to each voter, asking them verify citizenship.

"It could be very serious. It could change the whole complexion of an election," said Harrington.
It's important we don't know we know if these folks are here illegal or not, just they are potentially not U.S. citizens who registered to vote.

Voters who received letters have 30 days to show proof of citizenship, or they'll be taken off the registration rolls.

Based on our investigation, both election offices say they'll now request a copy of every jury excusal form where residents say they can't serve because they're not a citizen.

Update:   St. Johns County Supervisor of Election indicates that FL state has recently put in place a process to identify these folks.

WHY HAVEN’T ES&S VOTING MACHINES BEEN OUTLAWED?

ES&S E-VOTING SYSTEM USED IN CALIFORNIA CRACKED WIDE OPEN

ELECTION SYSTEM ALERT: ES&S MACHINES

If you are a voter in Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin Florida (or know someone who is) listen up. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has found signifiant anomalies with an optical scanner produced by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) and shows jurisdictions in these states using the equipment.

Because of the “anomalies”, close races could be decided incorrectly. From the findings:

• “The DS200 accepts a voted ballot but does not record the ballot on its internal counter. In addition the marks of the second ballot are not recorded.”
• “When a 17” ballot was inserted at an angle, the DS200 did not consistently count the mark properly. The mark registered either as a different selection than intended or did not register at all.”
• The system randomly freezes and does not record the freeze in its log files. There are other events not logged, such as touch screen calibration.

Notice the painful timeline of 20 months: EAC became aware of the problem on April 15, 2010 after a Cleveland Plain Dealer report that “About 10 percent of Cuyahoga County’s voting machines … [had] failed a pre-election test.” The EAC issued this report on December 22, 2011. And before the equipment can be ruled noncompliant, ES&S has an “opportunity to cure non-compliance and have an opportunity to be heard prior to any final decision on decertification.”

Oh. And who reimburses those jurisdictions for the cost of having bought bum equipment?

Taxpayers [in Cuyahoga County] spent more than $12 million on the scanners in 2008, to replace a $21 million touch-screen system that crashed twice on the night of the 2007 general election. The scanners were used in the 2008 presidential election, the 2009 election that ushered in a charter government, the 2010 election that chose new county leaders and countless local elections affecting taxes, city councils and school boards.

The EAC blog post (a form of press release) must be written by lawyers and designed to make it hard to understand just how bad the equipment is. Here’s how EAC describes the problems to the public:

• Intermittent screen freezes, system lockups and shutdowns that prevents the voting system from operating in the manner in which it was designed.
• Failure to log all normal and abnormal voting system events.
• Skewing of the ballot resulting in a negative effect on system accuracy.

The EAC has a map suggesting that only a handful of jurisdictions use the Election Systems & Software (ES&S) DS200 Precinct Count Optical Scanner in the EAC-certified Unity 3.2.0.0 voting system. There appears to be no way to determine how widespread this scanner is throughout America’s electoral jurisdictions.

In 2009, ES&S (The Omaha World-Herald Co. is a minority owner in the Omaha, NE company ) bought the election equipment division of Diebold. In 2010, Dominion Voting Systems purchased those formerly Diebold (rebranded as Premier Election Solutions) assets, which includes both optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems. ES&S claims to be the largest purveyor of elections equipment in the world.

The findings (pdf) on the EAC website; the findings on Scribd below:

EAC, Formal Investigation ESS Unity 3200 FINAL 12.20.11

ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES FRAUD? – ES&S

Election Systems & Software

Election Systems & Software (ES&S) is an American company that provides voting services.

ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group, LLC, which is jointly held by the holding firm and the Omaha World-Herald Company, the publisher of Nebraska's largest newspaper. As of 2007 it was the largest manufacturer of voting machines in the United States, claiming customers in 1,700 localities. As of 2007 it had approximately 350 employees; 2005 revenues were $117 million.^[1] In December 2011, the Election Assistance Commission issued a formal notice of investigation into the DS200 Precinct Count Optical Scanner because of three operational anomalies.^[2]

History

Election Systems & Software was founded in 1979^[1] as American Information Systems Inc. (AIS), it merged with Business Records Corp. the following year and changed its name to ES&S. It was one of the top four providers of voting equipment used in the November 2004 election; the other three were Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions), Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic.^[3]

