CVF in the Media

Below are excerpts from news stories and commentary highlighting CVF's work or featuring comments from CVF staff and board members. Archived CVF in the Media stories are also available.

Provisional ballots may decide outcome for some elections

By Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, November 11, 2008

Excerpt:

At 7:55 on election night last week, five minutes before polling in California closed, a man rushed into the Ventura County Elections Division office and demanded his opportunity to take part in a historic presidential election.

He acknowledged he was not registered but insisted he be allowed to vote. To avoid a confrontation, a clerk gave him a provisional ballot, one that will be thrown out after it is reviewed because the man was not legally entitled to vote.

Under less urgent circumstances, in firehouses and churches and schools across California, such scenes were no doubt repeated thousands of times last week. People who never registered, caught up in the excitement of Election Day, still insisted on casting votes.

"Provisional ballots are a fail-safe option for poll workers who don't have time to deal at length with one person," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation.

To avoid a polling-place confrontation, an individual whose name is not on the voter roster is simply given a provisional ballot. Sometimes those people are not entitled to vote and their ballots will ultimately be discarded.

"I suspect that happened to a much greater degree in this election than in others," Alexander said. (full story)

L.A. County Registrar Vows Easier Voting

KFI AM 640, November 10, 2008

Excerpt:

Election officials say the recent election taught them lessons about how to make voting easier. Los Angeles County's Registrar Dean Logan says there's no room for complacency. He's lined up a list of post-voting priorities that he says will make the next big election run more smoothly. Logan says he'd like to replace voting equipment, increase early voting locations and streamline mail-in ballots. Logan says this fall's record number of new voters, vote-by-mail ballots, and high turnout, combined to bring election frustrations front and center. Kim Alexander with the California Voter Foundation says one of the problems is that voting rules aren't consistent. "And that creates a lot of confusion for voters because they hear about what's gone on in a neighboring county, and they want to do the same thing. And they find they can't in their own county," Alexander says. "So I think we need more uniformity in polling place practices, and registration practices across the state." The Registrar in Sacramento County says the deadline for requesting a mail-in ballot should be moved to give officials more time to send ballots and voters more time to return them. (full story)

L.A. County election czar's to-do list includes reforms

By Jennifer Oldham , Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2008

Excerpt:

Even after he records the final results from Tuesday's historic presidential election, Los Angeles County's election czar isn't likely to get any rest.

When he's done counting roughly 16% of the ballots left over from Nov. 4, Dean Logan, the county's registrar-recorder, will turn his attention toward improving the democratic process for the next generation. On his list: replacing the county's much-maligned voting equipment, increasing the number of early voting sites and streamlining mail-in balloting in the nation's largest voting district.

"There's no room for any complacency in this process," said Logan, 41, in a post-election interview.

By most accounts Logan did a good job, handling the highest number of voters -- about 3.5 million -- to ever turn out for an election in L.A. County. He had already overcome two other major challenges this year -- including validating about 38,000 disputed ballots from the Feb. 3 primary and processing a flood of same-sex marriage ceremonies in the summer.

"I want to personally applaud the registrar's office," said Jackie Dupont-Walker, president of Ward Economic Development Corp., a community-based group in Los Angeles that served as a polling place last week. "I know they did extraordinary things."

But voters' rights advocates and Logan acknowledged that a record number of voter registrations and applications to vote by mail, combined with the high voter turnout, brought to the forefront long-standing problems with the voting process:

• Voter registration and vote-by-mail application deadlines that are too close to election day, making it difficult for workers to enter data in time and leaving no room to correct errors.

• Federal and state election laws that confuse voters and poll workers.

• Alternative voting methods such as early voting and processing vote-by-mail applications that require more resources to avoid glitches.

Problems arose in some Los Angeles County precincts, including Dupont-Walker's. At least half the voters who arrived at her polling place -- about 200 people in her estimation -- found they weren't listed in poll books or on supplemental lists, even though they received sample ballots.

Many of these residents joined about 243,700 county voters who cast provisional ballots because of polling place problems.

Election officials count provisional ballots by hand during the 28-day canvass period following election day. Such counts are time-consuming and require workers to verify that the person who cast a provisional ballot was registered to vote. To do so, clerks check the signature on the envelope that contains the provisional ballot against the signature on the voter's registration form.

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Officials could also reduce the need for provisional ballots, voting rights advocates said, by rolling back the deadline to apply to vote by mail, which falls one week before the election.

This deadline ensures that some voters won't get their ballots in time to send them back.

"What would be better would be to publicize early voting and set up early voting programs so people who find out two weeks before that they can't go to the polls have an option to vote," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan voter-education group.

Only one early voting site outside the registrar's Norwalk office was available in the 4,084-square-mile county.

Logan said the county's 706 different ballot groups -- each featuring a unique combination of measures and contests tied to a specific area -- along with three elections this year made it unworkable to offer more sites.

The registrar said he hoped to replace the county's voting equipment with technology that would make it easier to conduct early voting countywide.

But without federal or state standards and equipment, Logan said it was up to his office to push lawmakers to devise system requirements and then to form a consensus on how to implement them in the county. (full story)

Public records slower to follow information age

By Ryan McCarth, Marysville Appeal-Democrat, November 9, 2008

Excerpt:

Jane Marshall looked at a computer screen at the Yuba County Superior Court and said four words not often heard in the halls of justice.

"This is totally cool," Marshall said Thursday of the public documents available at courthouse computers.

An investigative technician with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Marshall makes her way to courts around Northern California to review public records.

Yuba County scanning documents that can be accessed at three computers for the public puts the courthouse ahead of the paper files that, in the digital age, still dominate most halls of justice, including Sutter County Superior Court.

But the scanned documents don't mean that public records from the Yuba courts can be viewed online by people at work or in their homes. Court records, like campaign contribution statements filed during political campaigns, still require a trip to government offices to read.

Weather conditions in Moscow can be accessed immediately on the Internet, but you have to drive downtown to find out who's contributed to the campaigns of officeholders in Yuba or Sutter counties — and to see what legal actions may have been filed against cities and counties, as well as all other court records.

Kim Alexander, who in 1994 started the Sacramento-based California Voter Foundation after realizing the opportunities the Internet provides to inform the public, said campaign contributions should be online.

"Voters like following the money," Alexander said. "The public deserves to be able to access that data."

Looking at a candidate's donors is a great clue to what they'll do in office, she noted. (full story)

Mailer has Measure S supporters 'furious'

By Garth Stapley, The Modesto Bee, November 07, 2008

People incensed at an anonymous 11th-hour mailer blasting Stanislaus County's proposed road tax may never find out if the flier was legal or ethical, or if it even made a difference.

The fate of Measure S lies in a Modesto warehouse, where election workers continue sorting through provisional and dropped-off vote-by-mail ballots that could take a week to process. Unofficial returns on Election Day showed 65.88 percent "yes" votes, a mere 0.79 percentage point short of victory with thousands of ballots yet to count.

Some supporters are relaxing their crossed fingers long enough to fume at the late mailer's "dirty tricks." Whoever sent them provided no identification other than a return address reading "Now For the Truth" with a Modesto post office box number.

What's so bad about that? The post office box belongs to a Measure S supporter.

"I'm furious," said Dick Hagerty, a Bee community columnist and longtime volunteer for various nonprofit causes. "(The senders) are cowards, thieves, lawbreakers and scumbags."

Hagerty is chairman of the Stanislaus Economic Development and Workforce Alliance, whose members worked feverishly for Yes on S and its unsuccessful predecessor in 2006, Measure K. He offered his post office box for use during a Yes on S strategy session, and several mailers listed it for their return address.

"I am offended. (Opponents) took something that belongs to me," fumed Hagerty, who said he discovered the chicanery when he was greeted by about 10 returned "No to S" fliers upon opening his post office box on Election Day.

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Anonymous political speech is protected by the First Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voters Foundation. But she questioned whether using someone's return address without permission constitutes mail fraud.

As for ethical considerations, she said, "It's really a shame that people feel they have to resort to these kinds of tactics to win a campaign."

Robert Stern, president of the Center for Government Studies in Los Angeles, called the deception "modified dirty tricks" because most recipients would not be expected to recognize the return address as belonging to someone else. And that doesn't affect the clear message of the sender, who urged people to vote against Measure S, he said.

