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| (NM) 10/08 - Santa Fe: Straight party... |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9855
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 - 8:51 am: | 
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(From BBV Admin) - This merits more investigation. It's my understanding that the L&A tests in Santa Fe County were more extensive than it has been in the past, thanks to the watchdog actions of New Mexico citizens, and might NOT have caught this problem had they not insisted on more diligent testing. Furthermore, stating that it would be caught because there were a lot of undervotes is completely disengenuous: (a) There WERE a lot of undervotes in 2004, and it was NOT caught, except by a vigilant California citizen named Judy Alter and a citizen-inspired lawsuit by VotersUnite (b) It doesn't matter if undervotes are "caught" -- the voters are still disenfranchised. How do you figure out who the undervotes would have been for, and what is the remedy? Answers: You can't, and there is none.
Associated Press - Oct. 7, 2008, by Deborah Baker
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/30557559.html?elr=KArksac8P3iUec7Pa P3iUqc8P3UU
Elections officials find, fix glitch that could have affected NM presidential race tally
SANTA FE, N.M. - A glitch that would have kept votes from being counted in the presidential and other top-of-the-ticket races was discovered during a pre-election check of a voting machine in Santa Fe County, officials said.
The error was found Friday and corrected the same day, said Denise Lamb, who heads the elections bureau in the county clerk's office.
The problem in the coding of the machine's memory card would have prevented the tabulating machine from counting the votes in the presidential, U.S. Senate and 3rd District congressional races when Democrats or Republicans marked their ballots indicating they wanted to vote a straight ticket.
In New Mexico — a state where the presidential contest between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain could be close — voters use paper ballots that are inserted into optical scanning machines for counting.
Heavily Democratic Santa Fe County was the only county in which the problem occurred, according to Automated Election Services, which prints ballots, codes memory cards and provides other election assistance to the state and counties.
"It's a standard test that every county does, just for this reason," said AES President Terry Rainey.
County officials discovered the error as they were testing a machine that will be used in the clerk's office, where as of Tuesday voters may request absentee ballots and fill them out on the spot.
Because the problem was in memory cards, all the county's tabulating machines would have been affected had it not been caught, Rainey said.
The glitch likely would have come to the attention of elections officials at some point, when it appeared that a suspiciously large number of voters hadn't cast ballots in the top races.
"One of the major benefits to the paper ballot system is that if there is, in fact, a programming issue or malfunction of computer equipment, we have the paper ballots you can go back to and re-create the election," Rainey said. |
Marty Hulsebos
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Marty2858
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 4:07 pm: |
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Doesn't a paper ballot record that it is a straight ticket vote, and if so, wouldn't a recount be able to correct an undervote? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9864
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 6:29 am: |
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Hi Marty, and welcome to Black Box Voting.
Recounts are only available in certain situations, and usually just the existence of an undervote is not sufficient to allow a recount. And that's if it's noticed. There were significant undervotes in New Mexico in the 2004 presidential race and the only person who noticed it -- and realized it was due to straight party ballots dropping the presidential race -- was a woman from San Diego working as a volunteer. And that was long after recount and contest periods had expired. |
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