Today the nonprofit group Voter Action filed a lawsuit against California's Secretary of State Bruce McPherson as well as eighteen counties for certifying and using voting equipment made by Diebold. The lead attorney on the lawsuit is Lowell Finley, who previously brought a successful case against Diebold on behalf of Bev Harris and Jim March of Black Box Voting. That case was joined by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Alameda County, and settled out of court for $2.6 million. (See my November 11, 2004 blog entry for details on the settlement).
Given Mr. Finley's track record, it's worthwhile to pay attention to his claims, which include that the equipment in question, the Diebold TSX electronic voting machine (with voter-verified paper audit trail printer) does not adequately meet the needs of disabled voters, nor does it meet the current, 2002 federal voting system standards, which prohibit the use of interpreted code in voting equipment software.
Other compelling claims include one that the voter-verified paper record produced by the the TSx cannot fulfill the demands of California's one percent manual count law, which is designed to publicly verify the accuracy of software vote counts, and another that counties are circumventing the one percent rule by omitting absentee and early-voting ballots in the manual count. Voter Action has provided the legal documents filed today on its web site. See this AP story by David Kravets for more details. Excerpts are featured below.
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The group Voter Action filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court alleging that Diebold's touchscreen voting machines lack adequate security and aren't easily used by the disabled.
Machines made by Diebold Election Systems, based in Allen, Texas, are slated to be used in as many as 18 of California's 52 counties this November.
"We can't have trustworthy elections with Diebold's touch-screen voting machines," said Lowell Finley, an attorney representing about a dozen voters. "They are easily hacked."
Last month, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson gave conditional approval to use the disputed voting machine - the AccuVote-TSX.
The Secretary of State's office said in December that the Diebold machines failed one of the 10 criteria he established for voting machines because the source coding, or computer language, on their memory cards was not reviewed by independent investigators.
But McPherson authorized the machines as long as counties take security precautions, including keeping a written log of who has control of the machines' memory cards.
McPherson spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns said the devices "are safe for use."
Diebold spokesman David Bear said there are 50,000 of the disputed models used in Utah, Mississippi, California and "a spattering of other states."
"The system has been thoroughly tested," Bear said.
Diebold is one of four electronic voting companies McPherson has allowed to operate in California.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee, said, "The secretary of state gave Diebold the green light to sell its machines in this state even though its machines don't meet the standards we put into law."
No court date has been set for the lawsuit.
The suit names the counties of Alameda, Fresno, Humbolt, Kern, Lassen, Los Angeles, Marin, Mendocino, Modoc, Placer, Plumas, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Siskiyou, Trinity and Tulare.
The case is Holder v. McPherson, 06-506171.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Sequoia Touchscreen with Paper Trail Certified, With Conditions
Yesterday California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson announced that he has certified voting equipment manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems. The equipment includes Sequoia's electronic voting machine with a voter-verified paper audit trail printer, which is designed to satisfy both the federal accessibility and state security laws.
As reported today in the Oakland Tribune, it is uncertain whether counties will purchase the newly certified equipment before the June 6 California Primary election. According to the article, Sequoia has "informed many counties that it needs three or more months to deliver after a sale."
A few counties that owned earlier models of Sequoia's touchscreens without the paper trail printer will need to either use paper ballots in June, modify their existing equipment with a printer unit, or purchase entirely new machines before the June Primary. Riverside County chose the last option, and has already taken delivery of the new equipment. In Shasta, however, the registrar of voters put her board of supervisors on notice a few weeks back that she may fail to comply with the state paper trail law.
Like the recent Diebold certification, Sequoia's came with conditions, many of which focus on the physical security of the removable memory card used in both vendors' electronic voting machines. There are new questions being raised, however, about whether these kinds of measures are adequate. Harri Hursti, the finish computer programmer who exposed security weaknesses in Diebold's optical scan voting system, recently traveled to Utah to take a close look at Diebold's latest electronic voting machine, the TSx. Access to the TSx was granted to Mr. Hursti by Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk. More details about this developing story are available from Bev Harris' Black Box Voting web site.
As reported today in the Oakland Tribune, it is uncertain whether counties will purchase the newly certified equipment before the June 6 California Primary election. According to the article, Sequoia has "informed many counties that it needs three or more months to deliver after a sale."
A few counties that owned earlier models of Sequoia's touchscreens without the paper trail printer will need to either use paper ballots in June, modify their existing equipment with a printer unit, or purchase entirely new machines before the June Primary. Riverside County chose the last option, and has already taken delivery of the new equipment. In Shasta, however, the registrar of voters put her board of supervisors on notice a few weeks back that she may fail to comply with the state paper trail law.