2006 elections

After the November 2006 elections, Indiana launched an inquiry into poor service by the company, settling when ESS agreed to pay $750,000. West Virginia filed a formal complaint against the company with federal officials. Arkansas put together a panel to investigate. The company denied any major trouble with its machines, attributing problems to errors made by poll workers.^[1]

Withdrawal of InkaVote

On 3 August 2007, California Secretary of state Debra Bowen withdrew approval of the ES&S InkaVote Plus optical scan voting system after a "top-to-bottom review" of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007.^[4]

Reported problems during the 2008 election

Early voters in the 2008 Presidential election reported instances of malfunctioning machines.^[3] People complained that they voted for one candidate, only to have their selection switch to another.^[5] The clerk of Oakland County, Michigan reported inconsistent results with some machines during testing in October.^[6]

Acquisition of Premier Election Solutions

ES&S acquired Premier Election Solutions on 3 September 2009.^[3][7] The US Department of Justice and 14 individual states have launched investigations into the acquisitions on antitrust grounds.^[8] The company then sold it to Dominion Voting Systems.

Reported problems during the 2010 election

On April 14, 2010, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that “About 10 percent of Cuyahoga County’s voting machines … [had] failed a pre-election test.”^[9] After 20 months of investigating the DS200 Precinct Count Optical Scanner in the EAC-certified Unity 3.2.0.0 voting system, on December 22, 2011 the Election Assistance Commission recommended decertification of the ES&S voting machine if it cannot be fixed. From the findings:^[10]

• “The DS200 accepts a voted ballot but does not record the ballot on its internal counter. In addition the marks of the second ballot are not recorded.”
• “When a 17” ballot was inserted at an angle, the DS200 did not consistently count the mark properly. The mark registered either as a different selection than intended or did not register at all.”
• The system randomly freezes and does not record the freeze in its log files. There are other events not logged, such as touch screen calibration.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Anita Kumar, "Top vote-machine maker also tops complaint list: Vendor discounts woes, blames poll workers", St. Petersburg Times, May 27, 2005
2. ^ "EAC Issues Formal Investigation Report on DS200 Precinct Count Optical Scanner". Election Assistance Commission. 2011-12-22. Retrieved 2012-01-03.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Lundin, Leigh (2008-08-17). "Dangerous Ideas". Voting Fiasco, Part 279.236(a). Criminal Brief. Retrieved 2010-10-07.
4. ^ "Rescission and Withdrawal of Approval of the Election Systems and Software InkaVote Plus Precinct Ballot Counting System, Version 2.1, as Approved on April 21, 2006". California Secretary of State. 2007-08-03. Archived from the original on 2007-10-31. Retrieved 2007-08-15.
5. ^ "Early Voting Sees Reports of Voter Intimidation, Machine Malfunctions". Democracy Now!. 2008-10-22. Retrieved 2008-10-23.
6. ^ "Letter from Ruth Johnson to Election Assistance Commission". Wired.com. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
7. ^ "ES&S buys competitor". Omaha.com. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
8. ^ Ben Klayman (2009-12-19). "U.S. opens probe of Diebold unit sale -report". Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
9. ^ "10 percent of Cuyahoga County's voting machines fail pre-election tests". Cleveland Plain Dealer. 2010-04-14. Retrieved 2012-01-03.
10. ^ "Election System Alert: ES&S Machines". The Moderate Voice. 2012-01-03. Retrieved 2012-01-03.

VOTER FRAUD AND INTIMIDATION AT THE OBAMA 2008 CAMPAIGN

A visual journey through the eyes of those who lived through the massive voter fraud, intimidation, and even accusations of death threats and murder perpetrated by the Obama campaign in 2008. A ground swell of support has risen throughout the United States to take back our country from one Barack Hussein Obama who literally stole the election. Will America rise to the occasion? The producer of this video ends with the simple words, 'Please help…' Will you rise up to help eject the usurper Obama out of office via the election in November, a call for resignation, or, even as a last resort, impeachment?

VOTER ID HAS BROKEN LEFTIST CONTAINMENT

Things are not going well for voter ID opponents. The latest James O’Keefe video is the most recent problem for the left. The bigger problem is that the voter ID debate has broken leftist containment, and the left has made an enormous strategic miscalculation by elevating the voter ID fight.

