Illinois Election Incidents Hotsheet

reports of problems observed 2012-Mar

Election systems aren't perfect. They need to be monitored. Problems need to be reported, corrected.

But like many tasks today, there are too few hands for the job. And the job is getting more and more complex.

You can help.

First, report any problem you encounter—during campaigning, voter registration, balloting, or any other time.

Second, publish your report widely. This not only alerts fellow voters to immediate pitfalls, it helps build a database for revamping the system.

Our Hotsheet lets you publish your report instantly—complete, intact, unfiltered—directly to fellow voters, troubleshooters, journalists, researchers, and other interested observers.

Our site makes it easy to—

Call a hotline for immediate help.
Post a report—and see it published here instantly.
Upload audio or video files.
Read Latest up-to-the-minute reports.
Read All reports, starting with the oldest.

Questions, comments? Post a note here! Or email us at the address below.

Thanks for visiting. And please check back soon for updates!

Roy Lipscomb
Hotsheet Moderator
lipscomb@ballot-integrity.org

P. S. Please don't vote before election day! To find out why, click here.

Low Tech Voting Gets "Thumbs Up"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Low-Tech Voting Gets "Thumbs Up"
Chicago--With elections approaching, the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project (IBIP) has this advice for voters:

1) Vote in person, not by mail.

2) Vote on election day, not earlier.

3) Vote on a paper ballot, not on a touch-screen voting machine.

"These three steps will help protect your ballot from loss, damage, and alteration," says IBIP Director of Technology, Roy Lipscomb. "The longer the delay between the casting of a ballot and the counting of a ballot, the greater the chance of mishaps."

This risk is not abated by election-day voting on touch-screen voting machines. The tenuous reliability of such machines has led to their being banned by Florida, California, and other states--plus countries like Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany.

To compensate, such machines are now commonly required to back up their digitized votes by printing a paper copy. But this remedy falls short.

* Only a small percentage of votes ever get audited (usually 5% or less),   so it's rare that paper copies ever get consulted.

* Most voters do not verify the paper copy of their votes.
   http://ballot-integrity.org/nvvotersurvey.pdf

* Many paper copies turn out to be defective.
  http://tinyurl.com/26r7kd3

* Even if the paper copy exactly matches the digital copy,
  both may be spurious.
  http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~seclab/projects/voting/

"Protect your votes from going AWOL," says Lipscomb. "Vote in person, on election day--and with a paper ballot."

The Illinois Ballot Integrity Project is a non-partisan grassroots organization pushing for election systems that are fully transparent, accurate, and verified. Their homepage is http://ballot-integrity.org

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Telephone Hotlines

Chicago

312/269-7925	Chicago Board of Elections (Registration problems)
312/269-7870	Chicago Board of Elections (Investigations on Election Day)
773/603-1880	Cook County State's Attorney Election Fraud Unit

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Suburban Cook County

312/603-0906	Suburban Cook County Board of Elections For English-speaking operator, press 1 then 8. For Spanish-speaking operator, press 2 then 8.
773/603-1880	Cook County State's Attorney Election Fraud Unit