Like the recent Diebold certification, Sequoia's came with conditions, many of which focus on the physical security of the removable memory card used in both vendors' electronic voting machines. There are new questions being raised, however, about whether these kinds of measures are adequate. Harri Hursti, the finish computer programmer who exposed security weaknesses in Diebold's optical scan voting system, recently traveled to Utah to take a close look at Diebold's latest electronic voting machine, the TSx. Access to the TSx was granted to Mr. Hursti by Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk. More details about this developing story are available from Bev Harris' Black Box Voting web site.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Alameda supervisors vote 3-2 to move forward on new voting equipment
Yesterday the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to grant their acting county registrar, Elaine Ginnold, permission to move forward on contract negotiations with two potential voting equipment vendors. The board members expressed reluctance to move forward and several wanted to consider options other than those presented by the registrar. But after a four-hour public meeting Monday night and more than an hour spent on this item during yesterday's weekly hearing, they went with the registrar's recommendation.
Ms. Ginnold wants the county to purchase two touchscreens per polling place for accessibility needs (despite the fact that federal law only requires there be one machine). When board members asked her if they could purchase a minimal amount of equipment for this year's election and delay making a large purchase at this time, Ms. Ginnold informed them that the Help America Vote Act requires that everything purchased after January 1, 2007, must be accessible. This was not an accurate description of the law, and is the second time I'm aware of that Ms. Ginnold has misled her board of supervisors about their equipment options. (The first instance was at the June 2005 hearing when she erroneously told her board that going with paper ballots and a limited number of touchscreens in each polling place could create an equal protection problem. See my June 29, 2005 blog entry for more details.)
Several supervisors commended the activists who attended the meeting for bringing important issues to light. They also made it clear that their decision yesterday is not final, since the results of the next round of negotiations will have to come back to the board for consideration and possible approval. Audio webcasts of Monday and Tuesday's meetings are available from the county's web site. More coverage of yesterday's hearing is featured in this article by Ian Hoffman in today's Oakland Tribune. Excerpts are featured below.
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Four years after buying new Diebold voting machines for $12 million, Alameda County is headed back into the market to negotiate for up to $17.8 million in new voting machinery.
With an impassioned debate spanning two days, county supervisors anguished over sagging public confidence in voting and uncertainty in the technology, then found themselves divided over how to handle elections for coming years.
"This is not the purchasing of a new vehicle fleet," board President Keith Carson said. "This is fundamental to all the rights of every citizen in the county."
"There's too many unknown things," Supervisor Gail Steele said. "This $17 million is a huge amount of money with the uncertainty that we have."
But when the county's elections chief warned that delays could trigger new federal requirements and force the county into filling its polling places with more electronic voting equipment, Alice Lai-Bitker joined supervisors Nate Miley and Scott Haggerty in pressing ahead with the purchase negotiations.
"There's a consequence to waiting," Acting Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said. "If we're going to change voting systems, we have to change now so we can train voters and workers."
County elections and contracts officials will negotiate with Allen, Texas-based Diebold Election Systems Inc. and Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, the two voting-machine makers rated highest by a panel of voting advocates, residents and county officials.
The winning company would provide a system that principally handles paper ballots with optical ballot scanners plus two ATM-like touch-screen voting machines in each polling place like those the county uses now, the latter to meet federal mandates for handicapped-accessible voting equipment. The touch screens would print a backup record of the electronic ballot for voters to check and elections workers to use in recounts.
The decision marks a turning point for Alameda County and a noteworthy moment in the national debate over voting technology. Federal voting-reform law passed after the 2000 election debacle in Florida requires all U.S. counties to buy accessible voting equipment, and the machines that most easily accommodate the broadest array of disabled voters are highly computerized.
Yet the migration to fully computerized voting, fueled with billions in federal grant dollars, has collided with concern over vote manipulation and computer breakdowns.
---
In June, for the first time in four years, the overwhelming majority of ballots cast in Alameda County will be on paper, and while Diebold remains highly rated as a vendor, its local political stock is low.
"I'm not supportive of Diebold, especially given all the problems that they continue to have," Carson said.
Steele, who led the board in buying the Diebold touch screens, now has her doubts and voted against negotiating for the new machines.
"I like voting on a touch screen, and I believe technologically speaking that we can get to a place where it can be made secure," she said.
For now, however, "I am persuaded that these people have not got a good system in place. The technology's not right."
On Monday night and again Tuesday, electronic-voting critics urged the county supervisors to hold off and instead conduct a cost-benefit study of all voting technologies, including hand-counted paper ballots.