I was on the Darby/Stranahan show yesterday explaining why. (I start at minute 35; “breaking containment” starts at 47). The left didn’t count on voter ID becoming a national issue among Republicans and independents. Instead, the left wanted to keep the issue contained.

What do I mean by “broken leftist containment”? Travel back to 2005 for a successful leftist voter ID strategy. In 2005, Georgia passed a voter ID law. Because Georgia was subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department had to preclear the law. The left activated their public relations machine to either stop the law inside DOJ, or take a pound of flesh after the Bush administration precleared the law. It was a win-win situation for the left.

After a bitter internal fight (that remains a subject of an ongoing internal DOJ inspector general investigation), the Bush DOJ precleared the Georgia voter ID law.

But the most important thing for the left was to keep knowledge of the voter ID anger and opposition contained within Democrat, left-wing, and civil rights circles. If the 80% of Americans who support voter ID learned about the leftist mobilization, it would hurt the effort to block the law. A counterattack from the right might follow.

The left overestimated their enemies in 2005. The counterattack never materialized, and the left kept containment on voter ID. The right was silent through this fight. There was no counter-mobilization in support of voter ID.

Only a few lawyers inside the Justice Department in 2005 opposed the rabid leftist voter ID opponents. They included PJ Media contributor Hans von Spakovsky, Section Chief John Tanner, line attorney Joshua Rogers, and AAG Brad Schlozman. If you support voter ID, these four deserve America’s thanks. Unfortunately, Republicans afterwards failed to defend the Bush DOJ preclearance of Georgia voter ID,  while the left mobilized for that pound of flesh. Even Senator Obama began to campaign openly against the DOJ Voting Section, as I discussed in my book Injustice.

When Republicans lack courage to engage the fight merely because racial issues are involved, the left creates carnage. In this instance, it also helped elect a president in 2008.

But things are different in 2012. As I said on the Darby/Stranahan show yesterday:

This is why voter ID, and the fight about voter ID, is so dangerous to the left. And it is such a miscalculation. They don’t have any idea they are playing with fire on this. Because they have been successful on their civil rights agenda, their Justice Department agenda, by activating their base but never letting middle America onto what’s happening. They have been successful in their agenda by having a racialist anti-voter ID policy at Justice but keeping it relatively quiet to a broader audience. Voter ID threatens to break containment. 80 percent of America supports voter ID. People think Eric Holder is absolutely out of his mind to oppose voter ID. . . . Add James O’Keefe onto this mix and you really have a danger to the left.

Unlike in 2005, voter ID has now broken leftist containment. Huge majorities remain supportive of voter ID. The leftist base is aware and activated, but so now is the conservative base. Independents are also aware of the strange opposition to requiring something to vote that they show regularly. There is a widespread perception that Eric Holder opposes voter ID for reasons all too familiar with this attorney general. The states of Texas and South Carolina are taking the fight to Holder in federal court to have their voter ID laws approved. The phoniness of purported voter fraud “studies” by groups funded by the convicted felon George Soros has been exposed. And most dangerous of all to the Obama presidency, Americans are awake, and sense they have an administration again enabling lawless conduct in elections. The voter ID issue has broken containment and it is a dangerous strategic miscalculation for the Democrats.

Related Video from PJTV: Undercover Voter ID Investigation: You’ll Never Guess Which Liberal Groups Are Demanding ID:

OPEN LETTER ABOUT SPANISH COMPANY THAT WILL COUNT THE 2012 ELECTION VOTES FOR THE US

A FOREIGN COMPANY WILL PROCESS OUR VOTES IN NOVEMBER ?

A Spanish Company, SCYTL, has acquired SOE, the leading vote processing company in the United States. This means votes will now be transferred to a central server overseas, where they will be counted, rather than being counted at the local precinct level.  This is not verified yet, although Snopes denies it. See below for updated information directly from SCYTL website.

This news was reported on the Market Watch website, back in January and received scant attention in the MSM:

SCYTL is the global leader in online voting solutions with a presence in over twenty countries

– SOE Software is the leading software company for election management solutions in the United States

SOE Software, based in Tampa, has developed Clarity, a suite of 8 software modules that allow election authorities to be more efficient and transparent in their management of elections and in their communications with citizens and media. Over 900 jurisdictions in 26 states across the United States, including 14 state-wide customers, currently use SOE Software solutions in their electoral processes. More information is available at www.soesoftware.com .

