BradBlog: 16,632 Votes 'Unaccounted For' in Palm Beach Cty (At least they vote on paper. :eyes:)

[Wilms]

The truth is inconvenient.

Florida dropped touch-screen DREs in favor of voting on paper ballots counted by software driven optical scan. "If there's ever a problem, those ballots can be recounted". In Florida, that means recounting by software driven optical scan machines.

Florida law doesn't allow manual recounts except where a machine rejects the ballot. So all the blathering about paper ballots ain't worth the bandwidth consumed by the pronouncements.


Read the label carefully and always choose your trademarks carefully! They're like tattoos!

16,632 Votes 'Unaccounted For' in Palm Beach County Primary Election 'Recount'

Just 18 Votes Separate Candidates in Circuit Judge Race Where Votes Are Lost in Re-tally on Sequoia Optical-Scan Voting Systems

'Severe Repercussions, Dire Consequences for November Election and All Elections,' Says Broward County Election Supervisor Candidate...

by Brad Friedman

8/30/2008

16,632 votes are unaccounted for in a Palm Beach County election recount following last Tuesday's state primary, according to Ellen H. Brodsky, non-partisan candidate for Supervisor of Elections in Broward County and a long-time Election Integrity advocate.

The machine recount was completed early Saturday morning in the Circuit Court race between Judge Richard Wennet and challenger William Abramson, Brodsky reports via email. The machine recount was completed at 4:30am, in the race in which Wennet and Abramson were separated by just 18 votes in the initial machine tally. Palm Beach County recently changed voting systems again, moving from faulty touch-screen voting systems to --- apparently --- faulty optical-scan paper-ballot systems made by Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc.

The still-unexplained "disappearance" of votes in the machine recount "has severe repercussions," Brodsky wrote in an email alert this afternoon describing the re-scan of some 90,000 ballots.

snip

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. 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.

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6341

[Vincardog]

1. So all the blathering about paper ballots ain't worth the bandwidth consumed by the pronouncements.

BULLSHIT how do you recount a byte?
With paper ballots at least there is the possibility of a fair open election.

[Wilms]

3. Please reread the post.

Florida law doesn't allow a manual count. Therefore, there is no "possibility of a fair open election."

But we agree that attempting to recount bytes is pointless.

[Vincardog]

4. disallows hand-counting of paper ballots which have already been counted by machine, other than in

special circumstances. What are those circumstances? When the REpukes don't get the answer they want?

[Wilms]

7. The "special circumstances" I understand means ballots rejected by the machines

And when the Repukes don't get the answer they want.

But we all know that one.

[Bill Bored]

2. A slim possiblity of fair election in FL! No recounts except by more scanners.

They just recount, and recount, and recount until they find a machine that gives them the results they want!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. There were hand counts for judicial contest in Palm Beach Co

According to the op/ed in this paper:

The ballots are missing, so start finding answers

Palm Beach Post Editorial Wednesday, September 03, 2008

The first rule of election recounts should be to start - and finish - with the same number of ballots. Palm Beach County has failed that basic test.

As a result, there's no way to know for sure who won the Group 23 judicial race between incumbent Richard Wennet and challenger William Abramson. As a result, there's no way to be confident about the November election. The variations between election day tallies, then a machine recount and then a hand recount are so wide as to reach a whole new level of concern for voters who thought they had seen everything in Palm Beach County.

Start with the missing votes - 3,478 of them, or 3.4 percent of the election day total. Then there's the 5 percent drop in the number of valid votes after the machine recount. How can candidates in other races accept a 1 percent or 2 percent loss - too wide a margin under state law to merit a recount - when the recount machinery rejects without explanation 5 percent of the votes?

...State law requires hand recounts only in races where the difference is 0.25 percentage points or less after the machine recount, which is triggered when the margin is 0.5 percentage points or less. Had the difference been slightly greater in the Wennet-Abramson race, those redeemed votes never would have been redeemed. Somehow, the recount machines had a higher standard for what constituted a vote.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/ep...

********************

So it could be that the central count scanners are not scanning all ballots, perhaps some ballots
are sticking together.

But right now, its not even a matter of counting the votes, its a matter of finding those darn missing ballots.

[Wilms]

13. Thanks for the hand recount provision comments. And about those ballots...

Post #12, below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


-on edit-


This article seems to say no to manual recounts, and that there's some confusion about it,

Apparently so!

Manual recounts remain elusive
Debate continues on need for a paper trail

By Joe Follick

Published: Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 10:10 p.m.
TALLAHASSEE -

As the state heads into what is expected to be a record-setting year for voter turnout, Florida law does not allow for every ballot to be counted in case of a close election.