California Fair Political Practices Commission spokesman Roman Porter refused specific comment. Speaking hypothetically, though, he confirmed that his investigators would have little interest in a complaint against an unknown party spending an unknown amount of money to send an unknown quantity of fliers

Meanwhile, Measure S watchers are "anxious to get the ballot count completed to see if in fact we're able to move forward with many transportation projects," said Stanislaus County Chief Executive Officer Rick Robinson. The half-cent sales tax increase could provide $700 million over 20 years. (full story)

Millions of votes left to be counted in California

By Amy Taxin, Associated Press, November 5, 2008

Excerpt:

A record number of voters and last-minute flood of absentee ballots left millions of votes to be counted Wednesday and several California races too close to call.

Election officials worked through the night and morning to finish counting roughly 10.4 million ballots cast by voters at the polls or in early mail-in voting.

But California officials will spend the next month poring over several million absentee and provisional ballots — which could hold the key to a tight race over a state proposition to revamp redistricting procedures and for a Northern California congressional seat.

Election experts say between 2.6 million and 3 million remain to be tallied among absentee ballots that arrived too late to count, were dropped at polling places or provisional ballots handed out to voters whose status could not immediately be verified.

"If we did succeed in even just keeping pace with 2004 turnout levels, we added half a million voters to the process this election — and the counties felt that," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation.

A surge in voter registration the last two months pushed California's voter rolls to a new peak of 17.3 million and led officials to add poll workers and order more ballots.

Many election officials predicted turnout would cross 80 percent in their counties due to voter excitement over the hotly contested race between Democrat Barack Obama, who will be the country's first black president, and Republican rival John McCain.

The state reported 76 percent voter turnout in 2004. (full story)

Excerpt:

Few problems reported in area despite record turnout

By Karen de Sá and Lisa Fernandez, San Jose Mercury News, November 4, 2008

Excerpt:

Record-high voting in the Bay Area on Tuesday mostly defied predictions of unwieldy waits and overwhelmed polls. But in Santa Clara County, concerns about touch-screen voting machines will likely increase following significant malfunctions.

Fifty-seven of the county's Sequoia Voting Systems machines failed on Election Day, resulting in hourslong delays before replacements arrived. State officials decertified electronic machines for widespread use in California last year amid reliability concerns; on Tuesday, each of the county's 785 polling places was equipped with a single machine for use by the disabled.

"We've had technical problems before, but we haven't had to resort to getting a replacement out or leaving a polling place without a machine at all," said election office spokesman Matt Moreles. He noted that voting at the affected precincts continued on paper ballots.

California Voter Foundation president Kim Alexander called the glitch "concerning" and said it marred an otherwise largely problem-free election statewide. "It underscores the ongoing challenges we face in California attempting to implement computerized voting," she said. "If Santa Clara County were still using touch screens as its primary election system, you bet it would have been a huge problem." (full story)

Starbucks Modifies Election Day Free Coffee Offer After Inquiry

By Sharon Ito, News10, Nov. 3, 2008

Excerpt:

Starbucks got the word that offering free coffee to people who vote on Election Day violated the law, so now the coffee company is offering a free cup to anyone who asks on November 4.

Starbucks' spokeswoman Tara Darrow, sent this email response following an inquiry by News10 into the legality of its free coffee for voters:

"We've been excited by the number of positive responses received about our free coffee offer. To ensure we are in compliance with election law, we are extending our offer to all customers who request a tall brewed coffee. We're pleased to honor our commitment to communities on this important Election Day. We hope there is a record turnout on Tuesday and look forward to celebrating with our customers over a great cup of coffee."

On Monday's Live_Online at 11 a.m. with News10's Sharon Ito, Kim Alexander with the non-partisan California Voter Foundation raised the red flag about Starbucks' election day campaign.

Alexander said offering incentives to vote, even a free cup of coffee, is against state and federal law.

The California Secretary of State's spokeswoman, Nicole Winger, also confirmed Starbucks' offer of a free cup to voters was well-intentioned, but violates election rules. The free cup to anyone who asks on election day is legal.

During the online conversation, Alexander said it's quite possible 80 percent of registered voters will cast ballots in California. That works out to 14 million voters.

Unfortunately some ballots won't be counted because of a common mistake made by mail-in voters.

Alexander said the postmark on the return envelope doesn't matter. If your mail-in ballot is not received by county election officials by the time the polls close at 8 p.m. on November 4, you're out of luck. Your ballot won't be counted.

So by this late date, don't drop your mail-in ballot at the post office. Instead, you'll need to hand-deliver your ballot to any precinct in the county in which you're registered before 8 p.m. Tuesday. (full story)

Record voter turnout may create record pain

By Troy Anderson, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Nov. 1, 2008

Excerpt:

With record numbers of people expected to inundate the polls Tuesday, voting experts are concerned the turnout may overwhelm the system, resulting in long lines and short-tempered voters.

"Our biggest problem going into this election is that we may not be able to meet the demand," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voters Foundation.

"Do we have the capacity to handle an extremely high turnout? That's the question that is weighing on the minds of poll workers and election officials."

To avoid the rush, many chose to vote early, but the experience didn't go as smoothly as expected for some.

Adreana Langston and her boyfriend voted early Friday in Norwalk. She wrote the Press-Telegram about her experience.

"We got in line at 9:07 a.m. We filled out our forms requesting absentee ballots at 10 a.m. We did not receive ballots until 2:15 p.m. The situation we experienced was disheartening and exasperating.

"I anticipated a wait of 2 1/2 hours. What I had not anticipated was a five-hour wait. We arrived upbeat and patient. We left light-headed from hunger, fatigued with irritation, disheartened and dehydrated.

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Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause in Washington, D.C., noted that in the past decade the country has seen many reports of election-day problems, including long lines, untrained poll workers and machine failures.

"We still see deceptive practices and suppression efforts going on," Boyle added.

Nationwide, more than 2,800 reports of voter problems had been made as of Friday afternoon to the Election Protection Web site, or by calling 866-687-8683 (866-OUR-VOTE).

California received nearly 1,800 reports and the county had nearly 800 reports ranging from registration and absentee voting problems to voter intimidation.

Alexander, with the voter foundation, cautioned the public to be alert this election season.

"Voters have to beware of the dirty tricks," Alexander said. "In California, we're not seeing, at least in the presidential election, the severity of dirty tricks occurring in other states, but they are popping up in some of the other campaigns and propositions at the state and local levels." (full story)

Flood of absentees may delay election night results

By Ed Fletcher and Robert Lewis, Sacramento Bee, Oct. 29, 2008

Excerpt:

An election that's already considered historic may pass yet another milestone: the first time more Californians cast votes for president by mail than at polling places.

The trend toward voting by mail suits Californians' busy lifestyles, allowing them to work through long, complicated ballots on their own time. But absentee voting could result in delayed results, particularly in tight races, elections experts say.

Californians may know Tuesday whether they helped elect the nation's first African American president or first female vice president. But as county election workers hustle to rip open and verify absentee ballots turned in at the last minute, the outcome of hot-button statewide propositions dealing with abortion and gay marriage, as well as billions of dollars in bonds for hospitals, green energy and schools, could be delayed.

"People want resolution. They don't want to hear that there are a million votes still to be counted," said Mark Baldassare, president and chief executive officer of the Public Policy Institute of California.

The deadline for counties to report pre-election registration is Friday, but preliminary counts already exceed 17 million – higher than the state's previous best of 16.6 million, Nicole Winger, spokeswoman for the secretary of state, said Tuesday.

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Jarbo said absentee ballots that arrive before Saturday will be processed by Election Day. Their results will be posted after 8 p.m. on Tuesday, making them the first results posted. Once Election Day arrives, staff will turn their attention to precinct votes; remaining absentee ballots will have to wait.

"The more we have in now, the more we can have processed in election night results," Jarbo said.

Opinions differ on the statewide impact of increased mail-in voting. Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute said it is leading to higher participation.

"You are giving busy people who want to be part of the election process – with less time and effort on their part – a chance to be part of the process," he said.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said the state should monitor how many mail ballots aren't counted because of voter error, because the registrar's office never receives them or because they arrive after the 8 p.m. Election Day deadline.

Elections officials also have to be vigilant that voters don't vote by mail, then cast a second provisional ballot, she said. "By giving this convenience to voters we've created more work for elections officials," Alexander said. (full story)

Popularity of mail-in voting surges in California, elsewhere

By Jennifer Oldham , Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2008

Excerpt:

Opting for the convenience of their kitchen table over a neighbor's garage, nearly half of Californians are expected to cast their votes by mail rather than at a polling site on Nov. 4, marking a milestone shift in the practice of democracy, elections officials said.