– The combination of the two companies creates the industry leader in election software with a strong market presence worldwide

SCYTL, the global leader in secure electronic voting technologies, announced today the acquisition of 100% of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The integration of these two software companies creates the industry leader in the election software market with a full range of solutions covering from Internet voting to election night reporting and online pollworker training, and a strong market presence worldwide.

SCYTL is currently the worldwide leader in the Internet voting space and the acquisition of SOE Software, with its Clarity election management software suite, significantly expands SCYTL’s product portfolio beyond electronic voting. Furthermore, SOE Software’s strong US presence with 900 jurisdictions as customers in 26 states, including 14 state-wide customers, complements very effectively SCYTL’s customer base in the United States and internationally with customers in over 20 different countries across 5 continents, including France, Spain, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, India and Australia.

Um…Is this reason for concern?  

Open letter to the Congress of the United States 

SCYTL, the global leader in secure electronic voting technologies, announced today the acquisition of 100% of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. 

Why is a software company based in Barcelona Spain(SCYTL)  now in charge of counting our votes in the upcoming General Election on November 6th. 

Did the Federal Elections Commission approve of this ?  (FEC) 

Did the Congress of the United States approve of this ? 

Was this done by an Executive Order from the White House?

Is this the final step in Obama’s rigging of the 2012 election and the formation of a global government.  Why is the AP not covering this ? Why is Fox news not covering this ?  What we now have is a Socialist CEO running the worlds voting and election counts.  Talk about a UN / Marxist / Communist dream come true. ! 

Does this explain why President Obama is so sure of being reelected as he speaks of his reelection as if it were in the present.  This includes his conversation with the President of Russia which was recorded on a hot microphone ?  

Who in the Congress / Senate authorized a global software company owned by a Spanish Socialist to be put in charge of counting our votes ?  

Why is a company based in Spain who counts votes in Athens Greece now teaming up with the Commonwealth of Virginia to count the overseas ballots of our military members. ?  Who in the DOD and the FEC and the Congress approved this ?   

Who authorized a foreign company access to our vote count ?   I want a Congressional investigation and I want this foreign company REMOVED from the vote count authority in our General Election on Nov 6th 2012.  Mr.. Congressman get off your backsides and do your job ! 

Laura J Alcorn

————————————

The current information available indicates that SCYTL is teaming up with Virginia State Board of Election, Georgia and other states to do advanced research on overseas military and overseas voters.  You can find this in SCYTL website and you can believe this more than Snopes. 

A news report from SCYTL

March 26, 2012 Scytl teams up with the Virginia State Board of Elections on Advanced Research Project for Military and Overseas Voters Scytl and Election Systems & Software (ES&S) have been selected by the Virginia State Board of Elections to work jointly on a research project aimed at identifying technologies that can increase voting participation across all military circumstances including disabilities, distance and location. The Commonwealth of Virginia is the only State slated to receive funding specifically to study the special needs of deployed and wounded service members. Within this framework, Scytl and ES&S joined the Virginia State Board of Elections last February to showcase currently available accessible voting technology specifically for military and overseas voters. During the next phase of this project, the Virginia State Board of Elections, Scytl and ES&S plan to work with Virginia-based military units to study the feasibility of mobile voting technology and plan to work with local military hospitals and other organizations to conduct a mock election that will allow the study of special accessibility needs for wounded service members returning from combat operations. In addition to voting technology, other election solutions that will be reviewed as part of the research project are mobile voting technologies for deploying military units. Click here to view our press release.

GLOBAL INTERNET VOTING FIRM BUYS U.S. ELECTION RESULTS REPORTING FIRM

In a major step towards global centralization of election processes, the world's dominant Internet voting company has purchased the USA's dominant election results reporting company.

When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, on portals which often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com.

The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format. As reported by BlackBoxVoting.org in 2008, the bad news is that this centralizes one middleman access point for over 525 jurisdictions in AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA. And growing.

As local election results funnel through SOE's servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get "first look" at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.

In 2004, many Americans were justifiably concerned when, days before the presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell redirected Ohio election night results through the Tennessee-based server for several national Republican Party operations.

This is worse: This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.

A mitigation against fraud by SOE insiders has been the separation of voting machine systems from the SOE results reports. Because most US jurisdictions require posting evidence of results from each voting machine at the precinct, public citizens can organize to examine these results to compare with SOE results. Black Box Voting spearheaded a national citizen action to videotape / photograph these poll tapes in 2008.

