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| 9-21-08: Excruciating issues with vot... |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9807
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 9:45 am: | 
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By Bev Harris
THE TWO HALVES OF HAVA
The second half of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA, perhaps more accurately termed the "Help Yourself to America's Vote Act") is just now kicking into play nationwide.
THE FIRST HALF OF HAVA strong-armed local elections jurisdictions into buying tamper-friendly voting machines.
THE SECOND HALF OF HAVA involves nationwide implementation of mandated, centralized tamper-friendly voter list databases at the state level.
WITH COMPUTERS, 'FIXES' CAN CAUSE NEW THINGS TO BREAK
The news coming out of Wisconsin provides a good illustration for how to break a system by fixing it.
Wisconsin engaged the services of Accenture to develop its centralized statewide voter database. Records obtained by Black Box Voting in 2006 revealed significant problems with the database in the midst of the November general election. Just days before the election, emergency troubleshooting was being performed, and days after the election, the system was shut down for repairs:
Now, you may think "That was in 2006, why worry in 2008?" Now look again at the dates. Major issues were being resolved Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, right before the election, and these records didn't come to light until AFTER the election. Wisconsin was using the system in 2006; many other states will use the statewide databases for the first time in 2008.
(Scroll to the end of this article for examples of 2006 Wisconsin voter list database problems).
AS OF JULY 2008
Problems with "SVRS" (Wisconsin's Statewide Voter Registration System) still had not been resolved:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/176/76544.html
According to May 2008 news articles, Colorado's voter database doesn't work very well either:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/133/77621.html
and according to August 2008 news articles, Florida's database produced vote stoppages during voting.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/137/77467.html
If we are going to use a system that relies on voter registration to authorize voters, it is reasonable that it should contain an accurate, findable record of who is authorized. The Wisconsin and Colorado databases don't always do that, and the Florida database chokes when used. Which other states will break down? This is all so new we won't really know until the records come out in the months AFTER the presidential election.
TOP ELECTIONS OFFICIALS COULDN'T MATCH THEIR OWN VOTER RECORDS
When the six Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board members ran their names through new voter identification checks as a test, four of the searches failed:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/176/78037.html
Therefore, the Board de-activated the requirement to find a "complete match" of the voter's data in the motor vehicle or Social Security database. If two-thirds of the state's top election officials couldn't find match their own data, they reasoned, too many voters would hit roadblocks on Election Day.
WISCONSIN A.G. NOW TRYING TO FORCE STATE TO USE A SYSTEM THAT DOESN'T WORK
In stepped Wisconsin attorney general J.B. Van Hollen, who is now suing to reinstate cross-matching requirements. http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/176/78066.html
Wisconsin has been trying to cross reference data in disparate databases, like voter reg and driver's license. Requiring an exact match in such circumstances simply doesn't work! No voter should be required to dig around in every state database to see if he used a nickname, middle initial, or had an apostrophe affixed, just to meet an arbitrary "exact match" specification.
Wisconsin has same-day voter registration, which offers some protection for voter disenfranchisement, but will not protect absentee voters excised by over-aggressive cross matching procedures that depend on a defective database. Even same-day registrants, if the cross-matching requirement is in place, may not have their votes counted.
"IT'S POLITICAL"
The Republican vs. Democrat nature of the voter list fights is more complex than partisans from either party are letting on. Republicans have long accused Democrats of stuffing the voter rolls; an analysis of past voting figures from Democratic stronghold Lake County, Indiana tends to support that contention. In 2004, Lake County had more votes show up than voters.
Democrats contend that Republicans are trying to suppress votes by misusing the voter databases, an accusation that is supported by efforts targeting certain populations, trimming people off the voter rolls using over-aggressive criteria.
When both sides think the end justifies the means, the system breaks. Implementing major procedural changes causes more things to break.
Caught in the crossfire: Voters.
INEPT PROGRAMMING MAY BE THE LEAST OF OUR PROBLEMS
The new statewide databases enable centralized access for tampering the whole state, and targeted populations. Few checks and balances have even been contemplated to prevent this.
Any time you have a technician in there doing "emergency fixes" on the database just days before the election, you open the door for tampering. Watch for more information from Black Box Voting on how the second half of HAVA may enable a whole new kind of tampering.
MORE VOTER DATABASE PROBLEM DOCUMENTS:
These were obtained by Black Box Voting in 2006. Look for: the intimate relationship of the statewide voter databases to pollbooks, absentee voting, and balky performance issues. Pay close attention to dates: These issues took place during absentee voting, poll book generation, and canvassing of a live federal election.
(Permission to excerpt or reprint granted, with attribution & link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5296
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 1:01 pm: |
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This brings to mind a big irony. Voting technology has the (inadequate and ineffective) fig leaf of the EAC/FEC to test voting system software and hardware, and (in theory) prevent unapproved software or hardware changes from being used in an election, especially the last-minute kind of changes. But the state voter registration systems have no such federal requirement for testing, approval, or external verification of software or systems before an election. There is not even the fig leaf of an attempt to prevent voter registration systems that don't work from being used. The security/integrity issues are barely beginning to be considered, there is so much incompetence/lack of time causing problems it's difficult to tell what's accidental and what might be on purpose.
Unlike the lousy voting machines, the lousy databases can be tinkered with right up till the last minute and, presumably, during the election itself--with no scrutiny.
The voter registration databases are at least as much a potential threat to election integrity as all the voting systems and counting systems and missing-chain-of-custody issues. There are dozens or hundreds of opportunities for "Oops" excuses, many of them quite believable.