At least 40% of the state's registered voters already have decided they want to vote by mail, according to data compiled Friday by the California Assn. of Clerks and Elected Officials. The percentage is expected to grow as Tuesday's deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot approaches.

California isn't the only state where voters are eschewing a trip to the polls. A majority of voters prefer their mailbox over the ballot box in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, according to the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Portland, Ore.

Twenty-eight states allow residents to vote by mail without the excuse -- sickness, disability, being out of town -- that traditional absentee ballots have required.

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The increasing popularity of voting by mail in California and elsewhere has prompted some election experts to question whether convenience should trump concerns about ballot secrecy, fraud and the complications of processing mail-in ballots. The growing debate is leading some registrars and voting-rights advocates to call for a renewed discussion about how far the state should go to promote voting by mail.

"Some would like to see California become entirely a vote-by-mail state," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan voter-education group. "I would suggest we take a closer look at it."

Some experts said that residents who vote at home may be more susceptible to coercion by spouses, friends or co-workers to vote a certain way. They also worry that those who cast their ballots early could miss important campaign developments that might have changed their vote.

In the Feb. 5 presidential primary, for instance, some voters mailed their ballots in before John Edwards and other presidential candidates withdrew from the race.

Election watchers fear that ballots could become lost in the mail or arrive too late to be counted. To avoid this scenario, the Santa Barbara County registrar will send workers to pick up ballots at post offices the evening of Nov. 4.

Ballots can be sent by mail or delivered in person to the registrar's office, or can be dropped off at a polling place in the county where the voter lives. In all circumstances, ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Nov. 4 in order to be counted.

"After every election, in every county office, there are stacks of vote-by-mail ballots that aren't counted because they weren't received by the close of business on election day," Alexander said. "It's heartbreaking, because the voters don't know that their ballots aren't counted."(full story)

Disabled determined to make their voice heard on Nov. 4

By Cynthia Hubert , Sacramento Bee, October 19, 2008

Excerpt:

Rick Hodgkins of Citrus Heights has rarely missed an opportunity to vote, whether in a mundane municipal election or a hot presidential contest.

Not that the process ever is easy.

For Hodgkins, who is blind, getting to the polls and filling out a ballot requires careful planning, a plethora of telephone calls and a lot of waiting around. He is willing to go to the trouble, he said, because he believes so strongly in the process. But millions of others with disabilities are unable or unwilling to navigate obstacles between them and their right to cast ballots.

Despite changes designed to make voting easier for people with visual, mobility and other problems, less than half of the nation's 50 million disabled citizens 18 and over are registered to vote, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll. (That compares with 68 percent of U.S. citizens registered to vote in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Even if they are registered, many disabled people are reluctant to go to polling places that may be less than accommodating. Some arrange to vote by mail. Others simply give up.

With a major election a couple of weeks away, advocates in California and around the country are working to make sure that more disabled people weigh in.

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"It might be easier to vote by mail, but in the general elections in particular, a majority of people do want to go to the polls," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "They just like the experience."

The Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress in 2002, was designed in part to make voting more accessible to disabled voters. The changes have included the use of electronic voting machines designed to allow people with visual, hearing and other problems to have an easier time at the polls.

But the system has been far from perfect, with machines that don't work properly or allow for privacy, said Sklar and others.

"Assuming the polling place has one of these systems, is it actually accessible?" Sklar asked. "Can the screen be seen by others? Do poll workers know what to do if it is down?" (full story)

Americans put revamped voting technology to test

By Mary Milliken, Reuters, October 17, 2008

Excerpt:

In California, cradle of the computer industry, most voters will use paper and ink to cast ballots in the U.S. election on November 4.

In contrast, voters in Brazil and India press buttons in all-electronic elections that take digital voting technology to the Amazon and Himalayas.

In the United States in 2000, a ballot fiasco in Florida delayed the result of the presidential election by 35 days. But in Brazil in 2006, 130 million votes were counted in 2.5 hours.

Such are the ironies of how the world votes. But although some might see low-tech voting in the hi-tech United States, experts say Americans will find more reliable and secure voting systems in this election than in 2000 and 2004.

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Some states and counties readjusted their electronic systems and this year counties in 24 states will vote with electronic voting or lever machines. But many dumped electronic machines and went back to paper, while investing in optical scanning devices for counting ballots.

Most voters in California, for example, will ink a paper ballot and drop it in an optical scanner, giving voters the reliability afforded by a paper trail.

"This year, paper voting has eclipsed electronic voting, and I consider that to be progress," said Kim Alexander, president of voter advocacy group California Voter Foundation. (full story)

Election Protection

KQED, October 14, 2008

(Audio clip available online)

L.A. County supervisors name Dean Logan as registrar

By Troy Anderson, Los Angeles Daily News, July 8, 2008

Excerpt:

Despite protests from election activists, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to appoint Dean Logan as Los Angeles County's registrar-recorder.

Logan, who will earn $195,000 annually, replaces former Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack, who retired in January with a salary of $185,648 a year.

"Obviously, I'm pleased to be through the process and really honored to have the full support of the board and the recommendation of the CEO," Logan said. "The focus now is on the November election. That's the high-profile project at the moment."

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Logan was the best of the candidates the board had to choose from.

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Logan was also criticized for the "double-bubble" problem in February's presidential primary election. Due to a ballot design flaw, 50,000 ballots initially went uncounted. Ultimately, Logan's office was unable to count about 12,000 votes.

"As the largest election jurisdiction in the country, he'll have more challenges like this in the future," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

"Since he's been in one of the worst election controversies the state has ever seen, he's certainly got his hands wet already and should know how to cope with those challenges when they do arise."

But Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, said Logan has overseen three elections so far and proven himself to be a competent manager and problem-solver.

"He demonstrated an ability to work well with the secretary of state, community groups and others during a time when our voting equipment came under scrutiny, new guidelines were being implemented and a short timeline was given to conduct four major elections," Bell said.

"He's well-respected by his peers, including our former registrar, Conny McCormack." (full story)

Controversial Newsom To Run For Calif. Governor

Day to Day, National Public Radio, July 2, 2008

San Francisco's controversial mayor, Gavin Newsom, announced Tuesday that he is considering running for governor of California. Madeleine Brand talks to Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, about Newsom's history as a liberal leader, the scandals in his past and whether or not Californians would be receptive to his bid. (full story)

Low turnout as most vote by mail

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen - Contra Costa Times, June 8, 2008

Excerpt:

As widely predicted, voter turnout sank to a record low watermark Tuesday as a paltry fifth of the state's registered voters cast ballots.

But the vast majority of those who did vote opted for mail-in ballots rather than going to the polls.

The lopsided results are fueling talk of running mail-only elections at times of scant voter interest.

"I had polling places where 36 voters showed up," said Contra County Registrar of Voters Steve Weir, also president of the state association of election clerks. "We now know that any election following a bifurcated presidential primary, like it could be in June 2012, we ought to consider making it a vote-by-mail-only election."

In Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties, the use of mail-in ballots is expected to top 70 percent by the time election officials complete their tallies.

The high percentage of voters who cast mail ballots was entirely expected, said California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander.

Of the state's 16 million registered voters, between 3 million and 4 million "vote in every single election and they vote in far higher numbers by mail," Alexander said. "It makes perfect sense that in a low-turnout election, we would see very high numbers of people who vote by mail."

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Conditions will swing wildly the other direction in the November general election, however, where the selection of the U.S. president and a slew of statewide initiatives will draw an anticipated record number of voters of all kinds. Election officials expect turnout could top 80 percent.

Even as everyone's attention shifts to November, people will continue to complain about voter apathy in nonpresidential elections, and for good reason.

In some races, a few thousand voters select members of the state Senate or Assembly who will represent tens of thousands of people on critical issues such as the state budget, health care or the water supply.

Alexander, founder of the Voter Foundation, says there's been little incentive to boost the numbers. Over the years, some have even suggested a minimum voter participation threshold in order to enact new laws or elect leaders.

But not everyone wants big turnouts, no matter what they may say for public consumption.

Local governments and school districts with bonds and parcel tax proposals intentionally place measures on the ballots of low-turnout, low-profile elections, where it's easier to attract only the voters who support their initiatives. New taxes require a two-thirds voter approval, a difficult number to achieve.

