IA UPDATE: Polk recorder advances recount bid for auditor:Tim Brien files

[lindisfarne]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060705/NEWS05/607050350&SearchID=73249759332154
Polk recorder advances recount bid for auditor
Tim Brien files paperwork and puts up $10,000 for the cost of contesting his loss.

By BERT DALMER
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
July 5, 2006
Polk County Recorder Tim Brien has filed the necessary paperwork to organize a recount of his June 6 primary election loss, the county auditor's office said this week.

Brien also posted a $10,000 surety bond to cover the costs of the contested election, which is expected to require a hand count of thousands of ballots over the course of several days.

Brien, a five-term incumbent who has worked in the recorder's office since 1974, called for a review of the election results last week based on a ballot-counting malfunction in Pottawattamie County that prematurely named nine losing candidates as winners. County officials there acknowledged last week that they had failed to properly test their new machines prior to Election Day.

Brien said he has no evidence that the same happened in Polk County, where an official count by Auditor Michael Mauro showed Brien losing by a wide margin to political newcomer Julie Haggerty, 13,926 votes to 10,256.

Brien said that he remains uncomfortable with both counties' voting technology, which scans paper ballots and tabulates results electronically
<snip>

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x436191 for a previous article about this.

[MissWaverly]

1. you would think that we would have free recounts

with the performance record of these machines.

[Bill Bored]

2. It wouldn't cost much to audit the Ballot Definition Settings.

That's what went wrong in Pottawattamie and elsewhere.

[BeFree]

3. That's what we heard

But what is the real story? If it were just the BDS's then why don't they just do that - rewrite the settings - and run the ballots through again?

Maybe they did that already?

Did ES&S have to post a bond that would cover the hand count costs to Pottowattamie?

Was it ES&S that came out with the BDS theory, or did a verified voting type group establish that was what went wrong?

Enquiring minds would want to know.

[Bill Bored]

4. Fact -- not theory.

"But what is the real story? If it were just the BDS's then why don't they just do that - rewrite the settings - and run the ballots through again?"

Because ES&S did the programming -- not the county. But anyone can hand count paper ballots (as long as it's legal).

"Was it ES&S that came out with the BDS theory, or did a verified voting type group establish that was what went wrong?"

Well let's see, there was the County Auditor herself, there was John Gideon, there was VoteTrustUSA, and there were numerous accounts in the press. So frankly, I don't give a damn what ES&S's "theory" might be. This is a known fact of e-voting and that includes optical scan. See this thread, and please K&R:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x438488

[BeFree]

8. Problem

What I have heard - without verification - was that the abs were not rotated like the rest of the ballots were. That is something that must be cleared up, in my mind. Because if the abs were not rotated, then there is something else that contributed to the problem.

Saying the BDS was the culprit may be hiding something even more sinister.

But if there is proof that the abs were rotated like the rest of the ballots, then it may be just the BDS.

[harmonyguy]

5. Keep in mind that the BDS is only ONE part of the problem...

...the other part being the printed ballots, which have encoded on them the instruction as to WHICH set of ballot definitions should apply to THAT particular ballot. In some scenarios this is referred to as a Ballot Style Number.

Any audit of the ballot definition settings MUST also include an audit of the printed paper ballots themselves to ensure that the encoding of the Ballot Style Number on each ballot matches the actual layout of the ballot.

A ballot that has an incorrect ballot style number encoded on it, would be interpreted incorrectly by the scanner every time it was run through. The ONLY way to determine voter intent is by a manual hand-count of the ballots.

This situation is compounded in those jurisdictions that require ballot rotation.

HG;)

[Wilms]

6. Nice.

Thanks for the education.

[harmonyguy]

7. Think that through for a bit...

...and see where it takes you.
Each paper ballot needs to have on it an encoded (machine readable - but not very human recognizable) version of the Ballot Style Number, so that the scanner can be instructed to know which candidate's counter to increment if there is a mark in say, column 3 row 6.

It's often been said that large scale election fraud with these machines would require large numbers of people, in many locations, conspiring to affect the outcome of races, and therefore would be impossible. I would argue that unless the printed ballots themselves are audited to ensure that the Ballot Style Numbers are encoded as intended, ONE single person with less-than-stellar ethics in a print shop hundreds of miles away from a jurisdiction could very easily influence the outcome of a great many races.

Food for thought.