What is the way out of this horrible situation? |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1011
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 3:42 pm: |
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stuffing the voter rolls; an analysis of past voting figures from Democratic stronghold Lake County, Indiana tends to support that contention. In 2004, Lake County had more votes show up than voters.
No, it doesn't support the contention that the rolls are stuffed -- it supports the idea that the ballot box was stuffed or the machines aren't working.
If the rolls are stuffed, then there will not be more votes than voters; there would be some people who weren't real voters showing up or the lists would be falsely crossed off to accommodate the rogue votes, no? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9808
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 3:45 pm: |
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Christine,
I think I misstated the Lake County situation. It appeared from the EAC data tables that there were more voters on the rolls than estimated voting age population. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9809
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 4:11 pm: |
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Catherine: You are exactly right. The databases can be manipulated DURING the election, including during the early and absentee voting periods, on Election Day itself, during post-election absentee processing, and during the canvass and contest periods. Very fluid, and very, very dangerous.
This will be the subject of a more extensive expose I'm working on, and it should be out within the week. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1012
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 - 3:22 am: |
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Bev revised her earlier statement to say:
think I misstated the Lake County situation. It appeared from the EAC data tables that there were more voters on the rolls than estimated voting age population.
Thanks, Bev. Is there a way for citizens to do an early oversight on what the database in their state is showing?
In our state, the actual database is not used during the election, as we do not have EDR and people work from paper lists. That would seem to make it possible to lock down the database during the election. There's another interesting aspect of this: the work that is done on the programming repairs of the voter reg database in CT is completed by the equivalent of the state's IT department (I think the acronym is DO IT - probably for dept of IT). In some states, this may be done by a vendor. Looking forward to your further thoughts on the way to prevent manipulation of the databases. What aspects of database repair must be considered? Who should/should not have access to the passwords associated with inputting and how much variation in passwords should there be? Can any of the state databases be accessed remotely (working from home, e.g.)? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9811
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 - 6:41 am: |
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I apologize for the Lake County misstatement. The actual figures from the EAC Table are:
# of voting age citizens: 350,454
# registered voters: 353,826
# votes cast: 193,472
% turnout: 54.7
There are three possible explanations for having more people registered than there are voting age citizens:
1. Voting age population figures could be understated.
2. Failure to clean voting list for years has lots of "dead wood" on the voter list. This would be supported by the fact that Lake County has done large purges and cancels on its voter list.
However, it's not really supported by the turnout figures. If there was an extraordinary amount of dead wood on the voter list, it would show up in the turnout figures.
For example: 50 voters out of 100 real voters would be a 50 percent turnout rate. A 50 percent turnout of the real voters for (80 real voters, 20 defunct registrations) would be a 40% turnout rate. If the voter list was inflated because it contains dead wood, turnout would appear to be lower than locations with cleaner lists. That does not seem to be the case
3. Stuffed voter reg list, or list that contains dead wood, with someone voting the dead wood.
That would account for the figures shown in Lake County. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1017
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 - 9:54 am: |
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The number of votes cast is not the same as the number of ballots cast.
How many votes per ballot? If it's a single race election, we are back to ballots equal to votes. If not, this could be a source of discrepancy. |
Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 169
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 - 9:58 am: |
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Christine asks: "...a way for citizens to do an early oversight on what the database in their state is showing?..."
My answer is "Yes, sort'a, if."
The "IF" is a big one. If someone in the citizen review team possesses an original copy of the voter-registration database from whatever earlier year of interest. Many states (most?) have not maintained a state-wide combined list, but this can be done county-by-county (or whatever the local jurisdiction is.)
Also obtain a copy of the current list. Do a database match, to pick up the differences - granting that is not an easy task for a zillion reasons. Entries that DO match (name, address, etc) are one category. The same address with totally different names is probably someone who moved. If TWO families show at one address, the old ones and a new one - it's an AHA! Also interesting is an address in the OLD list, but it doesn't show up in the NEW list - were they purged?
The rub comes with sorting out slightly different names, but even so, much can be determined.
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9812
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 8:34 am: |
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Christine, the figures were for the 2004 general election. Not a single-race election.
Marian, the problem with the voter lists is that they remain fluid throughout the election in many states. That's right: The lists are changed and "updated" DURING the voting.
The lists need to be on lockdown from the day before the election until after the canvassing period. But they aren't. Therefore, there IS no "official version" to compare things to. It literally changes minute by minute. A horrible concept. |
Frank Furillo
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jazzharp
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 - 10:02 am: |
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Van Hollen loses!
http://www.channel3000.com/politics/17787552/detail.html?treets=c3k&tml=c3k_brea k&ts=T&tmi=c3k_break_1_11080210232008
"Breathtaking power grab" Is the money quote. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9901
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 - 12:18 pm: |
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Thanks, Frank,
I'll headline it and post it in the Wisconsin section as well. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1052
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 - 4:52 am: |
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The judge's decision about who can enforce election laws (only the US attorney general) is one answer to a question I have had for a long time (which is: who enforces the various federal election laws and how?). Are certain powers transferred to the states for enforcement? Do state laws that mirror the federal laws enable them effectively to produce the same result as the federal law? (For example, some states have state laws that require ballots from federal elections to be stored for 22 months, identical to the federal law requirement).
It will be interesting to see 1) whather and 2) how this jurisdiction been clarified by the federal government and in other law suits. |
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