DAN WALLACH Wallach is an associate professor at Rice University and also the associate director of the National Science Foundation’s ACCURATE (A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections), a $7.5 million research effort across six different institutions to improve U.S. election systems. He said today: “Present-day electronic voting systems have a variety…

BBC reports: “Syria has protested angrily to both the U.S. and Iraq after what it said was a U.S. helicopter raid inside its territory that killed eight civilians. Syria summoned U.S. and Iraqi envoys to condemn the ‘aggressive act.’ Iraq said the area targeted was used by militants to launch cross-border attacks in Iraq.” JOSHUA…

The lead piece in the Washington Post today is “Greenspan Says he was Wrong on Regulation.” (The piece is critiqued by economist Dean Baker, who continuously warned of the ramifications of the housing bubble since early in this decade.) ROBERT AUERBACH Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Auerbach wrote the…

JOHN BONIFAZ A coalition of Pennsylvania voters and civil rights groups, led by the NAACP State Conference of Pennsylvania, yesterday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia seeking to ensure that voters receive emergency paper ballots on Election Day when 50 percent or more voting machines become inoperable at any polling site in the…

JOHN R. MacARTHUR MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the new book “You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America.” MacArthur said today: “Obama’s number one bundler is Goldman Sachs. He is advised on economics by Robert Rubin, the extremely wealthy director and senior counselor of Citigroup, the former…

LAWRENCE NORDEN Norden is the director of the Voting Technology Project at the Brennan Center for Justice. The Brennan Center, Common Cause and Verified Voting recently issued a 50-state report card that grades each state on its preparedness for election system breakdowns. Norden said today: “There’s no question that in the last few years, election…

This week is “Break the Silence” Congo week, a global initiative led by students to raise awareness and provide support to the people of Congo. Events are planned in more than 30 countries and on 125 college campuses. The Congo has been virtually ignored during the campaign. It was raised in one debate by Tom…

JENNY FLANAGAN Flanagan is the executive director of Colorado Common Cause. She said today: “The State of Colorado should accept registration applications that contain all necessary identifying information, but lack a checkmark in a superfluous box. Currently, the state is treating these applications as ‘incomplete.’ If this policy goes unchanged, thousands of eligible Colorado voters…

AP is reporting this morning: “Testimony is on tap today by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He’s to talk about the economic outlook before members of the House Budget Committee.” ROBERT AUERBACH Auerbach is professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He was an economist with the House Committee on Financial…

MAX FRAAD WOLFF Wolff is an instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University. He is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Asia Times and The Indypendent. He cites a disconnect between the economic crisis and the lack of meaningful discussion in the presidential race: “We are still talking tax…