"How could you even consider Diebold? Diebold is well-known (to be) partisan," said activist Phoebe Sorgen. "It's a $17.8 million scam. Please say no to the machines that count our ballots in secret."
Ginnold, the elections chief, said that if the county fails to buy its planned "hybrid" system of mostly optical scanners by January, the federal Help America Vote Act would require that any new system be fully accessible to disabled voters. In general, that would mean every machine in every polling place would have to be a touch screen, she said.
What the law actually says is that after January 2007, no federal funds may be used to purchase new voting systems that are not fully accessible to disabled voters.
"That statement took some options off the table that several supervisors wanted to consider," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "This board in Alameda has put more into trying to understand this issue than any other board in the state. They asked good questions, and I'm not convinced they got good answers."
Ms. Ginnold wants the county to purchase two touchscreens per polling place for accessibility needs (despite the fact that federal law only requires there be one machine). When board members asked her if they could purchase a minimal amount of equipment for this year's election and delay making a large purchase at this time, Ms. Ginnold informed them that the Help America Vote Act requires that everything purchased after January 1, 2007, must be accessible. This was not an accurate description of the law, and is the second time I'm aware of that Ms. Ginnold has misled her board of supervisors about their equipment options. (The first instance was at the June 2005 hearing when she erroneously told her board that going with paper ballots and a limited number of touchscreens in each polling place could create an equal protection problem. See my June 29, 2005 blog entry for more details.)
Several supervisors commended the activists who attended the meeting for bringing important issues to light. They also made it clear that their decision yesterday is not final, since the results of the next round of negotiations will have to come back to the board for consideration and possible approval. Audio webcasts of Monday and Tuesday's meetings are available from the county's web site. More coverage of yesterday's hearing is featured in this article by Ian Hoffman in today's Oakland Tribune. Excerpts are featured below.
-----------
Four years after buying new Diebold voting machines for $12 million, Alameda County is headed back into the market to negotiate for up to $17.8 million in new voting machinery.
With an impassioned debate spanning two days, county supervisors anguished over sagging public confidence in voting and uncertainty in the technology, then found themselves divided over how to handle elections for coming years.
"This is not the purchasing of a new vehicle fleet," board President Keith Carson said. "This is fundamental to all the rights of every citizen in the county."
"There's too many unknown things," Supervisor Gail Steele said. "This $17 million is a huge amount of money with the uncertainty that we have."
But when the county's elections chief warned that delays could trigger new federal requirements and force the county into filling its polling places with more electronic voting equipment, Alice Lai-Bitker joined supervisors Nate Miley and Scott Haggerty in pressing ahead with the purchase negotiations.
"There's a consequence to waiting," Acting Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said. "If we're going to change voting systems, we have to change now so we can train voters and workers."
County elections and contracts officials will negotiate with Allen, Texas-based Diebold Election Systems Inc. and Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, the two voting-machine makers rated highest by a panel of voting advocates, residents and county officials.
The winning company would provide a system that principally handles paper ballots with optical ballot scanners plus two ATM-like touch-screen voting machines in each polling place like those the county uses now, the latter to meet federal mandates for handicapped-accessible voting equipment. The touch screens would print a backup record of the electronic ballot for voters to check and elections workers to use in recounts.
The decision marks a turning point for Alameda County and a noteworthy moment in the national debate over voting technology. Federal voting-reform law passed after the 2000 election debacle in Florida requires all U.S. counties to buy accessible voting equipment, and the machines that most easily accommodate the broadest array of disabled voters are highly computerized.
Yet the migration to fully computerized voting, fueled with billions in federal grant dollars, has collided with concern over vote manipulation and computer breakdowns.
---
In June, for the first time in four years, the overwhelming majority of ballots cast in Alameda County will be on paper, and while Diebold remains highly rated as a vendor, its local political stock is low.
"I'm not supportive of Diebold, especially given all the problems that they continue to have," Carson said.
Steele, who led the board in buying the Diebold touch screens, now has her doubts and voted against negotiating for the new machines.
"I like voting on a touch screen, and I believe technologically speaking that we can get to a place where it can be made secure," she said.
For now, however, "I am persuaded that these people have not got a good system in place. The technology's not right."
On Monday night and again Tuesday, electronic-voting critics urged the county supervisors to hold off and instead conduct a cost-benefit study of all voting technologies, including hand-counted paper ballots.
"How could you even consider Diebold? Diebold is well-known (to be) partisan," said activist Phoebe Sorgen. "It's a $17.8 million scam. Please say no to the machines that count our ballots in secret."
