The Future Of Post-Election Auditing? – Faster, More Economical, Greater Confidence

Can we audit or recount by machine, rather than hand-counting? My conditional answer remains a strong NO. However, as we have discussed before it is quite possible in theory to develop voting machines or auxiliary scanners with capabilities that can greatly reduce the cost, while increasing the integrity of audits, and increasing the confidence in elections.

Now a team in Humboldt County, CA is providing a demonstration of technology and procedures that can provide all these benefits. The Humboldt County Election Transparency Project:

This type of system holds great promise for Connecticut and any other state with optical scan voting. We will address the possibilities for reducing the costs and increasing the integrity of our elections. Today we will address the Humboldt project as a demonstration of public auditing and recounting:

Our Project aims to provide images of each counted ballot, so that any person or organization wishing to do an independent count will have access to a complete set of ballot images.

They also note as we have pointed out many times:

Voting systems such as that used in Humboldt County, which use optically scanned paper ballots, do leave an audit trail of all cast ballots. This audit trail becomes far more valuable if it is actually used to verify the count.

Here is the basic plan:
Continue reading “The Future Of Post-Election Auditing? – Faster, More Economical, Greater Confidence”

Internet Voting — Not Ready For Democracy

Verified Voting Founder, Professor David Dill, and computer experts from around the country released the: Computer Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting. I fully endorse the statement and thank David Dill for producing and gaining support for the statement. The concluding paragraph: The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it … Continue reading “Internet Voting — Not Ready For Democracy”

Verified Voting Founder, Professor David Dill, and computer experts from around the country released the: Computer Technologists’ Statement on Internet Voting.

I fully endorse the statement and thank David Dill for producing and gaining support for the statement.

The concluding paragraph:

The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy.

Continue reading “Internet Voting — Not Ready For Democracy”

Ten Myths In The Nutmeg State – Revised, Downward

We have been distributing our document, Ten Myths About Electronic Voting In Connecticut, since early February to citizens, election officials, and legislators. To date, exactly no (ZERO) errors or inaccuracies have been brought to our attention.

But in reviewing the Myths we find that things have changed – for the worse:
Continue reading “Ten Myths In The Nutmeg State – Revised, Downward”

Audit No Evil, Recount No Evil, Uncover No Evil

Update: The vote was close and high given that it was a referendum with reduced poll hours. The insiders’ choice won by 52% to 48%. There is no reason to believe the result is incorrect, yet with no audit there will always be a question of credibility in Connecticut referendums.

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Referendum: Front Page Story, Yet Paper Ballots Will Be Ignored

Business As Usual In the Nutmeg State – Another Electronic Vote Without A Post-Election Audit
Continue reading “Audit No Evil, Recount No Evil, Uncover No Evil”

Election Observer Arrested – Taken Away In Handcuffs

“The judge dismissed the case on motion of state’s evidence, because they hadn’t produced a prima faceia case,”

Update 4/16/2009: Brad Friedman has the story <read>

“The judge dismissed the case on motion of state’s evidence, because they hadn’t produced a prima faceia case,” Risner told The BRAD BLOG by phone just after the hearing. Moreover, the judge found “Nelson over-reached as he had deprived the Libertarian’s of an observer.”

Risner says the court found that Brakey’s actions had led to important improvements in the procedures implemented by the Pima County Department of Elections. The attorney also tells us that he plans to take civil action against Nelson. “We’ll probably be issuing a notice of claim that we’ll sue him for personal damages.”

Brakey was ecstatic. “We really won big,” he said today. “We didn’t even have to put up a defense” since the judge simply dismissed the county’s case after they’d heard it. He added that Nelson “really made a fool of himself” on the stand

***********Original Post:

This news video is the best way to understand the story <video>

Read the story from <The Election Defense Alliance> and <Brad Friedman>

Pima County (Tucson), Arizona’s Election Integrity advocate and expert, John Brakey was arrested last night while performing his job as an election supervisor, on behalf of both the Democratic and Libertarian parties, during a post-election hand-count audit of ballots…

The problem erupted after Brakey had noticed a number of ballot bags being counted in the post-election audit were missing their proper security seals. He began to ask questions about those bags, which eventually led to his arrest at the demand of Pima County’s Brad “Election Director Gone Wild” Nelson, a man with whom Brakey has had a number of unfortunate (for Nelson) run-ins over the years…
In one bag, instead of the signed official certification sheets, there was instead a slip of white paper with what Brakey said were “two illegible, scrawled signatures.”

Arizona vs. Connecticut – you decide:

  • Arizona is in the West
  • Connecticut Election management has been characterized as the Wild West
  • Arizona Recounts are hand counts of the paper
  • Secretary Bysiewicz recently changed Connecticut back to machine recounts based on requests from Registrars to make their jobs easier
  • In Puma Arizona they keep the ballots under video surveillance and guard
  • In many Connecticut towns the ballots are kept in vaults, rooms, or cabinets without servalence and 24×7 access by either Registrar. In some towns access is available to each member of the Registrar’s staff.
  • We have yet to hear of any observer in Connecticut being arrested

You’ll note in the KGUN video, that Brad Nelson admits the ballot bags that Brakey was concerned about were, indeed, unsealed.

