Key Component of Voting System Undergoes No Review

[Melissa G]

I post this in Honor of Bill Bored since this is his favorite topic! BDF's BDF's BDF's!!!


Thanks to John Gideon for this post!!!

Key Component of Voting System Undergoes No Review
By VotersUnite.org
July 25, 2006
Every voting system includes a key component, called the ballot definition file (BDF), that is never subjected to an outside review. Given that BDFs determine the way votes are recorded and counted, the lack of independent oversight of these files is a major security vulnerability. If BDFs are incorrectly prepared, the wrong candidate could be elected. Furthermore, while BDFs may be primarily data, they also include logic and perhaps even other software that could change the outcome of an election.


BDFs are unique for each election and define all the races and candidates for each precinct. BDFs tell the voting machine software how to interpret a voter's touches on a screen or marks on an optical scan ballot (including absentee ballots), how to record those selections as votes, and how to combine them into the final tally.

Programming election data is a very complex process, especially in counties with hundreds of different ballot styles, and a single error can jeopardize the outcome of an election. Some election districts lack the technical expertise to prepare BDFs, and instead depend on the vendor or outside programmers for the preparation. Others prepare the BDFs themselves. In both cases, however, BDFs undergo very little testing and no independent audit before being used to determine the results of an election. Little wonder that many serious election disruptions have been caused by ballot definition errors. Other BDF errors have probably gone unnoticed, and some may have affected election outcomes.



Virtually all of the proven ballot definition errors occurred on optical scan equipment and were caught by a manual recount of the ballots.

A few examples:
• 67,000 absentee and early-voting ballots were counted incorrectly. (New Mexico, Nov. 2000)
• A difference in ballot data on different machines resulted in miscounts in 18 races. (Texas, April 2002)

• 2,642 Democratic and Republican votes were counted as Republican. (Florida, Sept. 2002)

• Victories for two commissioners were initially given to the wrong candidates. (Texas, Nov. 2002)

• 5,500 party-line votes, both Republican and Democrat, were uncounted. (North Carolina, Nov. 2002)

• Loss reported for a candidate for County Board of Supervisors was really a win. (Iowa, June 2006.)

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1573&Itemid=26

[Bill Bored]

1. K & R! nt

[Melissa G]

2. Just K&R!!! I give you a whole thread with supporting documentation

on your FAVORITE election reform issue with 4 votes ready to go to greatest and ALL you have to say is K&R!???

Bill Bored I am disappointed in you.. I have set up a soapbox with your name on it and I AM WAITING FOR A SPEECH!!! or at the least, a little longer post..

edit to say.. Tell the nice folks why this matters...Tell them what they should say to their election officials and congress critters..step on up Bill!

[Bill Bored]

5. POTTAWATTAMIE! That's why! nt

[Wilms]

7. And a POTTAWATTAMIE to you, too, sir.

And a Cumberland, as well.

And more...

[Melissa G]

11. And where is your link to Pottawattamie, BB? You are not preaching

to the choir at the moment.. You are on the Greatest page with newbies who might never have heard of POTTAWATTAMIE!!! They might want to tell their elected officials about Pottawattamie just 'cuz it is so fun to say. This could, with the right BB supporting explanation, be the the very thing that takes BFD's to their Waterloo!! Tell the folks about Pottawattamie, Bill.... they might even hook their election officials to this very thread to hear your pearls of wisdom!

[Bill Bored]

15. A FEW links about Pottawattamie, just for you Melissa G!

Courtesy of the "cut-outs" at VoteTrusUSA who are working tirelessly for little or no compensation to ensure free, fair and accurate elections (while being dragged through the mud in the process):

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1460&Itemid=113
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1479&Itemid=113
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1475&Itemid=51
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1356&Itemid=113
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1380&Itemid=113
http://www.votersunite.org/info/mapVoteSwitch.pdf

And ask yourself why the "cut-outs" at VoteTrustUSA seem to be the ONLY ONES in the this so-called "movement" trying to shed some light on this problem.

Am I bitter about the recent attacks on VoteTrustUSA? Nah.

But if ANYONE EVER uses this forum to attack other activists again while shamelessly plugging their books, with the cooperation of other activists and with insufficient facts, rumor, hearsay and innuendo....I guess those are the breaks! Hey it's a message board. What can you do? :shrug:

[Melissa G]

17. Thank you for that excellent list of Links, Kind Sir....

It is good to focus on the good work in front of us that binds us together rather than all our various manifestations of ego and projection which we sometimes dump on each other... such behavior is occasionally, of course, the human condition, though..
Me, I'm just trying to do my part and hold all the other activists who are trying to do good stuff in the Light...

Namaste, Bill.. The highest and the best in me greets/recognizes the highest and the best in you!