Ginnold, the elections chief, said that if the county fails to buy its planned "hybrid" system of mostly optical scanners by January, the federal Help America Vote Act would require that any new system be fully accessible to disabled voters. In general, that would mean every machine in every polling place would have to be a touch screen, she said.
What the law actually says is that after January 2007, no federal funds may be used to purchase new voting systems that are not fully accessible to disabled voters.
"That statement took some options off the table that several supervisors wanted to consider," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "This board in Alameda has put more into trying to understand this issue than any other board in the state. They asked good questions, and I'm not convinced they got good answers."
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
More news on the case against Diebold whistleblower
Yesterday's Oakland Tribune features this article by Ian Hoffman about Stephen Heller, the former employee of Diebold's law firm, Jones Day. Mr. Heller leaked Diebold's legal documents to the Oakland Tribune in 2004, and he is now being prosecuted by Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley. Excerpts from the article are featured below.
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One night early in 2004, a few weeks before the presidential primary, a Van Nuys actor making ends meet temping as a word processor listened on headphones as a young lawyer laid out a defense for Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s use of unapproved voting software in Alameda County.
Sitting at a computer terminal on the 45th floor of a Los Angeles skyscraper, Steve Heller transcribed the lawyer's taped memo suggesting that Diebold could claim the software was a new, "experimental" voting system, even though it had handled two Alameda County elections in 2003.
Heller led a quiet life in the San Fernando Valley with his wife, dog and an occasional supporting role in film, TV or commercials, usually cast as someone's neighbor or dad, which is what he looks like. He was an "experienced and competent" word processor but no "heavyweight" in the eyes of his night-shift supervisor, who doubted Heller knew his computer commands were recorded.
Heller is a self-confessed "news junkie." In an interview, he declined to talk about the case but said, "I would not describe myself at all as an activist" on electronic voting or anything else.
Yet the night after hearing the Diebold defense proposal, according to investigators who recreated his actions from computer logs, Heller went back to work inside the word processing center at the law firm Jones Day and began printing every document he could access that its attorneys had created for Diebold - 107 memos, charts, actions plans and e-mails.
One memo warned that Diebold could be prosecuted for illegally handling votes on Election Day. In a draft letter, Jones Day attorneys studiously avoided telling California elections officials of Diebold changes in a voting system component that ended up failing in presidential elections. In one e-mail, Jones Day advised Diebold of the need for sweeping civil and criminal defenses, billed at up to $450,000 a month.
In a meeting in a Ventura County park, the documents landed in the hands of Diebold's most vociferous critics at BlackBoxVoting.org. From there, some were faxed to a documentary filmmaker for attempted hand-delivery to then-California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley in Manhattan.
The Oakland Tribune reported on the memos, and almost overnight they appeared on Web sites from Washington to California to New Zealand, then elsewhere. Two weeks later, Shelley withdrew his earlier approval of Diebold's flagship touchscreen voting system, calling the firm's behavior "fraudulent" and "despicable." It took more than two years and numerous improvements before Diebold again could sell its electronic-voting products in California.
Heller himself remained largely unknown until two weeks ago when the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office charged him with a computer crime, second-degree burglary and receiving stolen goods — offenses carrying up to four years in prison - and propelled him to folk hero status among voting reform advocates, computer scientists and critics of electronic voting.
The case poses the value of whistleblowing about an industry that zealously guards its secrets and counts the nation's vote against a bedrock principle of the legal profession, the sanctity of confidentiality that allows clients to share their troubles with their lawyer.
Publication of Jones Day's confidential Diebold work, firm lawyers told investigators, was "a grievous violation" that damaged a top 25 client worth millions of dollars a year in billings.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and some leaders of the Association of Computer Machinists, the nation's oldest group of computer engineers and scientists, are seeking pro-bono defense for Heller.
"He found evidence that the problems that people were complaining about, and that Diebold was belittling, were real and that Diebold was skirting the rules," said EFF legal director Cindy Cohn.
"I think people are really heartsick," she said. "This is a guy who the people of California should be thanking and yet he's facing litigation titled 'People vs. Heller.'"
Protest e-mails and phone calls have been pouring into the offices of the Los Angeles district attorney, most of them from outside California.
---
Officials at the district attorney's office say Heller has no criminal record and probably would get probation if convicted. But he would lose his right to vote.
----------
One night early in 2004, a few weeks before the presidential primary, a Van Nuys actor making ends meet temping as a word processor listened on headphones as a young lawyer laid out a defense for Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s use of unapproved voting software in Alameda County.