“All of these bags have been under 24 hour video surveillance, as well as a deputy sherrif have been watching these bags since they’ve come in on election night. So we have protected the bags,” Nelson is quoted as saying.

Why do hand counts? Why keep the ballots under seal, with real security, and surveillance?

In the Puma race, the Democrat won on the original reported count. With the hand count incomplete, currently the Republican candidate is in the lead. Without complete integrity, no matter who is eventually declared a winner, there will be a cloud over Arizona and the office holder.

Some argue for illusion over integrity – That we would be better off without paper records so that the original count provided by election officials, touch screen machines, or lever machines would always have to be accepted and the public never disturbed by the knowledge that people make errors or do fraud with and without computers.

Times Editorial: Internet Voting – Bad Experiment

Lately we have been complementary of New York Times editorials, and less so of some news. Once again they hit the nail on the head when it comes to the the risks of internet voting, especially the proposed “experiment” risking our democracy in Florida <read>.

The words “Florida” and “Internet voting,” taken together, should send a chill down everyone’s spine. Nevertheless, Florida’s Okaloosa County is seeking permission from the state to allow members of the military to vote over the Internet in November.

Internet voting is fraught with problems, including the possibility that a hacker could break in and alter the results. The Okaloosa plan, in particular, has not been sufficiently vetted…

Any Internet voting system should be vetted in the most public way possible, with the nation’s computer experts invited to examine how it works.

In 2004, a group of academics reviewed an Internet voting system that the Pentagon was considering. The system was scrapped after the group identified numerous security flaws. There was a very real possibility, the professors warned, that the system could be used to steal votes. The Okaloosa system does not have all of the weakness of the Pentagon system — which would have allowed people to vote from their home PCs — but it has some of them.

The issue here goes beyond a single county.
All Americans have a stake in ensuring that presidential ballots are cast using reliable voting systems.

Serious, Senseless, Nonsense in Palm Beach

Update: As more details come out the story keeps changing. But the problem also gets larger. The latest is that 2500 ballots may actually be missing, the results of additional races in the same election may be questionable, and good old chain-of-custody issues may be more or as much as a problem as anything electronic <read>
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Florida just keeps on being the poster state for what is wrong with our election systems. The story(s) from Palm Beach makes it look like the three stooges are in charge. Daily Voting News has several articles and comments over the last couple of days DVN 9/2 DVM 9/3. I will cover just some of the most interesting/unbelievable reports here.

In summary as best I can piece together from the many reports:

  • Election night totals followed by a machine recount showed 3400 less ballots in the recount.
  • The main reason the 1st machine count and 2nd machine counts differ by some 3400 votes is that they were testing vote tabulation at the same time they were counting the primary and double counted some precincts.
  • To recount they ran the ballots through different scanners and found an amazing 2700 votes that the machine would not read and they counted them by hand, then the tired election officials added/subtracted etc and declared the result.
  • In a hurry to meet certification deadlines, officials signed blank certification forms without knowing that many discrepancies had been detected..
  • The official in charge of all this was the looser in the three way race. The other two candidates were separated by 18 votes and 60 votes in the original and recounts. If the original margin had been larger, we would have had no recount – no attention to this problem.

From the Palm Beach Post:

The much-vaunted paper ballot was sold as a way to make sure every vote counted.

Instead, its debut in Palm Beach County threw the election process into turmoil as officials announced Tuesday that about 3,400 ballots that were counted in last week’s election did not turn up when a recount was conducted over the weekend.

I disagree with this for two reasons:

  • It would not be a mess if the paper were actually used as intended -for a hand count of the ballots
  • Because the paper exists it is possible to recount and audit. That is occurring, so far, in a very flawed process. Without the paper all we would have is illusion.

And another from the Palm Beach Post:

Indian River County’s three-member canvassing board approved the Aug. 26 primary results on Tuesday — but those numbers are absent the more than 5,000 votes that had to be removed from the election night totals due to the ballots in 40 precincts being counted twice.

And an editorial from the same Palm Beach Post:

Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson, who finished last in a three-way race for reelection, is breaking in a new voting system and learning, literally, as he goes. He’ll be in charge in November, when voters pick his successor as well as the next president. Turnout could be five or six times greater than last week, which would stress a system that already seems too fragile.,,

There is no simple explanation for Palm Beach County’s confusion. Dr. Anderson’s spokeswoman warned not to expect answers before the end of the week. But those will be answers from the people who made the mistakes. While state law doesn’t authorize intervention, Dr. Anderson has to seek help, starting with Secretary of State Kurt Browning, a former Pasco County elections supervisor.

