Electionlawblog news and commentary 6/9/06

"ELECTION 2006: Oakland Mayor's Race; Dellums still holds slim lead 2 days after election day; Counting continues in close race - 50% would avoid runoff"

The SF Chronicle offers this report. A snippet:

Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. of Oakland will provide 1,000 optical scanners and 1,000 touch-screen voting computers for each of the county's 830 polling places at a cost of $13.5 million.

Having been burned by faulty e-voting systems before, supervisors added a caveat to the contract: The new machines must first pass a professional hacker test before the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office accepts delivery. If they fail, Sequoia must pay for any fixes.

If all goes well, voters in November can expect to fill in bubbles on paper ballots, and those ballots will be hand-fed through Sequoia's scanners and recorded in a central database. Each polling site also will have at least one touch-screen voting computer for the disabled -- or anyone else wishing to use them. Those machines will produce a printout on a paper roll that is saved inside the computer.

See also this NY Times story on the voting machine business.

"Candidate's 2nd Place Finish Elates Green Party"

The LA Times offers this report.

"The FEC's Reluctant Regulators; The agency's inaction means Congress ought to step in."

The Washington Post offers this editorial. Bob Bauer comments.

"Carnegie March '06"

Allison Hayward has posted this interesting list of grant recipients (and the amounts of the grants) from Carnegie related to "strengthening U.S. democracy."

"Dems want Blackwell to give up election oversight"

This partisan bickering is even more reason to move to nonpartisan election administration.

"Verified Voting's Preliminary Summary Shows Diebold Equipment Vulnerabilities Affect 27 States"

Verified Voting has issued this press release and summary.

How is HAVA Working?

See this testimony from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission before the House Administration Committee. The GAO has also released this 500+ page report, "The Nation's Evolving Election System as Reflected in the November 2004 General Election." Thanks to Bobbie Brinegar for the links.

Meanwhile, Dan Tokaji posts Soaries Speaks -- And Boy Does He Ever!", about an interview the former head of the EAC gave to Rolling Stone.

"Why The Renewed Voting Rights Act Will Pass Constitutional Muster - Despite Predictions that the Roberts Court May Strike It Down"

Laughlin McDonald has written this column for Findlaw, responding to my column on the same subject last week. Laughlin's arguments are based on a readings of the fact and the law that I find hard to believe the current Supreme Court majority is going to accept (as much as I would want them to). If you want a detailed analysis of why I am concerned, and why I have suggested some steps to improve the VRA's chances of survival, see my OSU Law Journal article on the topic.

"Court order stops Republicans from replacing DeLay on ballot -- for now"

See this news from Texas.

-- 
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
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