Candidates, meanwhile, spend millions of dollars to bring out their supporters and have no reason to care about the rest of them.

And regular voters often resent the infrequent drop-in who may make a decision based on little more than a mailer or a yard sign, Alexander said.

It may be time for an overhaul, Alexander said.

"One of the things we've been looking at is a top-to-bottom review of California's election process," Alexander said. (full story)

County vote goes off with barely a hitch

By Sue Doyle - Los Angeles Daily News, June 4, 2008

Excerpt:

Low voter turnout and a virtually glitch-free day at the polls made Tuesday's primary election one of Los Angeles County's sleepiest in years, election officials and watchdog groups said.
The election saw none of the confusion of the presidential primary four months ago, when a peculiar ballot design created confusion for hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan voters.

"It's been a real quiet day," said Eileen Shea, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder.

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California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander said this was the quietest election, in terms of reported problems, that she has experienced in 15 years of monitoring California votes.

"Compared to February it's just night and day," she said. "In February we were flooded with calls from voters, wanting to know how to check their voter registration status. This election, we've had three." (full story)

State disables voter registration Web site

By Mike Wereschagin - Pittsburg Tribune-Review, March 20, 2008

Excerpt:

A design flaw in a state voter registration Web site left vulnerable the private information of people who used the site, a Pennsylvania State Department official said Wednesday.

Workers disabled the site Tuesday night after learning of the problem, which exposed driver's license numbers or last four digits of Social Security numbers belonging to people who had filled out a voter registration form online. The problem arose just days before the March 24 deadline to register to vote in next month's primary.

"As soon as we saw there was an issue, we took the page down," said department spokeswoman Leslie Amoros.

The Web site has been available for two years, Amoros said. State workers were trying last night to determine whose private information was viewed so they could notify those voters, and were working to fix the site's problems so they could get it online again, Amoros said.

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Most voter registration information is public. A voter's name, birthday, residence and political party can be obtained at county bureaus of elections. A driver's license number or partial Social Security number is required to register but that information is supposed to remain secret.

"It's very thoughtless and sloppy that this situation would occur," said Kim Alexander, founder and president of the Sacramento-based California Voter Foundation, which researches voting technology and privacy issues.

The state site allowed voters to fill out a registration form online, which they could then print, sign and mail to their county's elections bureau. Until the problem is fixed, Amoros said, voters can go to votespa.com, print an application, fill it in by hand and mail it. (full story)

Uncounted Votes

By Rob Schmitz and Scott Shafer - KQED's California Report Magazine, February 15, 2008

A week and a half after the presidential primary, about 800,000 votes are still being counted. We begin in Los Angeles where Los Angeles Bureau Chief Rob Schmitz reports that election officials are figuring out how to count some 50,000 ballots filled out by decline-to-state or independent voters. Then, host Scott Shafer looks at the problems non-partisan voters face participating in primary elections.

(Audio clip available online)

New trends plague polls

By Bobby Caina Calvan and Dorothy Korber - Sacramento Bee, February 7, 2008

Excerpt:

You know you have election day problems when the president of the California Voter Foundation is turned away from her Sacramento polling place because officials can't find her name on the precinct's rolls.

Kim Alexander's frustrating experience at Crocker Middle School was emblematic of the glitches plaguing the election process in Tuesday's statewide presidential primary. Precincts ran low on ballots, poll workers gave voters bum advice, and the final results won't be known for days.

A pair of trends fueled many of the problems: the growing popularity of absentee ballots, and the unprecedented number of voters registering as "decline-to-state" who then crossed over to vote for Democratic candidates.

"It's a giant wake-up call that we're not prepared as a state or at the local level to cope with 3 million decline-to-state voters who will make decisions, sometimes late in the process," said Mark Baldassare, director of research for the Public Policy Institute of California. "We also have to be ready for a lot of mail ballots dropped off at the last minute – and it seems we weren't prepared for that, either."

And the 2008 election season has just begun.

"We are in this long year with three elections, but I think we got the hardest one out of the way," said Jill LaVine, Sacramento County's registrar of voters.

In addition to November's general election, Californians will go to the polls in June for a slate of local, state and congressional races.

Elections officials are bracing for more confusion from crossover voting because, unlike in Tuesday's presidential primary, next time the state's Republican party will allow nonpartisans to request a GOP ballot. (full story)

Flood of provisional ballots means final vote tally may be weeks away

By Zachary K. Johnson - Stockton Record, February 7, 2008

Excerpt:

After counting more than 110,000 ballots, county elections workers reached a final precinct tally before 3 a.m. Wednesday, but the counting is far from finished.

Thousands of damaged, absentee and provisional ballots still remain uncounted, and it will be days if not weeks before the final tally is finished, officials said.

The number of provisional ballots cast was high because voters caught up in Super Tuesday fever who were eager to weigh in on their chosen presidential candidates flooded the polls, officials said.

Because of rules governing party primaries and election law, it is possible that many of the provisional ballots cast will not count, said interim Registrar of Voters Austin Erdman. And the law precludes poll workers from turning down requests to cast ballots, he said. "You have to let everybody vote."

Each provisional ballot still must be checked against registration records to determine if the ballot will count, he said. Unaligned voters were allowed to vote on the Democratic side, but not in the Republican primary.

- - - - - -

San Joaquin was among the California counties using paper ballots anticipating precinct counts lasting until 8 a.m. Wednesday. San Joaquin County reported finishing its precinct votes at 2:44 a.m., several hours earlier than anticipated.

This was still behind nearby Stanislaus County, which reported its final precinct total at 12:47 a.m. Both counties have roughly the same amount of registered voters. But Stanislaus County had voters feeding ballots into machines at the precincts, while ballots were collected and counted in a central location in San Joaquin County.

Other counties collecting ballots centrally for counting were among the last counties to report totals, but nearby Alameda County did not finish its tallying until nearly 6 a.m., according to the secretary of state. The state numbers list San Joaquin County's final count as occurring at 3:25 a.m.

"It's unusual to have instant results in California," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "I think it's more important to get it right than to get it fast," she said.

"It's not fast food." (full story)

Confusion over L.A. County ballot design may affect candidates' final delegate counts

By Troy Anderson - Los Angeles Daily News, February 6, 2008

Excerpt:

About half of all 189,000 Los Angeles County nonpartisan ballots cast in the Tuesday primary were not counted because of confusion over ballot design, the county's top elections official said Wednesday.

And acting Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said potentially tens of thousands more may also be affected because several hundred thousand absentee and provisional ballots are still left to count.

The problems surfaced Tuesday as the registrar's office began receiving reports throughout the day from crossover voters at the polls confused about how to mark their ballots.

While election experts said they doubt the problems will alter the outcome of the statewide vote, it could affect the number of delegates each candidate gets - potentially determining the Democratic nominee for president.

"Los Angeles County is the largest election jurisdiction in the country so anything that goes wrong in L.A. goes wrong on a big scale," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

"If these under-votes get counted, it could change the delegates in some California congressional districts."

Under questioning by the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday, Logan said about half of the county's 189,000 nonpartisan and decline-to-state voters who cast ballots did not fill in a party box at the top of the ballot required for their vote for a Democratic presidential candidate to count. (full story)

Professor's Model Helps Ensure Election Accuracy

By Priscilla Ankrah - The Daily Californian, February 6, 2008

Excerpt:

A UC Berkeley professor has developed a new method to better determine the accuracy of voting results, a formula which will be used in some counties today.

Philip Stark, a statistics professor, has developed an audit system to check the voting machines' accuracy in comparison to the manual count.

"There was previously no method of auditing that certified that you got the right answer," Stark said.

The method takes a random sample of precincts and tests to see whether each precinct's margin of error between the computer's count and a manual count is small enough to be considered insignificant.

"What we are basically trying to see is whether there are a large amount of samples with a small enough error," he said.

- - - - -

Stark's method came after Bowen commissioned a statewide Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group in order to develop a way to improve the accuracy of election counts.

Many said the group's work has changed the elections process to include more accurate results.

"I think the work done by our group was ground-breaking," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

Some recommendations made by the group, such as the auditing of 10 percent of counts in a precinct where the winning margin was five percent or less, have already been implemented in California elections.

While no future plans have been developed for his method, Stark said it is currently in the experimental phase.

"We're just testing to see if the results are feasible," Stark said. (full story)

Lots at stake today for primary voters

By Harrison Sheppard - Los Angeles Daily News, February 4, 2008

Excerpt:

With the Democratic presidential race narrowing to razor-thin margins, California voters are set to play a key role in national politics for the first time in years as they head to the polls today.