Sitting at a computer terminal on the 45th floor of a Los Angeles skyscraper, Steve Heller transcribed the lawyer's taped memo suggesting that Diebold could claim the software was a new, "experimental" voting system, even though it had handled two Alameda County elections in 2003.
Heller led a quiet life in the San Fernando Valley with his wife, dog and an occasional supporting role in film, TV or commercials, usually cast as someone's neighbor or dad, which is what he looks like. He was an "experienced and competent" word processor but no "heavyweight" in the eyes of his night-shift supervisor, who doubted Heller knew his computer commands were recorded.
Heller is a self-confessed "news junkie." In an interview, he declined to talk about the case but said, "I would not describe myself at all as an activist" on electronic voting or anything else.
Yet the night after hearing the Diebold defense proposal, according to investigators who recreated his actions from computer logs, Heller went back to work inside the word processing center at the law firm Jones Day and began printing every document he could access that its attorneys had created for Diebold - 107 memos, charts, actions plans and e-mails.
One memo warned that Diebold could be prosecuted for illegally handling votes on Election Day. In a draft letter, Jones Day attorneys studiously avoided telling California elections officials of Diebold changes in a voting system component that ended up failing in presidential elections. In one e-mail, Jones Day advised Diebold of the need for sweeping civil and criminal defenses, billed at up to $450,000 a month.
In a meeting in a Ventura County park, the documents landed in the hands of Diebold's most vociferous critics at BlackBoxVoting.org. From there, some were faxed to a documentary filmmaker for attempted hand-delivery to then-California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley in Manhattan.
The Oakland Tribune reported on the memos, and almost overnight they appeared on Web sites from Washington to California to New Zealand, then elsewhere. Two weeks later, Shelley withdrew his earlier approval of Diebold's flagship touchscreen voting system, calling the firm's behavior "fraudulent" and "despicable." It took more than two years and numerous improvements before Diebold again could sell its electronic-voting products in California.
Heller himself remained largely unknown until two weeks ago when the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office charged him with a computer crime, second-degree burglary and receiving stolen goods — offenses carrying up to four years in prison - and propelled him to folk hero status among voting reform advocates, computer scientists and critics of electronic voting.
The case poses the value of whistleblowing about an industry that zealously guards its secrets and counts the nation's vote against a bedrock principle of the legal profession, the sanctity of confidentiality that allows clients to share their troubles with their lawyer.
Publication of Jones Day's confidential Diebold work, firm lawyers told investigators, was "a grievous violation" that damaged a top 25 client worth millions of dollars a year in billings.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and some leaders of the Association of Computer Machinists, the nation's oldest group of computer engineers and scientists, are seeking pro-bono defense for Heller.
"He found evidence that the problems that people were complaining about, and that Diebold was belittling, were real and that Diebold was skirting the rules," said EFF legal director Cindy Cohn.
"I think people are really heartsick," she said. "This is a guy who the people of California should be thanking and yet he's facing litigation titled 'People vs. Heller.'"
Protest e-mails and phone calls have been pouring into the offices of the Los Angeles district attorney, most of them from outside California.
---
Officials at the district attorney's office say Heller has no criminal record and probably would get probation if convicted. But he would lose his right to vote.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Hart Intercivic eSlate with paper trail is certified
Last Friday, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson issued this news release announcing that he has certified Hart InterCivic's eSlate voting system. The upgraded machine, which previously has been used in Orange County, now comes with a printer that produces a voter-verified paper audit trail as required by state law.
The news release did not provide much detail about the Hart certification, but it does only mention the eSlate, Hart's electronic voting machine. Another system Hart had up for certification in California is a new version of its paper-based optical scan voting system, called eScan. The Secretary of State's staff reported it did not do well in testing and did not recommend it for certification.
I took a look at Tarrant County, Texas' election web site and found this page which says that the county did in fact just switch to the eScan system for paper balloting in the most recent election where the final vote count was initially off by a reported 100,000 votes (more details are in the blog entry below). The folks in Texas trying to figure out what went wrong might benefit from reading the California Secretary of State's staff report on the Hart system, which summarizes the problems encountered during the volume test on the eScan, which is an in-precinct ballot scanner. The report states that of the 50 eScans tested, "42 percent of the machines experienced an error condition at least once that could not be handled by the operating system and required the eScan to be rebooted."
For those keeping track, this brings to three the number of vendors with California-certified voting systems that meet both the federal accessibility and state voter-verified paper audit trail requirement: Diebold (the TSx was recently granted conditional certification); ES&S (manufacturer of the Automark, an accessible paper-ballot marking device); and Hart. Sequoia's application for full certification is still pending (their equipment is currently conditionally-certified and cannot yet be legally used in a California primary election).
