'Daily Voting News' For June 21, 2007

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org In the New York state legislature it is coming down to crunch time for legislation to be finalized and passed. It is also a period of great concern for New York's election integrity community. As the New York Times reports this morning: "Microsoft, for example, is lobbying legislators to change the laws that govern the electronic voting machines that will soon be in use around the state, thanks to a 2005 law that ballot-integrity experts have hailed as one of the toughest in the nation. The software company wants to change a rule known as "third-party escrowing," under which the underlying software codes used by voting machines can be inspected by a third party in the event of tampering or hacking. The voting-machine vendors vying for the state's business all use Microsoft's operating software. But Microsoft wants to keep that software's underlying codes secret. "This change would remove the ability of citizens to independently review source code in the event of election problems," said Bo Lipari, the executive director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, which opposes the amendment."... **"Daily Voting News" is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in "Daily Voting News" may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or OpEdNews.Com**