For Mr. Abramson, the county’s explanations will be too late. He’ll surely sue. That’s one way to get answers. The better way would be for Dr. Anderson to realize that the public can’t wait for a lawsuit. The general election is 62 days away. He must provide answers, and quickly.

From John Gideon’s Daily Voting News Summary 9/3:

Canvassing Board approved the primary election results. Hopefully the reader will recall that Indian River had over 5000 ballots that were counted twice because someone decided to do a test in the middle of a real election and then failed to properly remove the results in that test. The result was ballots from 40 polling sites that were counted twice. Luckily an observant poll worker realized the totals for her site were double what they should have been. She pointed out the mistake and the county found their error.

Tomorrow the board must do a state mandated audit to ensure their voting machines were correctly counting the votes. If the poll worker hadn’t been observant and if this audit were to find the problem, or any other problem that might exist with the vote count, NOTHING can/could be done because the results have already been approved by the Canvassing Board.

One has to wonder what some officials in Florida are thinking when they make stupid rules. This audit is newly mandated. Why didn’t they mandate it to happen before canvassing the election? Post election audits are great. We need them everywhere and following every election but they have to be timed in such a way as to mean something if problems are found. If they don’t have a purpose (to ensure the votes were properly counted) then they are a waste of tax money….

RoundUp – Documented Failures & Real Risks

Update: Another recent story:

1. Brad interviews Gov. Don Siegelman, former political prisoner and now a free man:

Computers don’t steal elections – people steal them with computers:

people don’t want to believe that elections are stolen in this country. They don’t want to believe that we go to war under false premises. And they don’t want to believe that their Department of Justice is used as a political tool. But in fact, in this administration, one can argue that those things have indeed happened…

People who’ve looked at this election and have studied the figures — they’ve done regressive analysis of voting trends — say it’s a statistical impossibility. There was electronic voting manipulation in the 2002 governor’s race in Baldwin County.

Six minute <video and transcript>.

2. Florida shows why Machine Recounts are risky:

After initial denials by her office, our Connecticut Secretary of the State has reversed her earlier policy of paper recounts for close elections, we have strongly opposed this. Here is an example from Florida via Brad Friedman: <read>

16,632 Votes Reportedly ‘Unaccounted For’ in Palm Beach County Primary Election ‘Recount’
Just 18 Votes Separate Candidates in Circuit Judge Race Where Votes Are Said Lost in Re-tally on Sequoia Optical-Scan Voting Systems

The question remains as to how many votes were lost in other races on the same ballot which were not included in last night’s re-tally.

How about Connecticut vs Florida?…we are more at risk because Florida, unlike Connecticut, provides for hand recounts in some circumstances…

Florida state law disallows hand-counting of paper ballots which have already been counted by machine, other than in special circumstances. We’ll see if this ends up being one of those circumstances. Theoretically, a hand-count would determine the correct totals for the race, where the machine-count has misreported totals. [UPDATE: Palm Beach Post reports the machine recount was close enough to allow for a hand-count of over votes and undervotes. See more in the update at end of this article.][* preceding brackets in original]

3. New York Times demonstrates computer vulnerability and one way not to run elections like a business:

We have often compared voting computers to ATM’s. slot machines, gas meters, and electric meters. Now the news that store computers (Point of Sale Devices) are often compromised by insiders. Just the same type of attack via memory cards computer scientists have been warning about. <read>

Thanks to a software program called a zapper, even technologically illiterate restaurant and store owners can siphon cash from computer cash registers and cheat tax officials.

While zappers are most likely to be used by medium and small businesses, the take is anything but small change. A 12-store restaurant chain in Detroit used a zapper to skim more than $20 million over four years, federal prosecutors say.

Zappers — also known as automated sales suppression devices — are a new twist on an old fraud. “The technology is new and getting newer, but the concept is as old as having two sets of books,” said Verenda Smith of the Federation of Tax Administrators, the association of state tax administrators.

Zappers alter the electronic sales records in a cash register. To satisfy tax collectors, the tally of food orders, for example, must match the register’s final cash total. To hide the removal of cash from the till, a crooked business owner has to erase the record of food orders equal to the amount of cash taken; otherwise, the imbalance is obvious to any auditor…
While merchants, security experts and government agencies know of these devices, they exist in such a shadowy realm that it is difficult to assess how big the problem may be or how to address it.

“We can’t get our arms around how much this is in use,” Ms. Smith said. The Internal Revenue Service said it did not track the use of zappers.

Zappers are a worldwide phenomenon. They have been found in Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Australia, France and the Netherlands.

Could this possibly happen in Connecticut?

One of the first reported zapper cases in the United States was Stew Leonard’s dairy, whose owner was convicted in 1993 of skimming $17 million over 10 years. The theft was uncovered after Mr. Leonard tried to board a plane to St. Martin with an unreported $50,000.