Another E-voting flub...IN WISCONSIN!

[ewagner]

By Jake Rigdon
For the Marshfield News-Herald
MEDFORD - About 27 percent of all votes cast in Medford during the Nov. 2 election were not counted because a programmer improperly set the device that records the ballots, officials say.

Medford uses a voting machine purchased in 1999 that electronically counts the votes. The machine requires a software programmer from Election Systems & Software to set it for partisan elections, which the programmer failed to do, said Taylor County Clerk Bruce Strama.

That failure meant that the votes of everyone who voted straight ticket - anyone who voted only for candidates of a single party - were not counted. In all, about 600 of 2,256 ballots cast were not counted, Strama said.


<http://www.wisinfo.com/newsherald/mnhlocal/285285292773470.shtml>

[Wilms]

1. Funny you should mention...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=341483

[ewagner]

2. Thanks fro the reference.........

I'm convinced that this isn't accidental.

Too many coincidences here....everybody knew Wisconsin was going to be close.....a few "programming errors" here and there could have made all the difference or even helped pad Dubya's numbers....

[Eloriel]

14. Not only that, but this is by NO means the only occurrance of that

little "problem," of straight party ballots coming up with problems.

The important thing here is that we now KNOW that the programs are set up to potentially discriminate against these types of elections and ballots.

[Bill Bored]

19. Right! No hacking required. It's just "configuration." nt

[Ellipsis]

3. this may be posturing FOR the Accenture contract in WI.

"There's really nothing voters can do at this point," said Kevin Kennedy, the executive secretary of the State Elections Board. "But they need to be assured that the city, county and state are making sure that this never happens again."


He is an advocate, I believe

:hi:

[Kashka-Kat]

11. not really, he just signed w/ Accenture to compile voter regs

like, isnt this one of the most questionable corporations in existance? Even Florida gave them the boot. So, Mr. Kennedy is either incredibly uninformed, or has terrible judgement.

[Ellipsis]

12. The legitimacy of the Accenture contract is the subject of a lawsuit.

Someone came to the door. I would have elaborated Tho...Oft times I think it better then I type it. (it's the bees) With the help of a lot of good people in the state the final outcome is yet to be determined.

There is a good article in the web edition in todays Cap times here.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=30531&ntpid=1

and another "interesting" read.
http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_20155195.shtml

some snips for you

<snip>

Wisconsin recently signed a $13.9 million contract with Accenture LLC, a subsidiary of a Bermuda-based conglomerate, to create and maintain the state's voter registration list through 2010, and a $2.7 million contract with DeLoitte Consulting LLP to manage the project.

<snip>

Wisconsin's tab is unnecessarily steep, says state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, adding that Wisconsin won't even own the program software after its contract with Accenture expires in five years.

<snip>

In late December, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and others filed suit in Dane County Circuit Court alleging that Kennedy did not have the authority to sign the contract with Accenture without approval by the Elections Board.

<snip>

The Department of Justice is also investigating whether state open records or open meetings laws were violated in the procurement process.


The part I like the best is the state WILL NOT OWN THE SOFTWARE.

....Jeepers!

[Eloriel]

15. And let's never forget THIS about Accenture --

formerly Arthur Andersen, the wonderful people who brought you ENRON STYLE ACCOUNTING!! (they were Enron's auditing firm, the very ones who found all their accounting just ship-shape)

[Ellipsis]

18. Hello Eloriel, Yes of course, you're right.

I take it for granted people understand the history. They are that and more, multinational and diverse. Everyone should understand the critical role they play.

[Mills Street]

4. Medford

Having lived 5 miles from Medford, I can assure you that there are no votes for the Republicans to suppress in Medford. They would be suppressing their own.

[Carolab]

21. Oh sure. There are NO Dems in Medford. And NO disgruntled Repubs.

eom

[Wilms]

22. That's fine.

If it wound up favoring Kerry, a Republican may be motivated to question this technology.

:)

[berniew1]

5. There were lots of "glitches" like this that weren't caught because

activist did not check their counties voter logs to the official votes. Note this and many other fraud and glitches were caught because people checked the vote log book voters against official results. The official results were extemely unreliable in this election with many thousands of "glitches". Interesting most of these glitches all went in one direction. very statistically unusual.

