Black Box Voting : 11-14-06: Arizona manual audit a farce

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11-14-06: Arizona manual audit a farce

Black Box Voting » Latest Investigations from Black Box Voting » 11-14-06: Arizona manual audit a farce

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admin
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbv

Post Number: 23
Registered: 10-2006

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 5 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 - 7:23 pm:

by Michael Shelby

The post-election audit law in Arizona to manually count 2 percent of the precincts was a farce.

Perhaps I was too optimistic, perhaps I wanted to believe we had made some progress. Even after I observed transfer of data between electronic tabulating machines by “thumb drives” at our Maricopa County Elections Department, when I saw that there was no security applied to the custody of the thumb drives before, during, or after the vote counting, I showed up for the post-election audit skeptical but hopeful.

Despite the rigid, nonsensical, arbitrary requirement that a quorum of 72 auditors from each major party must participate or the audit could not be performed, and even though I knew that almost every conceivable obstacle was inserted into SB 1557, Arizona’s Election Reform Bill, by obstructionists to election accountability; I thought that just maybe, this time, we might have a go at accountability.

Sadly, it was not to be.

The first day of the audit was spent scrambling for the necessary quorum to even conduct the audit. Needing 72 auditors from each major party, the Democrats fielded an initial 80 and the Republicans only 50 by the initial start time of 1:00PM. Elections Director Karen Osborne gave a one hour grace period for each party to beat the bushes for more bodies. For a moment it appeared as if the operatives from both parties had trolled the local public golf courses for retirees. Then the entire staff of “20 and 30 something’s” from the AZ Democratic Party Headquarters paraded in as if displaced from a scene in Animal House. Add to that some mothers with sleeping infants in their carriers, a college freshman here or there, some other late comers, and a wonderful lady whose first vote was probably cast for FDR and VOILA! The quorum was exceeded, there would be an audit! That was the first day.

Returning on the second day well before the 9:00AM drop-dead start time to avoid being shut out from the audit, I had expectations of the time and tedium that would be involved in the manual counting and reconciling of the ballots with the machines. This was going to take several days and be painstaking, boring albeit important work.

A statistically significant procedure in SB 1557 for counting the ballots had been negotiated vigorously between the obstructionists and the proponents of real election reform in which I participated, negotiations which can best be described as trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. The opposition embodied an uncanny ability to deny factual evidence presented right before their eyes and to dismiss statistical methodologies universally accepted by the fact-based scientific community. The perceived need to have at least something for the 2006 election led to compromises that should never have been allowed. Still, we got what we got so we could proceed. Then, when all was said and done, the bill passing unanimously in the House, they manipulated the procedures manual so as to make the post-election audit a travesty.

Back to the audit...

The auditors were divided up in to several rooms in tables of three persons each. The tables alternated two D’s with one R or two R’s with one D. The atmosphere was collegial and friendly regardless of party affiliation. These were patriots assembled for fact finding not fault finding or partisanship. After taking an oath administered by the Director of Elections everyone heartily agreed that we were no longer members of individual parties. Every person gave over their time and energy knowing that they were to attend for the duration of the counting for it to proceed without being prematurely terminated producing, in effect, no audit.

Frankly, I was proud to be among these good people. We showed up to give assurance that this past election was accurately and honestly recorded and, if not, made good. What we got was a deceitfully manipulated counting procedure that so diluted the sample plan as to call the statistical validity of the count into serious doubt.

According to Dr. Tom Ryan, PhD, an engineer and a principal negotiator of the election reform bill from Tucson Arizona, "The Audit Procedures Manual is evidence of a lack of support and interest from the Secretary of State." This manual is supposed to make the procedures clear, removing ambiguity in the law. It removed ambiguity by minimizing the size of the audit, it added confusion, and in some aspects is just plain wrong.

Two percent of the precincts, which was rounded up to 24 individual precincts in Maricopa County, would be selected for counting four of the same races in each precinct. Seems simple enough. Dr. Ryan said, “The 24 precincts in Maricopa County would be statistically significant if done correctly.” Theoretically, then, each table of auditors should have been assigned a precinct and the four races that would be manually counted and compared to the machine generated tape of the results. What we got, however, was significantly different than what I expected.

One race. One precinct.

Instead of counting four races selected from one federal race, one statewide race, one congressional race, and one proposition; what we received was one congressional race in one precinct.

That was to be our entire assignment and the elections officials were gleefully talking of being done with the entire audit by the end of the day. Clearly, this didn’t fit with my expectations, but, I figured we would receive the other races as we finished this first assignment. As time passed completing the counting I noticed the room becoming visibly absent of the same number of people as began in the morning.

We completed our "first" race while others had suspended to have lunch. When we broke for lunch I asked the Elections Director about the sampling plan. That's when I learned the ugly truth of the day.

Bumfuzzled by the tedium of counting with extreme attention to accuracy and a bit slow on the uptake in general, I didn’t quite comprehend what I was hearing. In my mind something was wrong with what I was being told because it just didn’t compute with what I knew was supposed to happen. So, I asked around to some of the less arithmetically challenged election integrity activists and confirmed what I was told. The sample plan had been radically altered, resulting in significantly lower ballots being sampled than had been the intent of the legislation!

Instead of counting four races in each of 24 precincts, the precincts were divided into four subsets of six precincts. Then, each precinct was assigned a single, not four but ONE, race to audit selecting from the federal, congressional, statewide race, or proposition. This dilution of the sample plan by 75% had the effect of making a 2% audit a 0.5% audit, rendering it statistically insignificant. Slipped into SB 1557 was an additional reduction in the auditing of early ballots to only 1% of those ballots cast, diluting the sample plan even further, adding to the farce!

My blood pressure rose, I literally saw red for the first time I can recall, and I wanted to effect some corporal punishment on the nearest election official, but I did not. And besides, the audit was being held in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Training Facility and we were under armed guard.

Counties can opt out of auditing. Six did.

Oh, and one more quirk in the law. Counties can opt out of even performing the audit! Six of which, who didn’t care enough about the integrity of elections apparently, chose to do so. Good grief!

The post-election audit of the 2006 general election in Arizona was indeed a farce! All those good people who volunteered their time, energy, and sincerity were effectively disenfranchised of their right to verify the election.

Now we know what we need to do to get ready for 2008. Better yet, let’s just throw the machines out and return to hand counted manual ballots, in public, at the polling place. The time and effort to hand count the ballots would be less than all the work going into trying to “test in” veracity.

Let’s replace the highly suspect, hackable, secret software computers that will never be trustworthy, the redundant audit, and the corrupt politicians and corporations controlling our votes with an engaged electorate who will honestly and accurately count our votes in public.

THIS REPORT FROM THE FRONT LINES WAS PROVIDED TO BLACK BOX VOTING ON REQUEST, FROM A VETERAN CITIZEN ADVOCATE FOR ELECTION ACCOUNTABILITY, MICHAEL SHELBY.

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED

* * * * *

Be very clear about your job as a citizen right now: It is to reverse the swing of the pendulum. It's been swinging away from citizen control -- your job is to take back your government. Start at the local level.

You own your government -- not the other way around. It is time to get out of your chair, step away from the Internet, and get involved in citizen oversight.

We salute the extraordinary citizens who are taking back America.

Sherry Healy
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Sherry_healy

Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006