With the merger of SOE and SCYTL, that won't work (if SCYTL's voting system is used). When there are two truly independent sources of information, the public can perform its own "audit" by matching one number against the other.

These two independent sources, however, will now be merged into one single source: an Internet voting system controlled by SCYTL, with a results reporting system also controlled by SCYTL.

With SCYTL internet voting, there will be no ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes, chain of custody, or the count.

SCYTL is moving into or already running elections in: the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia.

SCYTL is based in Barcelona; its funding comes from international venture capital funds including Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.

Here is the link to the press release regarding SYCTL's acquisition of SOE:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/scytl-acquires-soe-software-becoming-the-leadin g-election-software-provider-2012-01-11

WITH MASSIVE ERRORS IN VOTER ROLLS, STATES MOVE TO DATA SHARING, ONLINE REGISTRATION

An antiquated voter registration system is to blame for listing 1.8 million dead people as registered "active" voters in the United States, the Pew Center on the States concludes in a new study that shows millions of mistakes in voter rolls across the nation and recommends online sign-up.

The study found 24 million voter registrations, or one out of every eight, were no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate. Beside the nearly 2 million dead potential voters, 12 million registrations had the wrong address and 2.75 million voters were registered in more than one state.

"The system has been using technology that's really paper-based, mail-based, 19th century technology for a long, long time and it hasn't moved into the 21st century yet," Pew Election Initiatives Director David Becker said.

Election administrators say many of these mistakes occur when people move, or change their names. People often remember to update their driver's license, but don't realize their records are not automatically cross-referenced by a state computer. In most places, voters have to re-register separately.

Eight states are doing something to change that. 

Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington are creating a central, computerized database to share information with each other. This will help states electronically, and more quickly, verify if one of their voters has moved or died out of state.

"Twenty-first century technology really affords election officials the opportunity to better serve their voters," said Becker, "by having more accurate lists, more convenient and more cost effective ways of being on those lists, and obtaining more accurate records."

Another cause for error lies in the early voter registration paperwork, say election administrators. Forms filled out by hand can be hard for election workers to read. That's why more and more states are starting to offer online registration. 

Voters will have control over their voter registration data, and will be able to update it themselves online. Maryland's system goes live July 2012.

"That will eliminate a lot of the data entry errors that result from trying to read people's handwriting or because you have temporary folks making the normal human errors in data entry," said Linda Lamone, administrator of elections for the state of Maryland.

Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington already offer online voter registration.

But that method worries some critics who fear signing up in cyberspace is not as secure as old-fashioned pen and paper.

"I really think that the paper registration system, while may be a bit more cumbersome for a voter because they have to fill it out a piece of paper using a pen, as opposed to going online and using a mouse, is a lot more secure," said Michael Ertel, supervisor of elections for Seminole County, Fla.

"This is voter registration. This is our elections," said Ertel, "It's the most sacred democratic process that we take part in here in the states and I think that we need to maintain the security of it."

States that currently use online registration say it is actually more secure than paper applications.

To log-in, voters must prove their identity in multiple ways, which states say can help prevent voter fraud. For example in order to alter your registration in Oregon, you must enter your first and last name, date of birth, driver's license number and residential zip code.

States also report online registration saves taxpayers millions of dollars in fewer paper print-outs and wasted postage on mail sent to the wrong address. Arizona, which was the first to start online registration in 2002, reports saving more than $1 million over five years in Maricopa County alone.

Lamone says she hopes Maryland's participation in the Pew project makes it easier for people to vote, regardless of their party affiliation.

"It's a nonpartisan effort. You've got red states, blue states and states in between," she said. "We all want better cleaner registration rolls and want to try and get more people registered. We don't care how they register, we just want to get them registered and participating in the process."

If you suspect voter or election fraud where you live, tell us: Voterfraud@foxnews.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON VOTING FRAUD GO HERE

VOTER IDENTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS – ONLY 31 STATES REQUIRE VOTERS TO SHOW ID

The U.S. Department of Justice has denied South Carolina's request for pre-clearance of its voter ID law. The D.O.J. found the law discriminatory because the state's minority voters are 20 percent more likely than white voters to lack a photo I.D. that meets the standard for voting. The South Carolina attorney general and governor have both said they will seek a reversal of the D.O.J. decision. Still pending before the Department is a request by Texas for pre-clearance of its new voter ID law.