With tension mounting in the race for the White House - along with several controversial statewide ballot measures - analysts predict that voter turnout could top 60percent for the first time in a Golden State presidential primary since 1980.

"The excitement about this election is really high," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "I think that's part of the problem. I mean, it's great, but for county election officials, it's going to be a challenge to handle all the questions."

Over the weekend, polls showed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has cut the once-comfortable lead New York Sen. Hilary Clinton held in California - as well as other Super Tuesday states - to a virtual tie.

On the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain has surged to a lead, but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has campaigned hard to close the gap.

Meanwhile, California voters also have seven ballot measures, ranging from expanding Indian gambling to altering term limits for state lawmakers.

With so much at stake, Secretary of State Debra Bowen for the first time has declined to make a prediction of voter turnout, saying there are too many variables and the highly contested races make it too difficult to gauge.

"It's changing daily," Bowen said. "And California has never had a primary in modern history where we were actually going to make a significant difference in the selection of the parties' candidates." (full story)

Gambling measures draw millions in donations

The Associated Press - San Jose Mercury News, February 1, 2008

Excerpt:

Pushed by fights over gambling and term limits, Indian tribes, race tracks and labor unions are pouring million-dollar contributions into campaigns for and against propositions on Tuesday's presidential primary ballot.

Altogether, the seven propositions have drawn more than $160 million in donations, with 95 percent of the money coming from contributors that have given at least $1 million. While the amount is large, it falls short of the spending record set two years ago.

The bulk of the contributions this year is flowing to the campaigns over four Indian gambling compacts - propositions 94 through 97.

The proposals would allow four Southern California tribes - the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation - to add 17,000 slot machines at their casinos.

The four tribes and their allies have raised $101 million, almost all of it coming from the tribes.

Their opponents, a coalition made up of two other tribes, race tracks and a union representing casino workers, have raised $29 million.

"All of the tribal gaming measures voters have ever faced have been expensive, and this is the most expensive set of measures yet," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a non-profit organization that tracks campaign spending. (full story)

L.A. County sees no big delay in local vote

By Troy Anderson - The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, January 31, 2008

Excerpt:

As election officials across California warn this week that election-night results may be delayed because of decertification of some electronic-voting systems, Los Angeles County Acting Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said he doesn't expect any significant local delays.

Still, because a near-record number of people in the county are voting by mail - and more will cast provisional ballots Tuesday - Logan said only 75 percent to 80 percent of votes cast will likely be counted Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.

The county has issued more than 700,000 vote-by-mail ballots, more than any other election except the 2004 presidential general election. "The real impact is going to be on the counties that previously used touch-screen voting equipment at the polling sites and had to switch back to paper-based ballots," Logan said.

"For Los Angeles County, we already do central counting so I think our counts may be somewhat delayed because of the large number of votes-by-mail and provisional ballots. But the decertification issue won't have the same time-delay impact on Los Angeles County because we are not using touch-screen voting at the poll sites."

- - - - - -

Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit voter education group the California Voter Foundation, said counties should be grateful Secretary of State Debra Bowen has taken steps to avoid any potential voting problems.

"We've seen plenty of those with electronic voting in California in recent years," Alexander said. "The secretary of state is doing her job, and that's to make sure our voting systems are secure."

In addition, with close to half of the expected votes to be cast by mail, between 1 million and 2 million ballots cast statewide will not be reported in election-night totals, McIntosh said.

And in close races, it will take one to two weeks to have most of these ballots included in the updated totals. (full story)

 

Kim Alexander discussed why Most California Voters Opt to Bypass Polls

NPR, January 29, 2008

(Audio clip available online)

Kim Alexander discussed Election House Parties

KQED, January 28, 2008

(Audio clip available online)

Switch to paper ballots ensures long night

By John Wildermuth - San Francisco Chronicle, January 28, 2008

Excerpt:

San Francisco probably won't see a repeat of November's vote-counting fiasco, but the Feb. 5 presidential primary could be a long night - or week - for other counties across California.

New state rules severely limiting the use of touch-screen voting machines in California have left many counties scrambling to prepare for elections using paper ballots. Napa, Santa Clara and about 20 other counties will have to move from their all-electronic systems for the first time in years.

"We're estimating that it's going to be 6 a.m. Wednesday before we get all the precinct votes counted," said Elma Rosas, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County registrar of voters. "Our goal is to have 90 percent of the votes counted by Friday afternoon."

That's not good news for politicians and pundits who will be anxiously waiting to see who wins the presidential primaries in the nation's largest state, which has 58 counties. If Santa Clara County's problems are replicated in the other counties that are being forced to use new voting systems, final vote counts could be a long time coming.

Most of the problems stem from Secretary of State Debra Bowen's decision in August to virtually bar the use of most electronic voting machines after a controversial state-sponsored review found that the systems were vulnerable to hackers and might not accurately tally votes.

While Bowen approved the use of the Hart eSlate system used in San Mateo and Orange counties, she limited other electronic terminals to one per precinct so that disabled voters could make their election choices unaided.

- - - - - -

The disputes over electronic voting aren't getting all the blame for the ever-lengthening vote count. The continuing growth of vote-by-mail balloting has meant that hundreds of thousands of mail ballots are dropped off at the polls on election day, which means it can take days for all of them to be tallied.

"Vote by mail is already delaying the vote count, and that's not necessarily a bad thing," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. "Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson are all on the California ballot and all of them have dropped out of the presidential race and more could quit by election day.

"It's smart for vote-by-mail voters to hold on to their ballots as long as possible and bring them in on election day."

One winner in the voting machine scramble is San Francisco, which dumped Election Systems & Software as its voting machine vendor after state-imposed conditions stretched out the November vote count for weeks.

Because of the limits on electronic voting machines, San Francisco was able to borrow hundreds of extra Sequoia Voting System terminals from Riverside County to serve disabled voters. Those touch-screen machines will be the only difference San Francisco voters will notice, said John Arntz, the city's election chief.

"It won't be anything like November," he said. "We'll release the absentee results by 8:30 p.m. and then report the results from polling places. We want to be done with the precinct count by midnight."

The growing interest in the presidential primary has election officials predicting a strong turnout on Feb. 5, which also could slow the final vote count.

But delays shouldn't be a concern to voters, said Alexander.

"It's more important to get it right than to get it fast; most people are willing to wait a day or even a couple days to see the results," she said. "It's the campaigns and the media who have put so much pressure on election officials to get results out quickly, which can lead to problems. (full story)

Obama takes heat for 'independent expenditure' ads

By Carla Marinucci - San Francisco Chronicle, January 25, 2008

Excerpt:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama - who has criticized Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for benefiting from "independent expenditure" and political action committees - is taking heat because some of the same kind of organizations are now spending money, organizing and putting up TV ads on his behalf in the Bay Area.

These types of independent organizations aren't illegal as long as they do not act in a coordinated way with the campaign. But critics say Obama is being hypocritical in denouncing Edwards' connection with "527" independent expenditure groups while not demanding that ones supporting him stop.

In Obama's case, a 30-second TV spot financed by PowerPAC, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit political action committee, is running on cable stations in the Bay Area, urging change and a vote for Obama.

The buy, aimed specifically at younger and African American voters, has been seen on cable networks including the CW and BET, sources said.

Adam Alberti, a spokesman for PowerPAC, said Thursday that the efforts are not connected to the Obama campaign. He said both PowerPAC and a related organization, Vote Hope - a 527 independent expenditure group - intend to help "candidates who champion social justice and (are) building support in California by encouraging young people to support Obama."

Late Thursday, Obama spokeswoman Debbie Mesloh said she believes Obama was not aware of the ads.

- - - - - -

Rival Democratic campaigns asked Obama to disavow the latest effort.

"It's outrageous for Sen. Obama to have gone on the attack in Iowa about 527s when for months he's known full well about Vote Hope - a California 527 specifically set up to help his campaign," California Clinton spokesman Luis Vizcaino said.

There is no law stopping Obama or Edwards or any candidate from asking the outside organization to stop airing their ads or contacting voters. They can't, however, ask them to continue their work, said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonpartisisan organization that analyzes campaign financing. But, Stern said, a candidate can't say "'Don't spend your money in South Carolina, spend it in California.' And even if a politician says, 'Please, please stop,' it's done with a wink, wink," Stern said.

