NEW PROBLEM WITH TOUCH SCREEN VOTING

WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON WIRE - There's another potential problem
for those touch-screen voting machines that millions of Americans used
on Tuesday: It's tough to recount their votes. The machines work by
collecting votes on a memory card that's inserted in each machine and
backed up by an internal memory. The memory cards and internal memory
record an image or "screen shot" of each ballot - that is, a record of
each voter's choice on every ballot question. But many state recount
laws call only for an examination of the totals on the memory cards — in
other words, reading the votes rather than examining the screen shots.

The backup memory records the same data as the memory card, moreover.
That means that any glitch will be recorded the same way in both
memories. Some voters complained on Election Day of a software glitch
called vote jumping, which occurs when a vote for one candidate jumps to
that of another. If that happened, and a voter didn't correct it, the
wrong vote would show up on both tallies.

Most election offices don't have the technical skill to retrieve the
screen shots, and most vendors don't allow them access, claiming the
software is a trade secret. "You would need involvement by the company,"
said Matt Zimmerman, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which
follows technology and privacy issues. That has raised the ire of
voting-rights groups, which contend that the introduction of high tech
voting equipment is "privatizing" elections and taking them out of the
hands of public officials.
Even if voting-machine companies looked at the screen shots, they're
unlikely to allow election-watchers in on the process, said Larry Norden
of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The recount
process "won't be publicly transparent," he said.

Seventeen states require that their touch screens come equipped with a
back-up paper ballot that spools into the machine after a voter has a
chance to review it, and records the vote. A House bill would extend
that requirement to equipment used in all federal elections. The bill
has no Senate companion, but the high anxiety over voting machines this
election could put it on the Senate agenda before 2008. – June Kronholz

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/

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ELECTION TURNOUT RATE TOPS 40 PERCENT

PAULINE JELINEK, AP - Almost 79 million people voted in Tuesday's
election, with Democrats drawing more support than Republicans for the
first time in a midterm election since 1990, according to a private
analysis. The overall turnout rate, reflecting a percentage of voting
age population, was 40.4 percent, compared with 39.7 percent in 2002,
the director of American University's Center for the Study of the
American Electorate.

A preliminary analysis showed that turnout was down in some states and
higher in others - notably up in Virginia, where it appeared more people
voted than in any midterm in the state before, researcher Curtis Gans
said. The highest recent midterm turnout was 42.1 percent in 1982.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6202243,00.html

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