by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

My neighbor didn't know there was a primary today.  I feel like I failed.

We'll have several threads going.  But here's one for early returns.  

The Secretary of State's office is tallying returns here.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Yesterday I wrote a diary proving that the national media had their delegate counts completely wrong for weeks.  I sent an email to the AP referencing this and asking them to change their counts.  

Well, here's where we are after Day 1.  Real Clear Politics changed their count.  The New York Times changed their count.  CBS has not.  MSNBC has not.  CNN still has it at 204-161 with five delegates undecided.

To the Times and RCP: you're welcome.  To the others: get with the damn program.

I have calls and emails in to the Secretary of State's office to confirm this, but I'm going by their own numbers.

by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

In May I noted that San Diego County Hates Clean Elections and mroe recently confirmed that nothing had changed and San Diego was suing Secretary of State Debra Bowen for forcing San Diego's elections to be verifiable in the event of a margin of less than one half of one percent.  Turns out it isn't just San Diego's election officials who chafe at the notion of actually delivering an accurate vote tally.

San Bernardino has voted to sue Debra Bowen as well, complaining that, as officials specifically tasked with ensuring a fair, open and accurate vote, being forced to count those votes- occasionally- is outrageous.

"I don't see how it improves anything other than creating more work," said [San Bernardino] Supervisor Dennis Hansberger.

Except, of course, the fundamental integrity of democracy. But who's counting?

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Secretary of State Deborah Bowen is sticking to her guns about the failure of electronic voting. The San Francisco Chronicle reported this weekend that touch-screen voting and other electronic systems still aren't up to snuff.

"When the government finds a car is unsafe, it orders a recall," she told the Chronicle. "Here we're talking about systems used to cast and tally votes, the most basic tool of democracy."

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Marty Hittelman
President
California Federation of Teachers

Every once in a while voters get a chance to correct a legislative mistake. The Secretary of State has officially qualified four referenda, Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97, for the February 5, 2008 ballot. That means voters will have a chance to reverse the “sweet heart deal” that the governor and the majority of the legislature made with a few wealthy Tribes. Of course, I’m referring to the Big 4 Gambling Deals -- a political giveaway that would result in unfairly benefiting four of the state’s wealthiest and most powerful Indian tribes at the expense of other tribes, workers and taxpayers.

As an educator, these deals are especially bad because those behind them promise schools will benefit, when the truth is, not one penny is guaranteed to education.

by F. Gluck [courtesy of Blog for America]

With the CA SoS decertifying DRE Touchscreens & now finding vulnerability with the InkaVote Plus Precinct Ballot Recorder, and a new study by studycaliforniaballots.org which has found that the old MicroTallySystem central tabulator to be unacceptably inaccurate, it is time to retrieve elections from the corporations and from computer technology and return them to the citizens gy reinstituting old fashioned Hand Counted Paper Ballots at the Precinct Level!