NBC News make two new States: ColoUtah and New Arizona

NBC Nightly news (23 Jan 2009) map of the US showed Colorado-Utah (ColoUtah) as one state, and NM-AZ (New Arizona) as one state.

Must be those square states

LOL
Now what would a map with 57 state look like...

Can Someone Get Biden a Map ?

Joe Biden appeared did an interview with local Grand Junction, Colorado's Channel 11, to talk about his swing through the state.

In the interview, he mentioned that he would be traveling "very close to Grand Junction," although he wasn't sure exactly how close (starting at the 2:52 mark)

The closest Biden will come on his 4 city tour (according to the Washington Post) is about 260 miles away.

A glass-half-full type of guy would say that Biden got it dead-on when he said that he wouldn't exactly be in Grand Junction.

A pessimist would say that Biden's a terrible representative to send to Colorado if you want the voters to think that he and Barack Obama understand the state.

Could This Week Decide the Election?

Could This Week Decide the Election?

By Shane D'Aprile

Tuesday marks the start of early voting in Ohio-the state that held the key to the presidential election four years ago. In a place where voting issues have become the norm, some estimates have early voters comprising more than 35 percent of Ohio's total electorate this year. If so, it would be more than enough to swing the state to Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain.

"Truth is, it's a bit of a work in progress here," says Democrat and longtime Ohio political consultant Jerry Austin. This is the first presidential election for which the state will allow early voting, and Austin says there's just not enough history to provide candidates and campaigns with much of a game plan.

"The biggest thing it forces you to do," says Austin, "is to allocate a lot of resources now, as opposed to leaving it all for the last three weeks of the race."

Across the country the frequency of early voting has increased dramatically over the past three election cycles as more states have moved toward no-excuse absentee voting. That means that tens of thousands of voters no longer need a legitimate reason to cast an absentee ballot.

One wrinkle to the early voting process in Ohio this year is a rule that will allow new voters to register and actually cast an early vote on the same day. Early voting in Ohio is set to begin Tuesday, but the state's registration deadline isn't until Oct. 6. During that six-day period, Ohio's Democratic secretary of state has ruled that residents can register and immediately cast a vote. It has resulted in a lawsuit from the state GOP, which says the rule raises the specter of fraud.

Ohio's state Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether the early voting process can move forward as planned sometime Monday.

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, is preparing to take advantage of the 6-day window with younger voters, particularly those on college campuses. The primary focus is Ohio State University, which has more than 50,000 students. The campaign is also concentrating on urban areas and other parts of the state where the likelihood of securing early votes for Obama is high.

Rock the Vote has plans for an Ohio bus tour to raise awareness of the early voting window that runs mostly through the state's urban areas and major college towns.

"The fact that [Ohio] has this golden window is something [Democrats] are seeing as a great opportunity to encourage folks to get out and vote early," says Christine Pelosi, a Democratic organizer. "The other benefit is that if you can get your supporters out now, before the final blitz of negativity, you can counter some of the voter suppression that comes in the form of negative campaigning during the last few weeks."

From a grassroots perspective, one of the keys to early voting is voter education. Pelosi says the greatest early voting hurdle tends to be unawareness of the rules. That's particularly the case in a state like Ohio, where the 6-day window breeds uncertainty.

"It's confusing," she says. "It made my eyes pop and I do this for a living. So, I can imagine the reaction of the average voter."

The McCain campaign, too, is rounding up early voters in Ohio, and says it's not ceding the playing field to Obama. The McCain-Palin ticket will be in Columbus, Ohio for a Monday morning rally.

Republican Phillip Stutts says that while on paper the Obama campaign has the organizing advantage, the McCain campaign boasts an Ohio grassroots staff that has worked together for more than one election cycle, and has executed early voting plans in the form of absentee balloting in previous years.

Of course, Ohio is far from the only key state where early voting will exert a major impact on the final vote. Early voting estimates are just as high in states like Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Florida, where between 30 and 40 percent of the total electorate is expected to cast early or mail-in votes.

In 2004, says Stutts, the early voting focus in the Bush campaign was on reliable voters. Stutts was the national director of the Bush campaign's highly successful 72-hour plan.

"We had an early vote strategy for every state in 2004, because you had to deal with different rules and regulations in just about every state," he says. "We tried to turn out our reliable voters early, which allowed us to spend the last week or so getting the less reliable voters out."

As for exactly who votes early, it's hard to identify any real pattern, says John Fortier of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. Based on past statistics, early voting doesn't appear to advantage one party over another, but Fortier says research does show that early voters are more partisan than the rest of the electorate.

In the end, says Stutts, early voting likely means that the next two weeks are just as important as Election Day for the GOTV operations of both campaigns.

"You could have a third of the entire electorate that has already voted by Election Day," he says. "So the best early vote strategy could really decide this entire election."

sdaprile@politicsmagazine.com

Colorado - Voting Machines For Major Counties Decertified

Voting Machines For Major Counties Decertified

Machines Have Problems With Security, Accuracy, Secretary Of State Says

6:59 am MST December 18, 2007

DENVER -- Colorado's top election official decertified electronic voting machines used in some of the state's largest counties on Monday, including Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson.

The devices are also used in Pueblo, Mesa and Elbert counties.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman cited security or accuracy problems in the decertified machines.

A number of electronic scanners used to count ballots were also decertified, including a type used by Boulder County.

Coffman said the system had a 1 percent error rate when counting ballots. "So for every 100 ballots we tested, we found there was an error with one of those ballots," Coffman said.

The manufacturers have 30 days to appeal his ruling.

Coffman announced in March that he had adopted new rules for testing electronic voting machines after problems in the November election.

He said at the time that the four electronic voting systems used in all 64 Colorado counties would have to apply for recertification. The four systems are manufactured by Hart InterCivic, Premier Election Solutions -- formerly known as Diebold Election Systems -- Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software.

Coffman had also put Denver, Pueblo, Douglas, Montrose and Routt counties on an election watch list for problems in the November 2006 election. Pueblo has since been removed from the list.

Critics of electronic voting say there are no fixes that will work. Al Kolwicz told 7NEWS that with electronic voting, there is no way to know for certain that a vote has been properly counted.

More lawsuits are possible from both the election machine companies and public interest groups opposed to computerized voting.

On Tuesday, Colorado county clerks and members of the General Assembly will convene at 9 a.m. to hear an explanation from Hoffman about the results of the certification process.

Reaction From County Clerks

"This report is really just part of the larger equation for us. Once we feel we have the full picture of what the Secretary of State's report means, we can move forward with choosing our systems and preparing for the 2008 election season," said Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O'Malley.

"Our number one priority is to ensure that anyone who is registered to vote in next year's election gets a ballot and their vote is counted accurately," said Boulder County Clerk & Recorder Hillary Hall.

She and the Boulder County Elections Division staff have already begun reviewing the Secretary's 188-page document detailing the certification process and its findings.

"We need time to review today's findings and to evaluate the impact on Boulder County's voting system," said Hall. "The document released today is an overview of the testing results and we expect to obtain additional information at tomorrow's hearing. Any statement at this point would be premature. We will keep the public informed as we proceed."


http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/14875334/detail.html



A report issued by the Secretary of State's office details a myriad of problems such as lack of password protection on the systems, controls that could give voters unauthorized access, and the absence of any way to track or detect security violations.

http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=833