Below are the basic things I wanted to know about NH, some of which I had trouble quickly finding out. Two broad categories: 1. Basic bare-bones description of the voting system. 2. Problems and controversies (with links).
A general overall problem in providing info to people--how little people know about some basic facts. For instance, some people may not know that optiscans have a paper ballot but 99% to 100% of the ballots are NOT counted (and in a recount only, say, 3% are counted), and touchscreen have no paper ballot and often no paper trail at all, thus the vote total is not just unverified, it is unverifiable. So these basics should be stated, with regard to each state's system. For instance, if it's touchscreens, add "no paper ballot" to the description.
Another simple fact a lot of people don't realize is that ALL electronic voting machines, optiscan or touchscreen and central tabulators, are run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code that the public cannot review, and that this secrecy is not necessary--open source code could be used--and is profit-driven, as well as making the systems highly vulnerable to insider hacking. In FL-13, a highly suspicious 2006 election, in which ES&S voting machines 'disappeared' 18,000 votes for Congress in Democratic areas, and gave the election to the Republican by a margin of only 350 or so votes, ES&S asserted in court that its right to profit from our elections with its "trade secret" code trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted--and the Florida judge agreed. Thus, the principle of transparency and public vote counting was lost, at least in Florida courts. It is important for people to know how arrogant and audacious ES&S--and the corporate agenda they are promoting--in evaluating their extremely flawed voting systems.
These are important facts, and we cannot keep re-stating them in describing each state's system, so perhaps we should have a preliminary paragraph, describing some common points, such as the "trade secret" code point--or have a "Note" covering common points to attach to all state descriptions. (Another important item is who is doing the exit polls, and how. See below.)
Here is what I would like to have known about NH...
1. Method(s) of counting votes. % of state using method (and where?). % of audit (automatic handcount, as check on machine fraud). Voting system manufacturer(s). Voting machine model if relevant.
EXAMPLE: NH: 80% of state uses Diebold optiscan, paper ballot, zero handcount (generally urban areas); 20% of state simple paper ballot with handcount (mostly rural areas). Diebold optiscan model: AccuVote-OS.
(Note: The info in my examples has not all been verified. I still don't know what % NH's audit of optiscan ballots is--I suspect 0% handcount check of the optiscans--from remarks made here at DU--but not sure. Verified Voting's info does NOT state what % the audit is (nor does anybody that I can find), and does NOT indicate that 20% of state, rural areas, has handcount, nor that there is some handcounting in urban areas. They describe every county as having "Diebold optiscan - precinct-based" (and it's not easy to find out what that means; I still don't know). The 20% rural handcount came out in posts on the NH primary at DU and elsewhere, but was not easily known upfront from internet info alone. I learned about the rural handcounting by chance from a NH resident comment at DU. Handcounted precincts provide a "control"--a point of comparison--with machine counted totals. This was very important in the recent NH primary, since handcount favored Obama and machine count favored Clinton--an indicator that the machine count may be wrong.)
EXAMPLE: SC: all ES&S touchscreens, no ballot or paper trail of any kind, ergo no handcount (audit) of any kind; completely unverifiable vote.
(Note: So far, I can't find out if they've added printers and have some kind of paper trail. A Common Cause spreadsheet, linked at
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4416, says that SC's iVotronic (ES&S) machines have "VVPAT" (voter verified paper audit trail) "capability," but doesn't says if they in fact have a VVPAT. Status of the paper trail is important. Is it voter verified? Can it disagree with machine totals, or is it just hard copy of machine-generated data?)
2. Problems and controversies. Level of confidence
EXAMPLE: NH: Recount in 2004 seemed to verify machine vote, but activists say the recount was invalid (
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30018). The Diebold optiscans now in use were the same type of machines that independent expert Harri Hursti easily hacked (need a link). Both Diebold (now called Premier) and its local sub-contractor in NH--LHS--employ convicted felons (need a link). The existence of a paper ballot makes the vote count verifiable, but verification is not pursued. Level of confidence (scale of 1 to 5): 0. (Wrong outcomes could easily occur.)
EXAMPLE: SC: Voters Unite describes a "hurricane" of problems with ES&S voting machines, across the nation (lost votes, switched votes, phantom votes, backwards counting, etc), with severals examples from SC (
http://www.votersunite.org/info/ESSMidasinreverse.asp), and specific details in the SC section (at
http://www.votersunite.org/info/failuresbystate.asp). Brad Friedman discusses a computer virus affecting ES&S machines in 16 states including SC (
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4416). Dan Rather documents problems with manufacture of ES&S touchscreens in sweatshops in the Philippines ("The Trouble With Touch screens," www.HD.net). Level of confidence (scale of 1 to 5): -5. (Wrong outcomes WILL occur, and have occurred.)
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The above two broad categories--1. basic description of the system in plain English, and 2. problems/controversies--may do as a start on a standard format for our election system service for the primaries.
Small states like NH and SC often are fairly uniform in the voting system and the practices, and can be easily summed up--although caveat re the handcounted rural areas in NH, which did not show up on the Verified Voting web site (--it seemed to be all Diebold optiscan). We need local resident advisers on things like that.
And giant states like California could be described this way--generally--but county by county, grouped in regions, would be more useful. Some California counties are bigger than NH, and there are a lot of California counties. It isn't much help to say: "CA: Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia et al, optiscan, touchscreen, punchcard, etc., etc." Specifics by county are needed. Also, some 50% of California voters are choosing to vote by Absentee ballot (distrust of the machines, I'm sure), and that info is hard to come by, and would significantly skew stats on, say, touchscreen vs. optiscan results. (AB votes are scanned into the electronic system in most places).
The only broad thing that is true of all California counties is that the state requires a paper ballot or VVPAT, and a 1% audit. Partisanship or prejudice in the administration of elections varies widely from county to county. Where Republicans control the county (due to gerrymandering or demographics), there is less vigilance over the system, and more problems, such as county officials ignoring the Secretary of State's orders on insuring that every California can opt for a paper ballot. And there have been particular problems with election officials being advocates of, and salespeople for, Diebold or for no paper trail requirement, as in L.A. and San Diego. California is especially difficult to report on, as to voting systems, right now, because of our new Sec of State Debra Bowen's activism in riding herd on all these companies and county officials. I'm going to ask her office if they have a current list of 08 certified voting systems by county, because I don't trust old lists. (She recently decertified ES&S altogether, and there is some kind of "conditional" recertification going on.)
One other thing I would like to have known about the NH primary is who was doing the exit polls. It was Edison-Mitofsky and that was not easy to find out. Edison-Mitofsky is not to be trusted, since they routinely doctor their exit polls to force them to fit the official results (produced by "trade secret" programming). (Thus, we have TWO private corporate processes telling us who won, and little or no real verification being done). This could be handled in a general prelim paragraph to our info, or a general footnote, covering topics like the "trade secret" code.
One other thing: It would be good to identify a citizen activist election reform group in the state, for reporters and others to call for further info--and we should try identify any "parallel voting" or monitoring process that local citizens are doing to verify the vote, or document problems.
How are we coming on a list of upcoming primaries and their dates? I'm not sure where to get that. Anybody know?