HG;)

[BeFree]

9. Say what?

Are you saying that a typical way of making the ballots fraud proof, ie, rotation of the names, could be subverted into creating fraud?

[Wilms]

10. See what a complicated world it is?

:(

[harmonyguy]

11. Not exactly, although that could be an outcome.

To be more precise....

Each paper ballot to be scanned needs to have it's Ballot Style Number encoded on it. In those jurisdictions where ballot rotation is required, that Ballot Style Number also needs to include the specific rotation of the candidates.

What I'm saying is that the printed ballots themselves need to be audited (by humans, not machines) to ensure that the encoding of the Ballot Style Number on each ballot matches the intended actual layout of the ballot. Ballot rotation just means that there are that many more Ballot Style Numbers to audit, making the audit a far more tedious, time consuming, and less likely to be performed task.

Although rotation of the ballots could potentially be subverted into fraud, the bigger problem (which includes the rotation issue) is really the encoding and printing of the Ballot Style Numbers, that could potentially be subverted into fraud.

With ballot printing concentrated in the hands of so few companies, I believe that it would only take one person with nefarious intent to affect races in multiple states.

Of course, a hand count of the actual originally voted ballots would serve the same purpose, but why hand count when there's all this technology lying around?:sarcasm:

HG;)

[BeFree]

13. Could be an outcome. Indeed.

It is all so messed up the only way forward is to backtrack. We are lost on this electronic trail. What do you do when you are lost? You go back.

We go back to square one.... use the technology that is known to work or even just rely on pen and paper and eyeballs, until we establish a tech that at least all the techies have confidence in.

[kster]

16. The biggest problem, the voting machines used are ILLEGAL

they are ILLEGAL because they count our ballots in secret. :)

[Wilms]

17. Wow.

That sounds like a great law...."it's ILLEGAL to count our ballots in secret".

Please cite it/them.

Is it federal? Or does each state have one on the books?

Oh JOY! THIS is IT!

:)

Kster.To count our ballots in secret is immoral, unethical, unverifiable, fraud-prone, generally stupid, and right to be made "ILLEGAL". But last I checked--and this is why we're all here--it's terribly legal.

Hot summer out by you?

Pretty warm, here, but I'm trying to hold up.

[Peace Patriot]

19. You make a good point, Wilms! Transparent vote counting is so basic--

such a no-brainer--it may not have been codified. It's certainly an incontestible tradition and "common law." What good is secret voting counting? No good at all. Add in PARTISAN secret vote counting, and it's patently absurd.

But I'm not familiar enough with state constitutions to know how, or if, the principle is stated. It may have 14th amendment (equal protection) articulation somewhere. Research needed.

Do you know for fact that it is nowhere stated in law? No codes? No constitutions? No cases? What about cases where, say, Dem Party observers were kept out of the counting room? (--not, has it happened? but, has it been litigated? established in law?)

It seems so amazing to me that we even have to be talking about this. Is it legal to hide the vote counting? Can legislatures override such a FUNDAMENTAL principle, by permtting contracts for voting machines with 'trade secret' code in them, or can election officials sign such contracts? They HAVE done so. But have they not violated some code, or such basic common law principle in doing so?

[Wilms]

20. LandShark's case in WA is attempting along the line of constitutionality.

But it's not like there's a law up there saying "no-secret-counting".

While he's gotten practical relief (the state pulled the Sequoia DRE's out) he didn't (yet) win a ruling establishing no-secret-counting case law.

If other suit's have something similar among the argument's, they're not relying on it, citing equal protection among others.

A far as chasing Dem's from a room, we'll see what becomes of OH. But if the Dem is in the room and Gems is doing the counting it only helps so much.

Short of that, we need "no-secret-counting" legislation. Perhaps that's more descriptive and to the point than "Hand Count Law".

[Bill Bored]

18. True but then you're talking about stuff like candidates in other races

getting unintended votes -- not just different candidates within each race.

But I agree everything needs to be checked.

It may be that not all ballots of a given style need to be hand counted once it can be confirmed that each style was encoded correctly. (I have nothing against hand counts though.)

[Wilms]

12. .

[BeFree]

14. .........

........

[harmonyguy]

15. It never ceases to amaze ...

I guess that at least this must be new information that no-one knew.
I'm sure that if it was old, folks would be jumping all over it by now ...

Kick!