[troubleinwinter]

23. There ya go!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for some wisdom!!!

[kpete]

3. rock on Mellisa

[Melissa G]

4. Hi Kpete, Thanks for the K&R while we wait for Bill Bored's

(rant..cough) important lecture about BDF's..

Razzing Bill aside... This really is an important topic and the voter's unite article explains it well. So, I hope everyone reads it in full and posts lots of questions for Bill Bored to answer so he has a LOOONG time on his soapbox...

[Bill Bored]

6. OK, OK. Everyone should read the story on VTUSA and demand to audit

their ballot definition settings immediately before they are loaded onto the machines. Find out who programs them, whether anyone watches them, and if so, who watches the watchers, because you really can rig elections with this stuff big time and it doesn't matter if it's DRE or Optical Scanner or what kind of memory card it uses, or which vendor it is, etc. because they all work pretty much the same when it comes to this stuff. One insider can rig a whole county or more from a single PC called an Election Management System before the election, and no one would know. Yada, yada, yada.

How's that?

You can read about it a little in the Brennan Center Report too but they assume as one of their basic countermeasures that this stuff is actually checked. So they say it can be used to load Trojan Horses instead. But if no one checks it, the ballot definitions themselves can be used rig elections. :boring:
Here's a link to their report:
http://brennancenter.org/programs/downloads/SecurityFull7-3Reduced.pdf

Oh and you can read about all this in my new book, "Mad Ballot Definition House" too!
(PLUG!)

But seriously, this is the real deal. In other words no one should question the veracity of anyone trying to warn us about this stuff. Not even a cut-out.

[Wilms]

8. Does it take long to read? n/t

[Melissa G]

18. Very quick, easy read! n/t

[BeFree]

13. That's it?

Don't be shy, how do you FEEL about all this?

For as long as I have reading here, I still don't know how you FEEL.

[Bill Bored]

16. See post 15.

This is one of the biggest threats to our elections and no one pays any attention to it because there's no MONEY to be made off it. That's how I feel. How about you?

[Melissa G]

19. BB feels grouchy today, Usually he wants 100 K&R's on this topic!

We all have our pet Election Reform issues and this is his for good reason . He has done a lot of good work on BDF's and BDF's are something we should all ask our election officials about.

PM Bill Bored if you have any questions..he is usually happy to help get the word out..Everyone is just a little tired of the ugly posts floating around lately.. I'm just reading less, myself...

[Wilms]

9. Hey, look what just went down in Indiana.

Candidate dismisses election complaint

By Sue Loughlin
The Tribune-Star

Rockville — A candidate in the Republican Parke County sheriff’s race agreed to dismiss his complaint seeking a special election after the parties reached a settlement Monday.

Terry Conrad asked Special Judge Matthew Headley to dismiss his petition, and Michael Eslinger remains the Republican candidate for sheriff.

As part of the settlement, the Parke County Election Board has agreed to address several issues to make sure problems that occurred during the primary don’t reoccur in November. Among the issues to be addressed include thorough testing of voting machines and software before the election; an adequate number of voting machines to allow for efficient operation of the polls; and thorough training for all poll workers on the use of electronic voting machines. Also, the parties acknowledged that several votes on one of the machines had not been counted election night because of a “systemic failure,” as described by attorney Robert Hellmann, who represented the election board.

snip

http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_205221115.html


Thanks, MG! :hi:

[Melissa G]

10. Hey, wilms! always nice to see your smiling smilie!!!

:hi:

[BeFree]

12. This is why we will lose

The candidates themselves are more interested in their personal fame and fortune than they are the future of democracy.

We are where we are because of that attitude. We have no one willing to fight, even as real people are dying in our name.

[Bill Bored]

14. The same thing can probably be said of certain activists on "our side."

We can spend our time trying to expose them, or just keep working on the election problem until it's fixed. I usually choose the latter, but when they come after those of us who are so engaged, then we have a problem.

[Melissa G]

20. Actually, Be Free it seems the candidate did fight for the process

in this case...

As part of the settlement, the Parke County Election Board has agreed to address several issues to make sure problems that occurred during the primary don’t reoccur in November. Among the issues to be addressed include thorough testing of voting machines and software before the election; an adequate number of voting machines to allow for efficient operation of the polls; and thorough training for all poll workers on the use of electronic voting machines. Also, the parties acknowledged that several votes on one of the machines had not been counted election night because of a “systemic failure,” as described by attorney Robert Hellmann, who represented the election board.

and this was a repub standing up . Fair elections are really not a partisan issue and I'm glad to see both parties working to get good things to happen!

[Patsy Stone]

21. This is a wonderful thread

Thanks to all for your great work.

K!

&R (if I could)!

[Melissa G]

22. Thanks Patsy! Glad you liked it! n/t

[Pokey Anderson]

24. It's a good piece. Very undernoticed yet fundamental vulnerability.

Kudos to Voters Unite for putting this out in the world.