"If the ads are working, they don't want them to stop. But since people hate TV ads, the voters want them to say something," Stern said.

People may mock TV ads where a politician says, "My name is so-and-so, and I approved this message,' " said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan voter education organization that examines transparency issues involving money and politics. But such disclaimers do provide voters some transparency. (full story)

State failing on campaign finance disclosure

By Steve Terrell, Sante Fe New Mexican, January 23, 2008

Excerpt:

If you want to find out how much money a candidate in New Mexico has received from a certain company, forget it.

If you want to know how much campaign cash a state official has raised in the past six months or so, too bad. You'll have to wait until May.

Those are among the reasons New Mexico once again has received a failing grade in a national study of finance-disclosure laws.

And while the state Legislature once again will consider fixing weak laws regarding transparency in political campaigns, it's not clear whether the lawmakers are any more inclined to pass such reforms this year than they've been in the past.

The weaknesses of the current laws are outlined in "Grading State Disclosure 2007," a report published in October. New Mexico was one of 14 states to get an overall grade of F.

"New Mexico's disclosure law ranks among the worst in the nation," Kim Alexander, founder and director of the California Voter Foundation, said Tuesday. Hers is one of the groups, along with the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and the Center for Governmental Studies, that participated in the study.

"Unlike 43 other states, New Mexico's law does not require disclosure of independent expenditures," Alexander said, referring to outside groups that buy advertisements and do mailings on behalf of candidates but aren't formally associated with the candidate's campaign.

The study also criticized the state for failing to require contributors to list their employers and for having weak requirements on disclosing loans. Alexander also noted that in nonelection years, New Mexico requires candidates to file only one report, even though fundraising activity goes on all year. "The majority of states require at least two disclosure reports be filed in nonelection years," she said. "New Mexico could improve its disclosure law by requiring more frequent reporting in nonelection years." (full story)

Governor puts weight behind casino deals

By James P. Sweeney - The San Diego Union-Tribune, January 18, 2008

Excerpt:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the self-proclaimed “people's governor” and advocate of direct democracy, appears to have ditched his populist roots in the fight to save four big Indian gaming deals he negotiated.

The governor personally urged U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne early last month to push the agreements through the final step of the federal approval process, even though they still face a statewide vote on Feb. 5.

He also supported a tribal lawsuit last fall aimed at keeping the referendum measures on the compacts off the ballot.

The multibillion-dollar deals for Sycuan of El Cajon, Pechanga of Temecula and two other tribes were automatically approved by the Interior Department when they mysteriously turned up after reportedly having been lost for 80 days at the agency.

Interior officials said they still don't know what happened to the agreements during that time. Federal law gives the agency 45 days to act on gaming compacts. If they're neither approved nor rejected during that time, the deals must be “deemed” approved. Because of this rule, the four compacts were approved without any federal review.

Some at Interior wanted to delay a final step in the approval process – publishing a notice in the Federal Register – to buy time to confer with the state and assess other legal options.

That's when Schwarzenegger stepped in, asking Kempthorne during a telephone conversation to finish the process.

- - - - - -

The ballot measures have been bankrolled by two other big gaming tribes, including Pala of San Diego County, a casino workers union and the owner of two racetracks.

Regardless of who is backing the measures, Quinn said, there are “legitimate reasons why the public might want to vote on the compacts,” which authorize a major expansion with up to 17,000 more slot machines at the four reservations. In addition to Sycuan and Pechanga, the agreements authorize expansions for the Morongo tribe near Banning and Agua Caliente of Palm Springs.

“There is a growing backlash against casinos,” Quinn said. “They are the cause of traffic problems, environmental problems . . . so it's a decent public issue.”

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to voter education, said she found the situation disconcerting.

“It's hard for voters to wrap their heads around referendums anyway,” she said. “Then, when you throw into the mix this possibility that, regardless of what voters do, the final outcome may be determined by agreements with the federal government, it's frustrating.” (full story)

Mail-In Ballots May Slow Calif. Tally

By Allison Hoffman - Associated Press, January 18, 2008

Excerpt:

California elections officials predict that nearly 13 percent of all ballots cast for the Feb. 5 primary could remain uncounted on Election Night, possibly slowing the presidential tally in the state.

The reason is twofold: More Californians than ever are expected to vote by mail, and the unsettled nature of the Republican and Democratic campaigns may prompt many of those voters to wait until the last minute to submit their ballots.

About half the ballots cast for the election are expected to come by mail, up from 33 percent in the 2004 presidential primary. Registrars say that could lead to a backlog of ballots on Election Night, potentially delaying the announcement of winners in close races.

"If people hold on to their ballots and we don't see them until Election Day, they won't be counted until the week or so after the election," said Deborah Seiler, registrar in San Diego County.

About 4 million of California's 15.5 million registered voters are classified as "permanent absentee," meaning they automatically receive their ballots by mail. That could grow to at least 4.3 million by the time registration for the presidential primary closes on Jan. 22, according to the statewide registrars association.

- - - - - -

Possibly adding to confusion over which candidates have won is the system for allocating party delegates by congressional districts, which often cross county lines, especially if some counties fall behind on their tallies, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

Registrars can begin sorting ballots received before Election Day and will be able to start feeding them through counting machines a week before the election. That will allow a quick release of early absentee results when the polls close. But then the focus will switch to tallying ballots from individual precincts, while late-arriving absentee ballots in some counties will simply sit in their envelopes. (full story)

Kim Alexander discussed the Statewide Ballot Measures

KFPA, January 17, 2007

(Audio clip available online)

High stakes on gambling props battle

By Edward Sifuentes - North County Times, January 17, 2008

The battle over expanded American Indian gambling agreements has become one of the most expensive ballot initiatives in state history.

Those supporting and opposing the agreements have raised nearly $94 million.

Propositions 94 through 97 would allow four Southern California tribes, including the Pechanga band near Temecula, to add a total of 17,000 slot machines in exchange for giving a larger share of their revenue to the state.

Typically, campaigns raise from a few millions to as much as $20 million, said Kim Alexander, a political analyst.

The most expensive single ballot initiative campaign in the state was 2006's Proposition 87, which unsuccessfully sought to impose a $4 billion tax on oil companies to promote alternative fuels and energy-efficient vehicles.

It raised a total of more than $155 million from both sides.

By comparison, the $94 million raised on Props. 94 through 97 is more than the $93 million that tribes and their opponents raised in 1998 on Proposition 5, which legalized tribal gambling in California (though in today's inflation-adjusted dollars, Prop. 5's $93 million would be $118.3 million). (full story)

Kim Alexander discussed how Mail Ballots Complicate the Campaign Calendar

All Things Considered, December 21, 2007

(Audio clip available online)

Hearing looks at political e-filing

By Peter Hecht - Sacramento Bee, September 27, 2007

Excerpt:

A state panel heard testimony Wednesday over whether computer technology can safely protect the public's right to know about campaign spending in California and also eliminate hundreds of thousands of paper pages documenting money-raising for candidates and causes.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen and the state Fair Political Practices Commission are reviewing the state's online public access system for political finance information and considering whether campaigns that file reports electronically can be exempted from submitting disclosure statements on paper.

On Wednesday, attorneys for both Republican and Democratic campaigns argued that they are burdened with excessive staff costs in submitting paper copies of political spending reports under California's disclosure laws.

But while campaign treasurers argued that the entire process can be handled electronically, they got a lecture from Ross Johnson, chairman of the FPPC, and a former lawmaker.

Johnson argued that the duplicate, paper copies that clog voluminous shelves and storage space at the secretary of state's office and state archives protect a fundamental right "to make available to ordinary citizens information on who is funding political campaigns."

He argued that people who aren't comfortable with computers can't easily access information posted on the state's campaign finance information Web site, known as Cal-Access.

He also said key information -- such as addresses of campaign contributors -- cannot be posted online under state election disclosure rules but is included in hard-copy campaign documents accessible to the public.

- - - - -

Nicole Winger, a spokeswoman for Bowen, said the secretary of state hasn't taken a position on whether to eliminate paper copies of campaign disclosure forms.

Bowen, who wasn't present at the informational hearing led by Johnson, advocated a "verifiable paper trail" for electronic voting machines after announcing that a a security review showed some machines vulnerable to hackers.

Tony Miller, head of Bowen's political reform division, said the secretary also wants to ensure the electronic system for posting campaign contribution reports is "operating safely and efficiently" and can't be compromised.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a Sacramento nonprofit group that follows election technology issues, said the state should maintain hard-copy filing requirements -- which mandate that candidates and campaign treasurers sign paper disclosure forms.

