Category: Skulduggery and Errors

Unintended Consequences? Deliberate Voter Suppression?

The Brennan Center and others are reporting that the Social Security Administration is shutting down its system for maintenance for three days, just when it is required for voter registration verification. <read>

A recent alert by the Social Security Administration announces that the agency plans to shut down its databases for maintenance from October 11 through October 13. While this might not sound like an election issue, it turns out that this could significantly impede registration of first-time voters as well as the re-registration of eligible citizens.

Here’s why. A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, requires all states to “coordinate” their voter registration databases with the Social Security database (and state motor vehicle databases) for the purpose of processing new voter registration forms. For the millions of voters who do not have current driver’s licenses and register using the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, state election officials are required to try to match their voter registration information against Social Security records. But if the Social Security database is down-as it will be for four days-they won’t be able to do that. Across the country, the processing of these voter registration forms will grind to a halt for four days.

It is a bit fishy! Do you recall the last time a major system was taken down for three days? Modern information technology uses a variety of techniques to avoid the need for a planned system outage, for more than a few minutes.

We are critical of Senator Feinstein for her dangerous election bill. In this case we complement her for jumping on this issue, read her letter: <read>

The Perils of Dependent Investigation

One of the prime objectives our Petition To Enhance Confidence In Connecticut Elections is “Requiring the Independent Audit Review Board”. Here is an example of the questions that can surround an investigation by an elections entity attempting to investigate itself, in Washington, D. C., from the Washington Post, Primary Vote Still Doesn’t Add Up: <read>

As District officials continue to investigate errors in the early vote tallies from the Sept. 9 primary, one number stands out: 1,542.

That number appeared in the category for “over votes” in 13 separate races when the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics released early results on election night. But those votes inexplicably vanished shortly after midnight, when officials posted what they identified as corrected results…

A memo obtained by The Washington Post shows that three of the four members of the elections board task force reviewing the blunders also work for the board: Darlene Lesesne-Horton, data services manager; Mohammad M.B. Maeruf, information technology project manager; and Vialetta Graham, chief technology officer. The fourth member is Clifford Tatum, a Help America Vote Act consultant from Georgia…He said that too often elections boards become the chief investigators when something goes awry.

“Yet again, they are investigating their own mistakes,” Jefferson said. “Time and time again, experience shows we need independent technical investigations of incidents like this. I wish the D.C. Council or whoever has authority would just order it.”

Several years ago, questions arose about the academic background of Graham, the board’s chief technology officer.

In 2003, the District’s inspector general completed a year-long investigation on the board and found that Graham had misrepresented her academic credentials on two city job applications, saying she had received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from American University when she had not.

Update: What Could Possibly Be Worse Than Dependent Investigation? Relying on the vendor to explain discrepancies: The West Palm Beach problem goes on and on <read>

They’ve called in Sequoia Voting Systems, the company that sold the county the machines.

The board says those officials are flying in from California and are expected to look into the issue Monday.

Canvassing board interim chair, Judge Peter Evans, told election workers and reporters Sunday, “At this point we feel its best to step back and get these questions answered before we take any further steps hastily and that’s what we’re going to do.”…

The canvassing board is expected to meet Monday afternoon at 3pm for an update on Sequoia’s findings.

Reference: VotersUnite report on outsourcing.

Puma Arizona – Some Good News

Things have not been looking good in Puma Arizona. But, some good news is that the Election Integrity Commission is acting to audit ballot security. This is what is supposed to happen with an independent board — when problems are found they are investigated and not ignored or explained away: <read>

A Pima County Elections Integrity Commission will oversee an investigation that will look at all ballot bags from the 373 polling places used in the Sept. 2 primary elections.
That decision was made after a sample audit later that week showed some ballot bags were improperly sealed or did not contain all required certification materials.

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.

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>
******
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.

Caught Between The Glitches and The Gotyas

We have been covering a significant report by VotersUnite.org, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections. , the report summarizes the bind Connecticut and other states are in:

Violations of Federal Law Leave States in a Double Bind. The federal government fails to meet its HAVA deadlines for giving guidance to the states on how to comply with HAVA, yet states are held accountable to comply.

News from Florida of our vendor, Diebold Premier continues to reveal the disappointing quality of their products and the Federal testing programs. From the Harold Tribune a short sour story <read>

Two Diebold glitches in one month? That’s no way to rebuild confidence in automated elections.

Sarasota and Hillsborough counties experienced one of the problems Tuesday night. They suffered delays from a software flaw that revealed itself when officials tried to integrate absentee ballot totals into overall election results…

The manufacturer is Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold — a name long connected to doubts about the security of voting.

Earlier this month, Premier accepted blame for the other glitch — a coding error that can sometimes prevent precinct vote totals from electronically transferring to central tabulation systems. The problem could afflict 34 states.

Good news, bad news

The good news about these flaws is that faulty counts can be detected by cross-checks and refuted by a paper trail of ballots. The votes still exist, in other words, though they can be harder to find.

The bad news is that confidence has been shaken, yet again, in automation that is critical to democratic elections. The extra vigilance required to thwart these potential glitches adds to election administrators’ burden and cost.

The fact that the Premier problems occur intermittently, undiscovered during certification or testing procedures, is especially troubling. In Sarasota County, for example, the high-speed scanner/software glitch did not surface in a mock election held last month…

Despite many reforms since the 2000 fiasco, voting systems are nowhere near as credible, secure or user-friendly as they should be.