"There is no such a thing as a manual recount in Florida," Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said. "It is very dangerous to tell candidates that, yes, the law has a section that says 'manual recount,' but we're not going to look at those ballots."

The reason: Despite pleas from Browning, lawmakers have not authorized a full manual recount of all ballots in close elections.

Instead, canvassing boards in each of Florida's 67 counties will manually count only the ballots that were untabulated by machines reading the marked-in bubbles or connected lines.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080720/ARTICLE/8...

[Wilms]

14. Florida Law

102.166 Manual recounts.—

(1) If the second set of unofficial returns pursuant to s. 102.141 indicates that a candidate for any office was defeated or eliminated by one-quarter of a percent or less of the votes cast for such office, that a candidate for retention to a judicial office was retained or not retained by one-quarter of a percent or less of the votes cast on the question of retention, or that a measure appearing on the ballot was approved or rejected by one-quarter of a percent or less of the votes cast on such measure, the board responsible for certifying the results of the vote on such race or measure shall order a manual recount of the overvotes and undervotes cast in the entire geographic jurisdiction of such office or ballot measure. A manual recount may not be ordered, however, if the number of overvotes, undervotes, and provisional ballots is fewer than the number of votes needed to change the outcome of the election.

pdf http://election.dos.state.fl.us/publications/pdf/2007-2...


It seems like just checking that undervotes/overvotes really are such.

[eridani]

5. Auditing MUST be by handcounting in order to be valid n/t

[Wilms]

8. And it needs to be risk-based.

But that's not what happens.

Either there aren't any audits, or the audits aren't large enough, or they're done on the same machines, or on different machines.

The only state that has a hand counted statistical audit is NJ. But they don't (yet) have paper to count. MN has a good audit, but I'm not sure it's good enough to provide a high confidence in a really close race.

[diva77]

6. At this point, I assume the 2008 election has been fixed in favor of McCain until proven otherwise

[truckin]

9. Here is a very disturbing statement that was recently reported

on Bradblog by John Gideon:

"And why did members of the county canvassing board sign an official document that had no final numbers on it? The voters need to know that and they need to know before November...."

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6350#more-6350

[elleng]

10. DON'T EVEN THINK

of voting 'here!'

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-fl...

[Wilms]

12. And still unfolding.

Note: Turnout was @13%

Ballot Debacle Continues, 2500 Ballots Still Missing

Officials Promising Improvements Before November

September 4, 2008 - 9:52PM

John Bachman

The election mystery continues tonight. Palm Beach County officials say 2500 ballots still cannot be found from last week's judges race. The frustration is growing and more candidates are coming forward calling for a recount now in other races.

Right now workers are counting the ballots, not the votes, just the ballots to try and determine exactly how many people voted. They thought they knew that number, turns out now they're not so sure. Meanwhile new issues and concerns keep on popping up.

snip

Officials are still missing more than 2500 ballots they think. A close race for a Palm Beach County Judge's seat is yet to be resolved. So the paper ballots are being counted again. And lawyers for both candidates are calling the process unacceptable.

snip

Steve Perman who ran for state representative and lost by just 200 votes now wonders if the outcome of his race could change if thousands of missing ballots are found.

snip

Along with another ballot count, county employees will spread out across the county and search 800 precincts...collection centers..and elections offices looking for misplaced ballots.

snip

http://www.cbs12.com/news/missing_4709427___article.htm...

[Wilms]

15. Well, they're searching for ballots like Bush searches for WMDs.

It's an election disaster.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_ne...


And it's a public relations disaster, as well. Can we be sure this isn't sabotage aimed at bring DREs back???

Here we have an opinion that DREs would be better...as if not knowing that the election is screwed up is preferable to knowing that its all screwed up. Not that the "at least I vote on a paper ballot" is any less specious an argument.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-neweditbal...

[Wilms]

16. Off to court we go...

Palm Beach County election mess passed on to the courts

Mark Hollis, Sun-Sentinel

September 5, 2008

"We have done as thorough of a post- or mid-election review as we can do to reconcile apparently irreconcilable numbers," said County Judge Barry Cohen, the chairman of the canvassing board.

Canvassing board members insisted, though, that they expect an investigation into why nearly 3,500 ballots disappeared between the Aug. 26 primary election and a recount last weekend.

snip

McCarty noted that there appears to have been no single reason for the missing ballot dilemma. Therefore, she said, there's new emphasis on figuring out - before the Nov. 4 general election - all the factors.

snip

County Commissioner Jess Santamaria, a canvassing board member, said he remains concerned about the accuracy of the optical scan voting machines, and he said he thinks some of the ballot-counting mystery is owed to the rush officials were under to produce a recount.

snip

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/sep/05/palm-beach-count... /



And the article mentions hand counting.