"Auditing" Regs Confirm Op-Scan Vulnerabilities

I need to reiterate: the crux of ETC's opposition to software-based voting systems, which include the Op-Scans, is that they institutionalize secret vote counting, violating our constitutional right to see that our votes are counted as cast.

Recognizing the inferiority and vulnerability of the op-scans the NYS Legislature in enacting ERMA included the requirement for an "audit", a post-election night recount of a percentage of supposedly randomly chosen paper ballots which the public was to believe was a check on the accuracy of the optical scanner counting. (Of course post-election night ballot recounts are illegal in New York, a fact that seems to be irrelevant to our officials.) But the so-called "auditing" procedures which have been developed by the state board of elections are themselves an indictment of the very proposition that software-based voting systems are an accurate and secure way to run an election.

The audit procedures are worth reading in full. But I have highlighted here what, if we could all still laugh about this, would be some of the more comical instances of doublespeak and oxymoron:


"Ballot Marks
o Valid votes that have been marked by the voter outside the vote targets or using a marking device that cannot be read by the vote tally system shall not be included in making the determination whether the voting system has met the standard of acceptable performance. "

What does this mean? Did the machine count the vote or not?

"Scanners will easily recognize votes that are marked with a density that is within the calibrated thresholds. In an audit, the human eye may perceive these marks differently that the scanner, however the audit team members and observers alike should understand that the scanners, in accordance with Section 7-201.1e provide each voter with a notification of any mark the system perceives as questionable and provides each voter with the opportunity to remark their ballot or cast it 'as-is'. "

In an audit the eye may perceive the mark differently? How did the voter who made the mark perceive it? Did the machine override voter intent? Silly voter.

"The problems in Cuyahoga County, Ohio in 2004, where audit supervisors rigged the ballot selection so that no discrepancies would be found, exemplify the danger of auditors hoping to find perfect matches and to avoid the difficult questions and additional work that might result if the records do not match."

i.e. Beware of fraud. Two Cuyahoga County election workers were convicted for the illegal manipulation of ballots during the 2004 recount.

"To counter the understandable temptation to make the paper and electronic records match..."

Understandable, especially if you are trying to cover-up machine rigging or because underfunded, understaffed elections boards will often cut corners . Who could have imagined....And what is the counter to that? More expensive, finicky, non-transparent, easily compromised machines?

Manual counts may sometimes reveal different voter intent than machine counts of ballots. Overvotes, marginal marks, hesitation marks, and other stray markings on manually marked ballots could cause optical scan voting machines to misinterpret voter intent that a human reviewer would be able to discern."

... and if we make enough exceptions to cover discrepancies between hand and machine counts, then almost any machine, even rigged ones, will pass "audit."

- JL

County Government Committee of Columbia County Supports Joining Litigation

After a January 26th report on the state's required switch to optical scanners, presented by Columbia County Election Commissioners Virginia Martin and Jason Nastke, Supervisors on the Columbia County Government Committee agreed that the county should support litigation to have ERMA declared unconstitutional.

As reported by Francesca Olsen of the Register-Star:

• Democratic Commissioner of Elections Virginia Martin and Republican Commissioner Jason Nastke presented documentation on the State’s required impending switch to optical scanners and ballot marking devices at the January County Government Committee meeting Jan. 26.
  
  Martin said that several counties, including Nassau County in Long Island, are interested in joining proposed litigation to declare the state Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 (ERMA) unconstitutional. Supervisors on the committee were in general agreement that Columbia County’s involvement in the litigation was the right move.
  
  All counties in New York are expected to use optical scanners for the 2010 primary and general elections. Nastke told the committee that just to print the paper ballots from BMDs — ballot marking devices — and optical scanners, it would cost the county $100,000 per year. “The county could put that towards a bridge!” he said. “There’s nothing for us to lose by joining in this lawsuit.”
  
  “Election administration gets a lot more complicated, and there are a lot more opportunities for errors,” Martin told the committee about the switch from lever machines to BMDs and optical scanners. For example, the paper ballots the new machines use (and the machines themselves) can take up a lot of space, and must be stored securely year-round with “fort-knox style security, bipartisan locks, environmental controls,” according to materials handed out by Martin at the committee meeting.
  
  It was suggested that if the lawsuit just delays the implementation of ERMA, it would save taxpayers the cost of new machine implementation for a little longer. “I’m not too thrilled with these scanning systems,” Nastke said, “but I’m required by law to implement them.”
  
  Optical scanners were certified by the State Board of Elections in December, and ERMA would require the discontinuing of lever machines. “There’s a difference with what the federal government asked, and what the state wants us to do,” said Supervisor Leo Pulcher, R-Stockport.
  
  The Help America Vote Act of 2002 does not require states to replace their lever voting machines.

The Plunging Pilot Project: Impossible Vote Totals in NY-23

Re-posted from our "Levers" site

Last night, on the eve of Thanksgiving, election fraud investigator Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. published an article in the Governeur Times revealing Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23. Phillips is best known for his book, Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election, detailing the investigation he led of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio. But he actually lives in St. Lawrence County, NY. So when questions began being raised about the vote counts in the special Congressional election earlier this month, Phillips was quickly on the case.

His article released last night reveals, “The election results certified by the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections for New York’s 23rd Congressional District contain some numbers that are mathematically impossible.” The article goes on to detail the negative numbers included in certified vote totals. Read it. It reveals important information everyone concerned about democracy should know.

St. Lawrence County was part of the State’s “pilot project,” an early rollout of the optical scan voting technology that will be required to replace lever voting systems by our next election — if not stopped by legal action. The Election Transparency Coalition is preparing to file litigation to have concealed vote counting — such as the counting that takes place inside optical scan voting systems — declared unconstitutional.

St. Lawrence County’s now-certified election results cannot be accurate. The true vote count cannot be known. And while other counties involved in the early rollout of electronic vote-counting systems may have produced possible vote totals, their true vote counts are no more knowable. Only with a system where the public has access to meaningful observation of every step of the vote-counting process do we have a basis for confidence in election results.

This is why Virginia Martin, Democratic Election Commissioner from Columbia County, recently testified that she would refuse to certify an election in which she could not verify the accuracy of the vote count.

Richard Hayes Phillips joins ETC in supporting NY’s time-tested and transparent lever voting system. The reasons for his support are detailed in his article, “In Defense of Lever Voting Machines,” published on his own website, and reiterated in the Gouverneur Times piece.

While the pilot project is clearly in a nosedive, the State is proceeding with its plan to certify the very electronic voting system responsible for the impossible numbers in the NY-23 race. This certification would be meaningless and would lead to elections that are just as meaningless. As Phillips says, “How can we have a democracy if we cannot know if the vote count is accurate? If election officials cannot know, and if the candidates cannot know, and if the voters cannot know that the official results are true and correct, why even have an election?”

Please join us in our work to stop the abandonment of NY’s working, affordable, trustworthy voting system and its replacement with systems that keep the true vote count secret from the voters themselves.

by Emily Levy

Emily Levy is the Election Transparency Coalition project coordinator.

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On this Thanksgiving, we at ETC are thankful for the work of Dr. Phillips, Commissioner Martin and all those who dedicate themselves to the constitutional principles of transparent democracy.