"What I'm concerned about is the candidate would be another step removed" with only electronic filing, she said. "We have had incidents in the past when candidates have denied knowledge of their contributions and reports. Those (signed) statements under penalty of perjury come in handy." (full story) (registration required)

E-voting companies scramble to win approval before November '08

By Niraj Sheth, San Jose Mercury News, August 11, 2007

Excerpt:

Sequoia Voting Systems and other e-voting companies whose machines were decertified last week for use in February's primary elections are under pressure to design new systems that pass muster in time for the November 2008 presidential elections.

That means they'll have to meet the stricter standards espoused by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, whose decision to mothball the voting machines from Sequoia and other companies raised the bar for e-voting security requirements.

"If they don't do it by then, they will lose a lot of credibility with the counties," said Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies and former elections counsel for the state. "And if there are no refunds, there will be lawsuits."

Sequoia, headquartered in Oakland, wouldn't comment on the specifics of products in development or on a definitive timeline. But a spokesperson for the secretary of state said the company has told the state a new version is forthcoming.

"We heard Sequoia in the public hearing and in other occasions acknowledge that there are security flaws in their current system and promise they would be fixing those flaws in the next version of their product," said Bowen's spokeswoman Nicole Winger.

- - - - -

When Santa Clara County bought elections equipment from Sequoia in April 2003 - including 5,500 touch-screen machines for $3,000 each - it also agreed to pay the manufacturer for technical support and service for the next 20 years. Now, even though Sequoia's e-voting machines have been decertified, that regular fee may not change.

"In our contract, we never envisioned that these machines were going to be replaced," said county Registrar of Voters Jesse Durazo.

Ultimately, voting equipment manufacturers can bank on the relationships they've formed with states, counties and cities, which often go a long way in an industry known for its close connections.

"Though the secretary of state has decertified vendors, she hasn't altered the fundamental relationship between vendors and jurisdictions," said Moon of FairVote. "I'd be shocked if this hurt their bottom line."

Meanwhile, critics of electronic voting who have been advocating for tighter security are claiming victory.

"I was there in Santa Clara in January '03 urging your supervisors to not buy an electronic voting system," said Kim Alexander, president of California Voter Foundation.

"There were predictions that every county in California would have bought electronic voting machines by now, but the reality is that counties have voted with their feet." (full story)

Meltdown at the E-Voting Machine

By Andrew Gumbel, LA City Beat, August 9, 2007

Excerpt:

Usually, politicians reserve Friday nights for making unpleasant, embarrassing announcements they’d much rather nobody heard too much about. In the case of Debra Bowen, California’s reformist secretary of state, the drama that unfolded in her Sacramento offices last weekend was more a matter of racing to beat the clock.

Bowen had set herself a midnight deadline by which she promised she would decide what to do about the state’s inventory of electronic voting machines. For four years, the studies carried out by the country’s top computer scientists had been well-nigh unanimous: The systems developed by the likes of Diebold, Sequoia, and Election Systems & Software were riddled with software-writing flaws and security holes that made the likelihood of error or foul play unacceptably high. The fact that the electronic systems had no reliable paper back-up – certainly not before one was mandated by law in many states, including this one – only made the systems’ vulnerabilities all the more unnerving. Not only could an election go badly wrong or be outright stolen; there was no guarantee anybody could prove it if it happened.

Bowen, who came into office in January promising to carry out a top-to-bottom review of the state’s voting systems, was true to her word and did not just rely on the findings commissioned by others. Starting in May, national teams of researchers, coordinated by the University of California campuses in Berkeley and Davis, conducted their own software inspection of the four major systems in use in the state (the fourth, in Orange County, comes courtesy of the Texas company Hart InterCivic). They also carried out so-called Red Team exercises – controlled attempts at hacking an election.

Two of the systems, Diebold and Sequoia, scored disastrously. Hart InterCivic was found to have gaping, but reparable flaws. ES&S, makers of the InkaVote system used here in Los Angeles which is not an electronic system but rather a hybrid between the old punch card and lever systems, did not submit the required materials in time for the tests to be carried out at all.

- - - - -

These, though, are the last gasps of a dying breed of political sycophant. Bowen is unlikely to face a Shelley-style backlash, first because she has a reputation as the straightest of straight arrows, and secondly because the terms of the e-voting debate have changed significantly in the past three years. “Dozens of researchers all over the country are now working on the reliability and security of electronic voting,” said Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation, an early critic of e-voting. “Back in 2004, a lot of it was just guesswork. Now researchers have looked inside the systems and seen where all the holes and the opportunities for error and fraud are.”

California is not alone in rejecting e-voting: New Mexico and, intriguingly, Florida have gone down the same road, as have dozens of individual counties across the country. Voters themselves have led the way on this debate: As Bowen herself pointed out, somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of California’s voters opted for a paper ballot in last November’s mid-terms.

The importance of California in the national debate remains considerable – because of our size, and also our concentration of computer science experts – and it’s a fair bet that Bowen’s ruling will greatly accelerate the nationwide trend away from electronic voting to something more transparent and verifiable. In other words, she has notched an unambiguous victory for the cause of voter rights. (full story)

Official: New Voting System Means Counts Are Slower, More Secure

Alison St John, KPBS Radio, August 7, 2007

Excerpt:

California Secretary of State's decision to pull the plug on most screen voting machines is forcing San Diego to resort to a vote counting technology that is slow and cumbersome. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Instead of using touch screen voting machines, voters will have their paper ballots counted by optical scanners in 2008.

Kim Alexander is President of the California Voter Foundation. She explains voters will have to wait longer for election results using optical scanners than they did in the days of the unreliable punch card ballots.

Alexander: We've used computers to count ballots for over 40 years in California , but with a punch card you'd take a stack of cards and put them inside the counter and they would zip through. With the optical scan machines, you've got to feed them through one at a time so it takes longer.

Some California counties are faced with big bills to buy more optical scanners.

But San Diego has a contract with Diebold that requires the company to provide alternatives if its touch screens are decertified.

County Registrar Deborah Seiler says the County will use the scanners Diebold provided at polling places last June.

Seiler: Our strategy is to put a lot of scanners on, granted they are not fast but we would have a lot of them.

However, because of the new conditions set by the secretary of state, the scanners will remain in the Registrar's office, and poll workers will bring the ballots in to be counted.

That may also cause even longer delays.

Nicole Winger of the Secretary of State's office says it's worth it to restore voter confidence.

Winger: Americans like Speed but Americans also like democracy. (full story)

California Report Slams E-Voting System Security

By Robert McMillan, PC World, July 27, 2007

Excerpt:

Researchers commissioned by the State of California have found security issues in every electronic voting system they tested, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Friday.

The report was published Friday as part of a complete review of the state's e-voting systems initiated earlier this year by Bowen's office.

Its findings were not encouraging for backers of e-voting.

"The security teams were able to bypass both physical and software security in every system they tested," Bowen said Friday during a conference call with media.

Bowen is set to decide by Aug. 3 which systems will be certified for use in the 2008 presidential primaries. She declined to comment on how the report's findings will affect this decision until she has completely reviewed the report. "The severity of it, what it means ... that's a matter for us to investigate and pull apart and analyze between now and next Friday."

But she did acknowledge that the security problems found by researchers were important. "It's a big deal for many people in this country," she said. "We are a democracy and our very existence as a democracy is dependent on having voting systems that are secure, reliable and accurate."

- - - - -

With California on the forefront of voting system reforms, the report will be closely scrutinized by state officials across the country, said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation. "Even though we've made a number of improvements to voting systems in California, doubts persist about the reliability of our voting equipment."

In 2004, for example, voting was delayed by several hours in many San Diego precincts as the city struggled to roll out a new US$31 million Diebold electronic voting system.

The report was conducted under added time constraints. In March, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger moved the date of the state's 2008 presidential primary vote ahead from June to February 5.

State law mandates that the Secretary of State must give counties at least six months' notice if machines are to be de-certified, forcing Bowen to make a decision on the matter by August 3.

She said Friday that it was unfortunate there was not more time for study and debate, but that putting off the review was not an option. "I don't want any doubt about the reliability of our voting systems come February 5, 2008," she said. (full story)

Future Tense with Jon Gordon

American Public Media, July 24, 2007

Voting machines companies, registrars await findings of security investigation

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen will soon reveal the results of a two-month study of touch-screen voting systems in her state.

