WASHINGTON — The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts.

Some individuals who claim that touch-screen voting machines are not reliable will get a chance to make their case in court.

Arizona has a new law about verifying the results of our state and federal elections that could have enormous implications for how we view the integrity of our election process.

A candidate who didn’t get elected to the Central Arizona Water Conservation District has taken the matter to court, saying his loss must be due to a problem with the voting machines.

Regardless of party affiliation, any objective observer ought to recognize the role party sponsored machine politics has played and is playing in today’s two party political system. In Chicago, one had to be sanctioned by the Daley family to get elected. In all likelihood, our current president, arguably a closeted moderate, had to run as a Democrat in order to get past first base. Here in the West, getting past first base usually means one has to be a Republican. The list of successful Democrats in Arizona is a short one. Outside of Tucson, Terry Goddard and Janet Napolitano pretty much comprise the entire list. And both of them had unique circumstances propelling them forward, inept machine opponents.

Scottsdale City Hall visitors can say farewell to the beeping metal detectors and electronic wands that have greeted them for the past 14 months.

Scottsdale City Hall visitors can say farewell to the beeping metal detectors and electronic wands that have greeted them for the past 14 months.

Sean Butler makes an odd, stutter-step turn striding across the floor of the Arizona State Senate. Butler, a 19-year-old page, could be darting to the service of nearby Minority Leader Linda Aguirre or dodging the photographer’s lens.

David Ortega voted last week for the approved plan for the rebirth of the former Los Arcos Mall, not because he liked it, but because he didn’t.

Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer on Thursday defended the decision to purchase touch-screen voting equipment from the Diebold Corp.

A Democratic member of the Senate Ethics Committee said Wednesday he hopes to force an investigation into whether a Republican lawmaker "rented out" his legislative subpoena powers.

A Democratic member of the Senate Ethics Committee said Wednesday he hopes to force an investigation into whether a Republican lawmaker "rented out" his legislative subpoena powers.

Pinal County ballot counters inadvertently granted voters at four Apache Junction precincts a two-for-one deal, a city attorney said Thursday, handing David Waldron an unearned City Council seat.

It was not an auspicious beginning. The year was 2004 and the newest federal agency had no desks, no computers, and no office to put them in. It had neither an address nor a phone number. Early meetings convened in a Starbucks near a Metro stop in downtown Washington.

PHOENIX - Starting Thursday, voters who are registered in Arizona but live overseas will be able to vote online through a unique Web-based system offered by the Secretary of State.

Voters grappled with partisan challenges to their registrations, broken equipment and other troubles Tuesday as legions of lawyers, election-rights activists and computer scientists watched for signs of voter disenfranchisement.

Arizona counties won’t have to get rid of touch-screen voting machines they are purchasing for the blind and disabled.

A controversial election recount last year in a East Valley legislative primary has prompted Maricopa County election officials to seek new technology to upgrade critical ballot-counting machines.

Voters who show up for next month’s primary may not get the promised manual audit of their ballots.

MIAMI, Fla. - After only scattered problems in electronic voting’s biggest day ever in the United States, with roughly 40 million people casting digital ballots, voting equipment company executives crowed.

Federal authorities on Wednesday seized all the ballots cast in a disputed 2004 Republican primary election that was overturned after a controversial recount. FBI agents picked up the nearly 18,000 ballots from a heavily secured building in Phoenix and took them to an undisclosed location.

July 30, 2004

LOS ANGELES - A federal appeals court postponed the Oct. 7 recall election Monday in a decision that threw what has already been a chaotic campaign into utter turmoil.

November 2, 2004