State’s Highest Court Denies Pennsylvania Secretary of State Permission to Appeal Lower Court Ruling in Voters’ Favor

Case Challenging the Use of Electronic Voting Machines
Now Moves Toward Trial

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Pennsylvania voters challenging the continued use of unverifiable electronic voting machines in their state won another major round on Tuesday when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing their case to proceed toward trial. The state’s highest court, in a one-sentence order, denied the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s petition seeking permission to appeal a lower court ruling decided in the voters’ favor.

In April 2007, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania had ruled that voters have a right under the Pennsylvania Constitution to reliable and secure voting systems and can challenge the use of electronic voting machines “that provide no way for Electors to know whether their votes will be recognized” through voter verification or independent audit. Following that ruling, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortés filed his petition before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and further proceedings in the case, Banfield v. Cortés, had been suspended pending the outcome of the petition. The order issued on Tuesday gives a green light for the voters to pursue their claims.

Philadelphia County Election Officials Fail To Meet Secretary of State’s Orders to Count Emergency Paper Ballots on Election Night | County Claims It Will Count Such Ballots on Friday

Voters Facing Long Lines; Registration Issues Top Concern

Voter hotlines are buzzing today, with most polls being open less than five hours. Data from InfoVoter Technologies show that callers have serious concerns about registration problems and machine failures resulting in long lines at many polling places.

Today, the 1-866-MY-VOTE-1 and CNN hotlines have received a total of more than 16,000 calls; close to 3,000 in the last hour.

Voter Action is concerned about several states, including VA, PA, and FL.

“Ensuring that voters have access to the ballot box in a timely manner, and that their votes are counted is our number one goal today,” said John Bonifaz, legal director, Voter Action. “We are really concerned about the number and kinds of calls coming in from key states, like Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.”

October 29, 2008 | PHILADELPHIA, PA – Federal Judge Harvey S. Bartle III ruled today that emergency paper ballots must be made available when fifty percent or more voting machines fail at polling locations across Pennsylvania. Judge Bartle, who is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, issued the ruling in favor of plaintiffs who had argued that voters could be disenfranchised by having to wait hours in line due to voting machine breakdowns. The plaintiffs presented testimony at an eight hour hearing yesterday before Judge Bartle that voters had faced such long lines caused by voting machine problems during the primary election in Pennsylvania in April, particularly in low-income minority neighborhoods.

“This is a huge victory for the voters of Pennsylvania,”said John Bonifaz, legal director for Voter Action and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “This ruling will ensure that many voters across Pennsylvania will not be disenfranchised when voting machines break down on Election Day.”

PLAINTIFFS CLAIM VOTING MACHINE BREAKDOWNS AND LONG LINES WILL DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS

‘A PERFECT STORM’ IMPACTING THE RIGHT TO VOTE

PHILADELPHIA, PA – A coalition of Pennsylvania voters and civil rights groups, led by the NAACP State Conference of Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit today in federal court in Philadelphia seeking to ensure that voters receive emergency paper ballots on Election Day when 50% or more voting machines become inoperable at any polling site in the state. The lawsuit, filed against Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortés, alleges that voters will be disenfranchised when they face the burden of having to wait hours in line, due to voting machine breakdowns, in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

AND UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOTS During the last five months, we, a coalition of voting rights groups in Pennsylvania, have been advocating that the Pennsylvania Department of State, and county Boards of Election, prepare and administer uniform policies for issuing and counting emergency ballots when voting machines malfunction on Election Day. As organizations dedicated to protecting the right to vote and the integrity of our elections, we are deeply concerned about the consequences of Pennsylvania lacking a uniform standard on citizens’ votes.

Despite overwhelming evidence which demonstrates that the use of electronic voting machines seriously threatens the integrity of our elections, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Robert Bennett have introduced a bill that funds and encourages the continued use of this faulty voting equipment. Electronic voting machines – otherwise known as Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (DREs) – have repeatedly proven to be unreliable and insecure for the recording and counting of votes. As a result, states across the country have found that the cheapest, easiest and simplest way to address voting machine flaws and improve voter confidence is to use paper ballot-based systems which, unlike DREs, allow for meaningful recounts and audits. Senators Feinstein and Bennett’s bill completely disregards the fact that, after suffering elections marred by malfunctions and controversy, many states including Florida, New Mexico, Iowa, and California, have thrown out their DREs in favor of paper ballot voting systems. S.3212 ignores these expensive lessons and would allocate millions more of taxpayer dollars for the continued use of DRE machines, amounting to a public boondoggle for the private companies that have marketed these flawed voting systems.

For Immediate ReleaseMay 19, 2008 -- Minnesota continues to improve its election transparency and accountability standards with passage of an innovative law allowing losing candidates to call for manual recounts in select precincts. Called the “partial discretionary recount,” one of the first of its kind in the nation, is a cost-effective way for candidates to have the election results in specific precincts verified.

The law expands on provisions of Minnesota’s recount law which provides for recounts in races within a margin of victory of 0.5%. Under the new added provision, candidates in any contest with a 5% margin of victory may call for a hand recount, at their expense, of up to three precincts. If the requested recount shows a difference greater than 0.5% compared to the Election Day results, there will be hand recounting of additional precincts. That could lead to a contest-wide recount if more disparities between the reported results and the hand counts are discovered.

Bill Allowing Election Day Registration is Introduced Following Supreme Court Decision Allowing Laws Impeding the Right to Vote

Questions Regarding Registration Status and the Hybrid, Closed/Open Primary, and a Responsive State Board of Elections.