Making good on a campaign promise, Bowen ordered the so-called "top-to-bottom" review to ensure California's voting systems are secure for the state's February primary election.

A team of computer security experts have been poking and prodding the systems from three companies - Diebold, Sequoia and Hart InterCivic, looking for vulnerabilities that would make them prone to error or manipulation. Bowen could decide to decertify any of the machines, a prospect that has county election officials on edge.

Guests: Brad Friedman of BradBlog, Stephen Weir of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation, and Michelle Shaffer of Sequoia (full story)

E-voting systems `hacked' for flaws

By Steven Harmon, San Jose Mercury News, July 23, 2007

Excerpt:

In a nondescript storage room, tucked deep behind layers of security doors, a handful of computer experts have just wrapped up an intense two months of hacking or otherwise manipulating electronic voting systems.

The rigorous testing for vulnerabilities in touch-screen voting machines are part of an unprecedented "top-to-bottom" review ordered by Secretary of State Debra Bowen to ensure that the state's voting systems are secure - and whether they should be certified for use.

She is expected to report Aug. 3 - six months before the Feb. 5 presidential primaries, a timeline that is making election officials nervous.

Bowen is fulfilling what her supporters and voting security advocates consider to be the mandate she received from last year's election, in which she clashed with her predecessor, Bruce McPherson, over how much scrutiny the state's electronic voting and tabulations systems needed. She won in November amid a national outcry over fears of hacking, vote flipping and election rigging with suspicions squarely aimed at touch-screen voting systems.

"Voting machine companies are quaking in their boots," said Brad Friedman, the author of BradBlog.com, which is devoted to voting security. "She's doing exactly what she was elected to do. I will be stunned if they find systems that don't have enormous, gaping vulnerabilities."

Three vendors - Diebold Election Systems of Texas, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland and Hart InterCivic of Texas - are awaiting the outcome of the review, as are county registrars, who worry that any decertification could lead to chaos on Election Day.

Bowen's team of hackers have worked around the clock in the third-floor storage room of the Secretary of State's Office building to intentionally try to alter votes and manipulate how they are counted. The level of testing, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, which monitors elections across the state, is beyond what has been done in any other state or in federal testing.

"Previous testing looked at whether the systems work the way vendors said they're supposed to work," Alexander said. "It didn't include scenarios that would crop up in real elections, such as a software attack or the taking down of a polling place through technical manipulation."

- - - - -

Some wonder if Bowen has a predisposition to rid the state of touch-screen machines, given her history, her campaign and the people with whom she's surrounded herself. For instance, one of her deputy secretaries, Lowell Finley, is a Berkeley lawyer who sued McPherson for approving Diebold touch-screen voting machines.

"She certainly gave every indication she'd do everything it took to get Diebold out of the state," said Matt Rexroad, who was McPherson's political consultant during the campaign. "I don't know how they get a fair hearing by the chief elections officer."

Weir, the state's top registrar, said that clerks could decide to ignore Bowen's findings and continue to use their systems, which are already federally qualified; that would almost certainly create a legal standoff.

That would be a mistake, said Alexander, the voting security expert.

"What's most important is that we have election results that are accurate and that the public has confidence in," Alexander said. "We don't audit elections for the convenience of election workers. We do it for having a representative democracy." (full story)

Hackers Test California's Electronic Voting Machines

By Nannette Miranda, July 2, 2007

Excerpt:

The hackers are the latest attempt by California to ensure voters their ballots will be counted. Paper trails and public audits are already required by law.

Kim Alexander, CA Voter Foundation: "This review and evaluation of the software that's driving our voting systems will pick up any other problems that may have been overlooked."

The stakes are high to get the vote count right, because with the Presidential Primary moved up from June to February 2008, California has the potential to affect the outcome the race for the first time in years.

Debra Bowen, (D) CA Secretary of State: "The goal of this review is for us to do that on voting systems where we can be confident that the effect we have on the Presidential Primary is the effect California voters intended."

The hackers have until July 20th. If they're successful, Secretary Bowen could de-certify those machines and counties will have to scramble to find another way for Californians to vote. (full story)

'And that's it', County dismisses critics of elections—office hires

By Kelly Davis, San Diego City Beat, May 30, 2007

Excerpt:

In the eyes of voting-integrity activists, San Diego County hit the trifecta this spring.

It all started in April with the hiring of Michael Vu as San Diego County's new assistant registrar of voters. Vu's most recent job was head of elections for Ohio's Cuyahoga County, where, this past January, two of his deputies were found guilty of tampering with a vote recount in the 2004 presidential election; both received jail time. A year ago, an audit by an independent elections review board described Vu's handling of Cuyahoga County's May 2006 primary as an "across-the-board failure." A follow-up audit of the November 2006 general election found far fewer problems, but both Vu and assistant registrar Gwen Dillingham resigned in February.

Vu's new boss is Deborah Seiler, hired by the county in May to replace Registrar Mikel Haas, who was promoted to the department that oversees the registrar's office. Haas was criticized for allowing poll workers to take electronic-voting machines home with them.

- - - - -

Kim Alexander, who heads the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that follows electronic-voting issues, said that although Seiler is controversial, "she's also one of the most experienced people in California when it comes to election administration."

Prior to working for Diebold, Seiler was chief of elections under former Secretary of State March Fong Eu. When Eu left office, Seiler went to work for Sequoia Systems before being hired by Diebold as head of West Coast sales. In 2004, Solano County hired Seiler as its elections manager, second in command under the registrar. Like San Diego County, in 2003, Seiler sold Diebold machines to Solano County that had yet to be federally tested or state certified.

Other counties purchased their electronic-voting machines from other vendors, like Sequoia Systems, which haven't been without problems, either, though Diebold's name is perhaps the most recognized.

Secretary of State Shelley ultimately banned the Diebold machines prior to the November 2004 presidential election but not before San Diego County used them in the March 2004 primary. In that election, poll workers at some locations had trouble with the device that activates the cards voters must insert into e-voting machines to call up a ballot. This glitch resulted in just over one-third of polling places opening late.

"You cannot discount the impact of Diebold in all of this," Alexander said. "San Diego selected a vendor that has a troubling history and that has bolstered the critics' concerns and their fears." (full story)

Local governments outsource elections that puzzle voters

By Chip Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, May 29, 2007

Excerpt:

Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, was interviewed a few years back about an upcoming election and complained about the sheer size of the ballot and how -- and why -- California voters seem to vote on every nitpicking little thing.

As a Sacramento County resident, she said, she would have to vote for 22 different elected representatives at the local and state level.

"I mean, what the heck is the mosquito abatement district and why should we care about this?" she asked. After hearing the interview on air, her father, a retired Culver City Council member, called her to say he was a member of the Los Angeles County Mosquito Abatement District's board of directors.

Still, voters across the state are asking the same question Alexander did just about every time they look at their ballots. And this month, thousands of Alameda County property owners have been scratching their heads over not only what they are deciding in a mail election -- but who is counting the votes.

Some of them have called the county elections department, which confirms that it is not counting the ballots for the "Vector and Disease Control Assessment" proposed by the county's Vector Control Services District.

The ballots have an unusual return address -- to an accounting firm in Fremont that is, indeed, tallying the results in July.

For the record, the special district, which controls rodent and insect infestation for every city in the county except Fremont and Emeryville, is asking county property owners for a $4.08 annual increase in their property taxes. (full story)

Hackers Asked to Test E-Voting Systems

KCBS, 740AM

Despite federal promises to safeguard electronic voting systems, California's top elections chief has commissioned a panel of UC experts and hackers to review eight primary e-voting systems. It is considered the largest and most aggressive equipment review of any state so far.

Debra Bowen campaigned for Secretary of State on the pledge to do a top to bottom review of the voting systems. This panel, led by computer security experts at both UC Berkeley and UC Davis will test eight primary systems sold by the country's four largest suppliers.

The panel has until the end of July to wrap up its analysis; under state law Bowen has until the beginning of August to decertify any problematic systems before the early, February 5th primary.

"California is not the only state that's undergoing this kind of process," explained Kim Alexander with the nonprofit election reform group California Voter Foundation. "Ohio is also conducting a top to bottom review and Florida's governor has led that state to replace electronic voting altogether with paper ballot systems. So there is a lot of review of our voting systems going on, as there has been ever since the 2000 presidential election." (full story)

 

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