Month: October 2012

Are Wayne County's voting machines trustworthy?

Early voting is underway in Wayne County, Indiana.  Voters showing up at the polling stations will find themselves directed to the Hart InterCivic voting machines.

A 2007 study of these machines, initiated by the Ohio Secretary of State and conducted by Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and WebWise Security, Inc. found that:

the Hart system lacks the technical protections necessary to guarantee
a trustworthy election under operational conditions...Virtually every
ballot, vote, election result, and audit log is forgeable or otherwise
manipulatable by an attacker with even brief access to the voting systems.

You can read a summary of the study or read the full 335-page report.

2012 Chamber Debate Bingo Cards

Tonight at 6 PM, the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a series of debates for candidates in various local, county and state races.   The debate is free and open to the public, and will take place at Vivian Auditorium on the IU East campus.  You can also watch the debates live on WCTV.

I hope local voters will watch the debates to learn more about the would-be elected officials who might significantly influence how tax dollars are spent, government is run, and children are educated.

But if you need another reason to watch, you can now download and print out my Chamber Debate Bingo Cards [PDF].

Each time a candidate says a phrase on the card, you mark off that square.  Get five in a row, and you've got a BINGO! (If you are attending the debates in person, please do not yell out "BINGO" during a debate session.)

Each of the 5 cards has a random ordering of phrases, so you can play against your friends and family.

Local elections have never been so fun!  Enjoy.

Wayne County 2012 election candidate information

Tim Russert's Office

(This blog post has been updated since the original publishing - see details below.)

This coming Wednesday at the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce candidate debates I'll be participating in some post-debate analysis with my colleagues on the Palladium-Item Editorial Board.

As a part of researching for that and for my own voting, I went in search of information that state and county candidates have made available online about themselves and their views, especially in contested races.

What I found was disappointing: state and local candidates are barely making any information at all about themselves and their views, plans and credentials available to voters.

Continue reading "Wayne County 2012 election candidate information" →