The news release did not provide much detail about the Hart certification, but it does only mention the eSlate, Hart's electronic voting machine. Another system Hart had up for certification in California is a new version of its paper-based optical scan voting system, called eScan. The Secretary of State's staff reported it did not do well in testing and did not recommend it for certification.
I took a look at Tarrant County, Texas' election web site and found this page which says that the county did in fact just switch to the eScan system for paper balloting in the most recent election where the final vote count was initially off by a reported 100,000 votes (more details are in the blog entry below). The folks in Texas trying to figure out what went wrong might benefit from reading the California Secretary of State's staff report on the Hart system, which summarizes the problems encountered during the volume test on the eScan, which is an in-precinct ballot scanner. The report states that of the 50 eScans tested, "42 percent of the machines experienced an error condition at least once that could not be handled by the operating system and required the eScan to be rebooted."
For those keeping track, this brings to three the number of vendors with California-certified voting systems that meet both the federal accessibility and state voter-verified paper audit trail requirement: Diebold (the TSx was recently granted conditional certification); ES&S (manufacturer of the Automark, an accessible paper-ballot marking device); and Hart. Sequoia's application for full certification is still pending (their equipment is currently conditionally-certified and cannot yet be legally used in a California primary election).
Lessons to learn from Tarrant County, Texas
A computer glitch in Tarrant County, Texas has fouled up election results and raised doubts about the integrity of the vote, according to this article by Max Baker of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. County election officials said a computer programming error caused some votes to be counted multiple times. Now some candidates want to see a recount, but some of the ballots cast were electronic, with no voter-verified paper backup (it's not required yet it Texas), and ultimately figuring out what went wrong will depend on what the Texas-based manufacturer of the equipment, Hart Intercivic, says went wrong. Excerpts from the Star-Telegram story are featured below.
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Tarrant County officials expect to decide by early next week whether to conduct a full recount of Tuesday's primary ballots because of questions about a computer glitch that not only inflated turnout numbers but may also have changed the outcome of some races.
Stephanie Klick, the Tarrant County Republican Party chairwoman, said party officials are reviewing the state election code while considering whether to ask for a recount or challenge the final tabulations in court.
---
Gayle Hamilton, the county's interim elections administrator, said she has been talking to the district attorney's office and the secretary of state's office about the best way to verify the election results.
"I'm not in a position to say how it's going to be handled yet," Hamilton said. "We want voters and the candidates to feel confident that all of the ballots were cast properly and counted."
---
County election officials said that because of a computer programming error, some votes were counted multiple times. That boosted the final tally in both primaries by as much as 100,000.
On Wednesday, officials said the error shouldn't alter the outcome of any race. But Klick said the two top vote-getters in the race for the 324th District Court traded places when the last count was released.
Late Tuesday, former state District Judge Paul Enlow was in the lead in the three-way race. By Wednesday, Associate Judge Jerry Hennigan was the leader. Enlow and Hennigan both got about 36 percent of the vote and will compete in a runoff April 11.
"If the numbers were supposed to be consistent throughout, they should not have changed, and they did," Klick said. "So something is wrong."
Hamilton said she was unaware of the change.
Although Tarrant is the only county to report this type of tabulation problem so far, statewide candidates are watching the outcome of the disputed returns closely.
David Rogers, campaign manager for former Texas Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith, said Smith may ask for a recount in his race against Justice Don Willett. The campaign is also considering filing a suit challenging the results, he said.
Willett won by 5,000 votes -- or less than a percentage point statewide -- after Tarrant County's retabulation slashed Willett's local lead by about 13,000 votes. Without the Tarrant County numbers, the Smith campaign said, they would have won the race by about 3,000 votes.
"I sure would like some kind of explanation of what is going on," Rogers said.
State District Judge Frank Sullivan said he has already asked for a recount in his Republican primary race against challenger Nancy Berger.
Sullivan, a judge for 23 years, lost by 569 votes, according to the last cumulative report issued by the county. But the vote count went back and forth to the last minute.
"With a 23-year career going down the toilet, somebody ought to be able to say how many votes I got and how many the other side got," Sullivan said. "I'm not sure it will change anything, but I'd like to know what it is."
The elections computer programming was carried out by county election officials under the direction of Hart InterCivic, the company that manufactured the equipment and wrote the software for the local voting system. The system is designed to combine electronic early voting results with totals from paper ballots on election day.
It was a new system with new procedures, and because of a human programming error, the computer compounded previous vote totals each time the numbers were updated rather than keeping a simple running total, officials said.