Given the huge amount of partisanship and the extreme unreliability of the equipment being use and the systems in use, activists in all counties should systematically check the vote logs vs official votes in all precincts.

And it can still be done.

Lot of stuff still undiscovered, and easy to find.

[berniew1]

6. Here are links for Wisconsin election problems

http://www.flcv.com/wisconsi.html

[Bill Bored]

7. Hmmmm, WI, isn't that Sensendrenner's state? You bet!

I think Conyers needs to have a sit-down with this guy and get those hearings going ASAP.

[Bill Bored]

8. Partisan Races

This is yet another option with these machines. It refers to primaries in which you can only vote for the party that matches your registration, as determined by the smart card you are handed by the poll workers.

While I've started researching some of the errors that could occur with straight party voting (another set of options), the idea of setting up a machine as a partisan race (Dems vote only for Dems and Repubs only for Repubs) is even more compelling and I have not yet considered the implications. On the surface, it would seem that ANY cross-party vote would be eliminated, whether the machine is set up for Straight Party voting or not. Again, this would disenfranchise Republicans for Kerry, or Democrats for Bush. If there were more of the former than the latter though, it's advantage Bush!

[berniew1]

9. Some states did have Dem machines and Repub machines and some had messups

Some states had separate machines for straight party voting for Dems and Repubs and some had other systems regarding straight ticket voting. But there were huge swings due to improperly counted votes by people voting straight ticket in many states,

such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, etc.
see http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html
or http://www.flcv.com/summary.html

I think Pennsylvania was one that had separate machines for Dems and Repubs; maybe some counties in Georgia, there were others I think.

In S. Carolina and N. Carolina those who voted straight party Dem did not get a vote counted for Kerry. So they had huge undervotes in Presidential race in those states. People who thought they were voting for Kerry but didn't get their vote counted. And its clear some officials and poll workers confused the voters- either deliberately or through misfeasance.

In many states the touch screen machines had defaults as part of the compiler counting mechanism, and what these defaults are gives a big advantage to one candidate or another. Virtually all defaults went against Kerry. In Texas, the default vote for President for straight Dem voters was Bush. So the compilers assumed that anyone who voted straight Dem ticket would want to vote for Bush for president and counted it that way. Big swing.

In Indiana the default for Dem straight ticket voters was Libertarian. In 9 counties with touch screens the straight Dem ticket votes for President went to the libertarian candidate.
Similar problem in other races.

Other various problems on defaults for straight Dem voters in other states. Big mess, Kerry lost huge number of votes of people who voted straight Dem ticket but they weren't compiled that way.

What counts is the way they are compiled. Not the way they were intended.

[Wilms]

10. What can I say other than...Kick. n/t

[Melissa G]

13. kickety kick!

[Bill Bored]

16. Bernie

What you're suggesting goes even further than what I've suggested in this other thread:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x341483>

AFAIK, all this can be set up through GEMS. It doesn't even require hacking, compiling (as in code compiling), etc. It can be done at the user interface. It's just CONFIGURATION.

Suppose Badnarik is defined as part of a straight-party Dem ticket as the candidate for POTUS and Bush is the straight-party Repub choice on the SAME machine. The ballot text could be edited to call Badnarik a "Libertarian", but when the voter selects the Dem straight party, Badnarik would in fact be the default selection for POTUS. If he's in the Dem Voter Group, the ballot defaults to Badnarik whenever an unsuspecting Democrat chooses to vote straight party. Now what happens to John Kerry? Nothing. It says Democrat(ic) next to his name on the ballot; he's just not part of the Dem straight party Voter Group. If the voter doesn't change her straight party selection, Badnarik gets the vote.

[berniew1]

17. I don't know what the programming was in Indiana, but it has

been investigated and confirmed that it happened in 9 counties.
And it changed some election results in those counties. There is an article reference at voters unite, and probably in my Indiana summary:
http://www.flcv.com/Indiana.html

There are also cites in the other state summaries
Texas: http://www.flcv.com/texas.html

[Bill Bored]

20. We need to write James Sensenbrenner and demand Conyers' hearings.

Here we have a DRE problem in Sensen's home state, reported in a local paper. Make sure he sees it, and tell him to hold the hearings John Conyers has been requesting.

The link may no longer work, but the summary above says enough.