Here is the good news and bad news for Connecticut:

The good news is that these latest glitches do not apply here because we total results manually from election night paper tapes, rather than accumulating memory cards.

The bad news is we are totally dependent on Premier and their distributor, LHS, for our elections – they are rightfully in the spotlight and being sued for poor quality and generally remain in denial. The lack of security and poor quality of the AccuVote-OS has been proven by independent scientific studies commissioned by CT, CA, and OH.

Moderate good news is that Connecticut has chosen optical scan which is the best system available which meets standards set by the Help America Vote Act.

The bad bad news is that there is no alternative in sight. All the vendors have poor products with no better products or vendors in sight. While some states are improving their laws, procedures, and actions, proposed Federal laws in the Senate would “fix” the Help America Vote Act by making the situation much worse.

Election Fraud In Bridgeport?

Update 6 /17/2009: Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud
Update: 10/07/2008: Election Enforcement Commission investigation opened
Update: Secretary Bysiewicz Responds

(Without editorial comment, see Editor’s Note)

Update 6 /17/2009: Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud <read>

Update: 10/07/2008: Election Enforcement Commission investigation opened <read>

Update: Secretary Bysiewicz Responds: <read>

“Voter fraud is an allegation that my office takes very seriously. The only state agency that can investigate potential voter fraud, however, is the State Elections Enforcement Commission. In fact, the Office of the Secretary of the State has consistently instructed local Registrars of Voters that if they see any voter registration cards that raise red flags or do not look correct, they should make photocopies for their own records and send the problematic cards to the State Elections Enforcement Commission for investigation. If anyone feels there is enough evidence to warrant an investigation, I would urge them to file a Complaint with the State Elections Enforcement Commission. ACORN has informed our office that there were indeed problems with voter registration cards being filled out improperly or incorrectly in Bridgeport and in fact those cards were not counted. This case proves the system works. Locally elected Registrars of Voters are trained statewide to detect discrepancies or inconsistencies in information provided on voter registration cards.?

As CTVotersCount.org readers know there are a lot of questionable practices and issues with the conduct of elections and post-election audits in Bridgeport which are the responsibility of the city’s Registrars and their election officials. <read> <read>.

Now issues of external fraud are being to be raised by one of the Bridgeport Registrars and the Republican Party Chair is calling for an investigation. We suggest watching the video. and reading the article

HARTFORD In the wake of a recent interview posted on the website ElectionJournal.org (www.electionjournal.org) with Bridgeport Republican Registrar of Voters Joe Borges, Chairman Chris Healy is calling for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz to launch a full investigation into the activities of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). “There should be no room for playing games with elections in Connecticut,” said Healy, the Chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party. “The allegations of voter registration fraud by ACORN should be fully investigated, and if any crimes are uncovered, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.?

According to the interview, which is now posted on the CTGOP blog The Everyday Republican, Bridgeport Republican Registrar of Voters Joseph Borges indicated that “at least 20%” of the voter registration cards ACORN had submitted were duplicative or falsified. Mr. Borges even told of one instance where an ACORN employee had solicited voter registration cards under the guise of “job employment applications”.

WaPo: Fear Mongers (Scare Voters From Registering)

(Without editorial comment, see Editor’s Note)

WaPo Editorial, Fear Mongers, Virginia’s GOP tries to scare new voters away from the polls: <read>

Republicans are increasingly anxious about retaining their hold on a state that GOP presidential candidates have carried since 1968. What is surprising is their utterly baseless charge of “coordinated and widespread voter fraud . . . throughout Virginia.”

That rhetorical hand grenade, lobbed the other day by the state Republican Party chairman, Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick of Prince William County, bears little relationship to the facts. Nor do Mr. Frederick’s attempts to frighten prospective voters by warning that they could be victims of identity theft if they sign up to vote in registration drives by “a whole lot of groups out there that nobody has ever heard of.” In fact, there is not even a whiff of evidence that identity theft is taking place in Virginia under the guise of registration campaigns. Mr. Frederick’s message amounts to a classic attempt to suppress votes.

Partisan Consultant Behind The Congressional Firewall

Should partisan consultants be totaling our elections? Be provided access behind our firewalls? Managing data for congressional committees? Especially committees involved in voting technology?

Bob Fitrakis, The Free Press: Behind the firewall: Bush loyalist Mike Connell controls Congressional secrets as his email sites serve Karl Rove <read>

One has to wonder about the implications of the premier partisan campaign IT man, steadfastly loyal to the country’s most well-known security-industrial complex and CIA family, serving as the man behind the U.S. Congress’ firewall…

SourceWatch notes that Connell developed the websites for the House Intelligence, Judiciary, Financial Services, Ways and Means, and Administration Committees. According to SourceWatch, Connell teamed up with R. Rebecca Donatelli, Chair of the D.C.-based Campaign Solutions, to form Connell Donatelli Inc. (CD Inc.) as a specialized online advertising agency in July 2004. One of CD, Inc.’s first activities was to become the registrant, administrator and tech organizer for the anti-Kerry group Swiftboat Veterans for Truth’s website swiftboatvetsfortruth.org…

Connell also handled the IT system work for the Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign and worked for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in designing the system that allowed the real time outsourcing of Ohio’s presidential vote count to a Chattanooga, Tennessee server site.