"It is very unfortunate that the candidates and the parties are having to go through this," Hamilton said. "We take as much responsibility as Hart InterCivic."
Mike Kennedy, a Republican election judge, said he would like to see an independent inquiry conducted to determine exactly what went wrong Tuesday night. Saying he didn't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, Kennedy said a forensic review of the election results after a recount would possibly erase any doubts that someone tampered with the process.
"All levels of our government should have a transparency to them," he said.
----------
Tarrant County officials expect to decide by early next week whether to conduct a full recount of Tuesday's primary ballots because of questions about a computer glitch that not only inflated turnout numbers but may also have changed the outcome of some races.
Stephanie Klick, the Tarrant County Republican Party chairwoman, said party officials are reviewing the state election code while considering whether to ask for a recount or challenge the final tabulations in court.
---
Gayle Hamilton, the county's interim elections administrator, said she has been talking to the district attorney's office and the secretary of state's office about the best way to verify the election results.
"I'm not in a position to say how it's going to be handled yet," Hamilton said. "We want voters and the candidates to feel confident that all of the ballots were cast properly and counted."
---
County election officials said that because of a computer programming error, some votes were counted multiple times. That boosted the final tally in both primaries by as much as 100,000.
On Wednesday, officials said the error shouldn't alter the outcome of any race. But Klick said the two top vote-getters in the race for the 324th District Court traded places when the last count was released.
Late Tuesday, former state District Judge Paul Enlow was in the lead in the three-way race. By Wednesday, Associate Judge Jerry Hennigan was the leader. Enlow and Hennigan both got about 36 percent of the vote and will compete in a runoff April 11.
"If the numbers were supposed to be consistent throughout, they should not have changed, and they did," Klick said. "So something is wrong."
Hamilton said she was unaware of the change.
Although Tarrant is the only county to report this type of tabulation problem so far, statewide candidates are watching the outcome of the disputed returns closely.
David Rogers, campaign manager for former Texas Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith, said Smith may ask for a recount in his race against Justice Don Willett. The campaign is also considering filing a suit challenging the results, he said.
Willett won by 5,000 votes -- or less than a percentage point statewide -- after Tarrant County's retabulation slashed Willett's local lead by about 13,000 votes. Without the Tarrant County numbers, the Smith campaign said, they would have won the race by about 3,000 votes.
"I sure would like some kind of explanation of what is going on," Rogers said.
State District Judge Frank Sullivan said he has already asked for a recount in his Republican primary race against challenger Nancy Berger.
Sullivan, a judge for 23 years, lost by 569 votes, according to the last cumulative report issued by the county. But the vote count went back and forth to the last minute.
"With a 23-year career going down the toilet, somebody ought to be able to say how many votes I got and how many the other side got," Sullivan said. "I'm not sure it will change anything, but I'd like to know what it is."
The elections computer programming was carried out by county election officials under the direction of Hart InterCivic, the company that manufactured the equipment and wrote the software for the local voting system. The system is designed to combine electronic early voting results with totals from paper ballots on election day.
It was a new system with new procedures, and because of a human programming error, the computer compounded previous vote totals each time the numbers were updated rather than keeping a simple running total, officials said.
"It is very unfortunate that the candidates and the parties are having to go through this," Hamilton said. "We take as much responsibility as Hart InterCivic."
Mike Kennedy, a Republican election judge, said he would like to see an independent inquiry conducted to determine exactly what went wrong Tuesday night. Saying he didn't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, Kennedy said a forensic review of the election results after a recount would possibly erase any doubts that someone tampered with the process.
"All levels of our government should have a transparency to them," he said.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Complexity causes 50 percent of product returns
If election officials in California and elsewhere decide to return their new voting equipment to manufacturers, they will be in good company. According to research by Elke den Ouden at the Technical University of Eindhoven, half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores are in full working order, but customers can't figure out how to operate the devices. Read more about her research in this article from Reuters. Excerpts are below.
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Product complaints and returns are often caused by poor design, but companies frequently dismiss them as "nuisance calls," Elke den Ouden found in her thesis at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands.
A wave of versatile electronics gadgets has flooded the market in recent years, ranging from MP3 players and home cinema sets to media centers and wireless audio systems, but consumers still find it hard to install and use them, according to den Ouden.
She also found that the average consumer in the U.S. will struggle for 20 minutes to get a device working before giving up.
Product developers, brought in to witness the struggles of average consumers, were astounded by the havoc they created.
Den Ouden also gave new products to a group of managers from consumer electronics company Philips Electronics NV, asking them to use them over the weekend. The managers returned frustrated because they could not get the devices to work properly.