Introduction

Thirty-one states require all voters to show ID before voting at the polls.  In 15 of these, the ID must include a photo of the voter; in the remaining 16, non-photo forms of ID are acceptable.  Voter ID laws can be broken down into the three following categories:

• Strict Photo ID (8 states):  Voters must show a photo ID in order to vote.  Voters who are unable to show photo ID at the polls are permitted to vote a provisional ballot, which is counted only if the voter returns to election officials within several days after the election to show a photo ID.  At the beginning of 2011, there were just two states–Georgia and Indiana–with strict photo ID laws.  Two states–Kansas and Wisconsin–passed new strict photo ID laws in 2011, and three states with non-photo ID laws–South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas–amended them to make them strict photo ID laws. None of these new laws is in effect yet, although they likely will be before the 2012 elections. Also in 2011, Mississippi voters approved via the citizen initiative process a strict photo ID requirement. The legislature will have to pass implementing legislation before the requirement can take effect. See the notes below Table 1 for more information regarding effective dates for new legislation.
• Photo ID (7 states):  Voters are asked to show a photo ID in order to vote.  Voters who are unable to show photo ID are still allowed to vote if they can meet certain other critieria.  In some states, a voter with ID can vouch for a voter without.  Other states ask a voter without ID to provide personal information such as a birth date, or sign an affidavit swearing to his or her identity.  Voters without ID are not required to return to election officials after the election and show a photo ID in order to have their ballots counted in the manner that voters without ID in the strict photo ID states are.  The seven states with photo ID laws are Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan and South Dakota.
• Non-Photo ID (16 states):  All voters must show ID at the polls.  The list of acceptable IDs is varied and includes options that do not have a photo, such as a utility bill or bank statement with the voter's name and address. Rhode Island passed a new voter ID law in 2011. It takes effect in stages — beginning in 2012, voters will be required to show an ID (although not necessarily a photo ID) at the polls, and in 2014 a photo ID requirement will take effect.

For specifics on what forms of identification are acceptable and the options available to voters who cannot present identification, see Table 2 .

State Requirements for Voter ID

(1) In Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, current non-photo voter ID laws stay in effect for the time being.  The new photo voter ID requirements will take effect after receiving preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina's request for pre-clearance was denied on Dec. 23, 2011; an appeal is likely. Texas is currently involved in the pre-clearance process. Alabama's new photo ID law has a 2014 effective date, and the state has not yet applied for pre-clearance.

(2) Poll workers in Wisconsin will begin asking voters to present ID immediately, but voters will not be required to present ID until the February 2012 spring primary election.

(3) There are some who prefer to call Oklahoma a photo voter ID state, because most voters will show a photo ID before voting.  However, Oklahoma law also permits a voter registration card issued by the appropriate county elections board to serve as proof of identity in lieu of photo ID.

(4) Rhode Island's voter ID law takes effect in two stages. The first stage, requiring a non-photo ID, took effect on January 1, 2012. On January 1, 2014, a photo ID requirement will replace the non-photo ID law.

(5) Alabama's new photo ID requirement takes effect with the 2014 statewide primary election. The new law also requires preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice. The delayed implementation date was intended to ensure that the timing of preclearance did not occur between the primary and general elections of 2012, thus creating voter confusion.

(6) Mississippi's new voter ID law was passed via the citizen initiative process. It takes effect 30 days after the certification of results, a date that will likely fall in late December 2011 or early January 2012. However, the language in constitutional amendment passed by MS voters on Nov. 8 is very general, and implementing legislation will be required before the amendment can take effect. The MS provision will also require pre-clearance by the US Department of Justice before it can take effect.

2011 Legislative Action

Voter ID has been the hottest topic of legislation in the field of elections this year.  There are just three states–Oregon, Vermont and Wyoming–that don't have a voter ID law and didn't consider voter ID legislation this year. The voter ID legislation under consideration this year can be broken down into two types:  proposals for new voter ID laws in states that don't presently require voter ID at the polls, and proposals to strengthen existing voter ID requirements in order to require photo ID at the polls. 

New Voter ID Proposals

These 20 states did not have laws requiring voter ID at the polls at the beginning of 2011, but saw legislation proposing it this year.  So far, three states have enacted new voter ID requirements–Kansas, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.  Governors in Minnesota, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed voter ID bills in 2011.  In Minnesota, supporters have vowed to pass a new bill in next year's session that would bypass the governor and go to the voters for approval instead.  This strategy is similar to what the Oklahoma legislature did in 2009 and 2010.  Mississippi voters approved a citizen initiative proposing voter ID in November 2011; that constitutional amendment will require the passage of implementing legislation before it can take effect.

• California–AB 663 and 945: failed
• Illinois–HB 3058 and SB 2035: adjourned; carried over to 2012 session
• Iowa–HF 8, HF 95, SF 142: adjourned; carried over to 2012 session
• Kansas–HB 2067: enacted
• Maine–LD 199: adjourned; carried over to 2012 session 
• Maryland–HB 288 and 701: failed
• Massachusetts–multiple bills: all pending in joint committee
• Minnesota–SB 509:  vetoed
• Mississippi–multiple bills: all failed; however, voters approved a citizen initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot
• Nebraska–LB 239 and 605: adjourned; carried over to 2012 session
• Nevada–SB 373 failed
• New Hampshire–SB 129: vetoed
• New Jersey–A 1725: pending in assembly
• New Mexico–HB 308, HB 577, SB 363: failed
• New York–multiple bills: carried over to 2012 session 
• North Carolina–HB 351: vetoed 
• Pennsylvania–HB 934: passed house; pending in senate
• Rhode Island–SB 400/HB 5680: enacted
• West Virginia–HB 3219: failed
• Wisconsin–AB 7: enacted

Strengthening Existing Voter ID Laws 

At the beginning of 2011, 27 states had non-photo voter ID laws.  Fourteen of these 27 considered legislation this year to require photo ID at the polls.  So far, three states–South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas–have enacted strict photo ID requirements, and Alabama has enacted a new voter ID law that is somewhat less strict than the new laws in SC, TN and TX, yet stricter than the old law it replaces.  The new laws in Alabama, South Carolina and Texas can't take effect until they receive pre-clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice.  Governors in Missouri and Montana vetoed stricter voter ID laws in 2011.

• Alabama–HB 19: enacted
• Alaska–HB 162: adjourned; carried over to 2012
• Arkansas–HB 1797: failed
• Colorado–HB 1003: failed
• Connecticut–HB 5231, SB 604 and 647: failed
• Delaware–HB 199 and HB 200; adjourned; carried over to 2012
• Hawaii–HB 1359: adjourned; carried over to 2012
• Missouri–SB 3: vetoed and SJR 2: approved (must be approved by voters in November 2012 before it takes effect)
• Montana–HB 152: vetoed
• Ohio–HB 159: passed house; pending in senate
• South Carolina–HB 3003: enacted
• Tennessee–SB 16: enacted
• Texas–SB 14: enacted
• Virginia–multiple bills: failed

Recent Legislative Action

 Voter ID has been a hot topic in state legislatures over the past decade.  Since 2001, nearly 1,000 bills have been introduced in a total of 46 states.  Eighteen states have passed major legislation during this period, and those bills are summarized in the timeline below.
 

• 2003:  New voter ID laws were passed in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota
• 2005:  New voter ID laws were passed in Indiana, New Mexico and Washington; Georgia tightened an existing voter ID law to require photo ID
• 2006:  New voter ID law passed in Ohio; Georgia passed a law providing for the issuance of voter ID cards at no cost to registered voters who do not have a driver's license or state-issued ID card; Missouri tightened an existing voter ID law to require photo ID
• 2008:  New Mexico relaxed an existing voter ID law, and now allows a voter to satisfy the ID requirement by stating his/her name, address as registered, and year of birth
• 2009:  New voter ID law passed in Utah
• 2010:  New voter ID law passed in Idaho; Oklahoma voters approved a voter ID proposal placed on the ballot by the Legislature
• 2011:  New voter ID laws passed in Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.  Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas tightened existing voter ID laws to require photo ID (new laws in Texas and South Carolina are on hold pending USDOJ preclearance). Governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed strict new photo ID laws in 2011.

Recent Litigation

Arizona:  On October 20, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated an October 6, 2006 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that suspended Arizona’s requirements pending further litigation.  The ID law was in effect for Arizona's 2006 election, and remained in effect in 2008.