She said most of the flaws found their origin in the first phase of the design process -- product definition.
-----------
Product complaints and returns are often caused by poor design, but companies frequently dismiss them as "nuisance calls," Elke den Ouden found in her thesis at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands.
A wave of versatile electronics gadgets has flooded the market in recent years, ranging from MP3 players and home cinema sets to media centers and wireless audio systems, but consumers still find it hard to install and use them, according to den Ouden.
She also found that the average consumer in the U.S. will struggle for 20 minutes to get a device working before giving up.
Product developers, brought in to witness the struggles of average consumers, were astounded by the havoc they created.
Den Ouden also gave new products to a group of managers from consumer electronics company Philips Electronics NV, asking them to use them over the weekend. The managers returned frustrated because they could not get the devices to work properly.
She said most of the flaws found their origin in the first phase of the design process -- product definition.
Thursday, March 9, 2006
From E-Voting to Paper Ballots in Piedmont, CA
Tuesday was a milestone in California's voting history. The city of Piedmont, located in Alameda County, used paper ballots in its municipal election. Piedmont was the first city in California to try out electronic voting machines, and Alameda was one of the first California counties to purchase e-voting machines. Thanks to a law enacted by the California Legislature in 2004, electronic voting machines must now produce a voter-verified paper audit trail to back up each electronic ballot. The new law took effect on January 1 of this year, and Alameda, like many counties, is struggling to figure out how they will comply with the paper trail requirement county-wide for the June primary.
In the meantime, Piedmont held its municipal election on paper ballots, and also tried out the Vote-PAD, an affordable and low-tech device that provides access for disabled voters. More details are featured in this article by Ian Hoffman for the Alameda Newspaper Group. Excerpts are below.
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For elections, Alameda County is headed back to the future, and what that future looks like will play out today in the city of Piedmont.
After six years of electronic ballots, voters in Piedmont's municipal elections will be marking their choices on paper ballots, and so far that is the direction Alameda County is headed for the June primary.
---
California and many other states now require that voters have some form of paper printout to double-check their electronic vote and that elections officials use that paper for recounts.
But most voting machine makers did not adapt their touch screens for printers in time for use in elections this spring and early summer. So Piedmont is headed back to plain paper ballots, and so probably is Alameda, at least for the June elections.
Voters in Piedmont or anywhere in the county also will have a chance to experiment today with a new, low-tech variant designed for those with disabilities. It is a ballot-marking tablet called VotePad, with plastic pages and audio instructions to guide voters in marking their choices. Ellen Theisen, founder of VotersUnite, led the invention of VotePad as a simple, nontechnical answer to the demand and federal legal requirement for handicapped-accessible voting. Elections workers at the city community center and other polling places will be on hand to help voters try out the VotePad.
Acting Alameda County Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold has been around long enough to see voting systems come full circle, from the old paper punch cards to paperless electronic voting and now back to optically scanned paper.
"I think there's a lot of irony in it," she said Monday. "It's very interesting that five years later we're here in this position without any electronic voting equipment."
In the meantime, Piedmont held its municipal election on paper ballots, and also tried out the Vote-PAD, an affordable and low-tech device that provides access for disabled voters. More details are featured in this article by Ian Hoffman for the Alameda Newspaper Group. Excerpts are below.
-----------
For elections, Alameda County is headed back to the future, and what that future looks like will play out today in the city of Piedmont.
After six years of electronic ballots, voters in Piedmont's municipal elections will be marking their choices on paper ballots, and so far that is the direction Alameda County is headed for the June primary.
---
California and many other states now require that voters have some form of paper printout to double-check their electronic vote and that elections officials use that paper for recounts.
But most voting machine makers did not adapt their touch screens for printers in time for use in elections this spring and early summer. So Piedmont is headed back to plain paper ballots, and so probably is Alameda, at least for the June elections.
Voters in Piedmont or anywhere in the county also will have a chance to experiment today with a new, low-tech variant designed for those with disabilities. It is a ballot-marking tablet called VotePad, with plastic pages and audio instructions to guide voters in marking their choices. Ellen Theisen, founder of VotersUnite, led the invention of VotePad as a simple, nontechnical answer to the demand and federal legal requirement for handicapped-accessible voting. Elections workers at the city community center and other polling places will be on hand to help voters try out the VotePad.
Acting Alameda County Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold has been around long enough to see voting systems come full circle, from the old paper punch cards to paperless electronic voting and now back to optically scanned paper.
"I think there's a lot of irony in it," she said Monday. "It's very interesting that five years later we're here in this position without any electronic voting equipment."
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