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| 11-12-07: Unauthorized vote alteratio... |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7069
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 19 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007 - 8:07 pm: | 
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Appreciation to San Mateo Calif. citizen Brent Turner for his contributions to this story
When Wharton County, Texas citizen Jim Welch voted last Tuesday, he watched in disbelief as the voting machine changed the vote he'd entered a few moments earlier.
The machine was an ES&S iVotronic touch-screen, the same model recently subjected to a blistering Dan Rather investigative report, but what Welch witnessed does not seem explainable as a manufacturing defect or screen calibration problem like those exposed in Rather's report.
The case has earmarks that may indicate election fraud.
"Vote-flipping" on touch-screens has been documented before. Manufacturers claim votes show up for a different choice than that chosen by the voter sometimes, explaining that this is due to miscalibration of the computer's touch-screen. Miscalibration somehow never seems to happen when you use the airport touchscreens, hopping to "2" bags when you press "1" bag, but according to voting machine vendors it is not uncommon when casting votes. A touch on one part of the machine can register on a different part of the machine due to screen miscalibrations, but this doesn't seem to explain what Welch saw.
What Welch witnessed was votes that registered CORRECTLY when he touched the screen, switching later to a different vote choice, when he was almost finished voting the full page.
Welch was stunned to see a correctly marked vote take on a life of its own, hopping over to a different spot while he voted on other items. He called an elections worker over to show him the problem. The elections worker helped him re-vote the ballot, and both men watched as the vote registered correctly, but later spontaneously altered to shift to another ballot choice.
What is especially interesting about this report is this: The iVotronic voting machines display sets of ballot questions on several different screens, called "pages." If a voting machine alters the vote after a voter has progressed to a later page, the voter won't witness the movement of the vote from one selection to another.
Even if voters take the extra time to page back through every ballot screen in the election, they may not catch the error – and even if they catch the error, both voters and poll workers may attribute it to voter error. Since the vote may be designed to change AFTER the page is turned, even paging back to "check" does not stop the vote from morphing back to an incorrect selection once the voter leaves the page.
What Welch saw was not a screen calibration problem because it registered on the screen correctly. It was not "voter error" because he literally watched the vote re-write itself to another selection, not once, but twice.
The election worker called the Wharton County elections office. Welch was astute enough to see that the suggested solution was not responsive to the real issue:
"You may continue on with this ballot if you like," said the elections worker after conferring with Wharton County elections personnel, "Or I can void this and you can start over."
This is a machine that had already demonstrated it can't be trusted. This is a machine that would fail the much-touted "Logic & Accuracy" testing purported to prove voting machines don't cheat. This is a machine that would not have passed certification tests had it performed this way for the test labs. This is a machine that has no business counting votes at all.
And because the iVotronic voting systems are centrally programmed, and the programming defines how the machine counts its votes, this is a machine that has single-handedly cast doubt on every other iVotronic voting machine in Wharton County.
Jim Welch spoke with Wharton County Clerk Judy Owens about the matter, and she provided answers that were even more unrelated to the problem:
"You can go back and check your vote before casting it," she pointed out, referring to the voter's ability to page back one by one to review each panel. But if the machine can alter a vote – especially if the timing is such that this happens after you have moved to a new page – what good will that do?
"We can print each vote out," she said, but Welch astutely questioned how and when votes can be printed, They aren't printed at the same time as the voter votes, and the printouts simply re-create what the computer program records, so what good is that?
What can be done about this?
Welch has indicated that he will be willing to file certain public records requests to cast more light on this issue. He is meeting with other public officials in an effort to get paper ballots.
Black Box Voting has set up a new Election Protection section of this Web site. Welch and other citizens can publish all documents, results, and reports immediately now. Each state has an area for each jurisdiction. Go to "Forums" and scroll to the state, choose "Election Protection" and scroll to the appropriate county.
Wharton County can be found here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/171/70667.html
Three ways to upload documents:
1) Mail them to Black Box Voting and we'll scan and post
2) Fax them to our magic toll free fax number, which converts them to pdf format, and we'll post them. To get the magic fax number, e-mail crew@blackboxvoting.org and ask for it.
3) Self-upload the documents: Register, log in, go to state and county, post a message and use the "attach" feature to attach your scanned document.
Black Box Voting will provide related follow-up public records request letters for Jim Welch and other citizens who wish to investigate this matter. E-mail if you'd like to get involved in this or other Election Protection actions. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1578
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 7:08 am: |
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Bev,
Is it possible (just a question) that what Jim was doing on Item 11 was having an effect on Item 8 due to a problem with the touchscreen, or an incorrect setting on the "active" portion for selecting either Item 8 or Item 11?
I don't know what system specifically he was using - the post doesn't say. It sure SOUNDS like a touchscreen (the screen itself, not the whole machine) completely out of whack.
OOPS! Just looked again. It was an ES&S. Isn't that the one with the crappy Filipino screens?
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on November 13, 2007) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7071
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 7:46 am: |
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He was using an ES&S iVotronic. The crappy screens don't explain votes that flip after the screen has already correctly registered them.
(Moved this interchange from the Texas Election Protection section to the lead story section) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7072
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 7:51 am: |
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Here are more details from Mr. Welch's original post:
quote:While I in the process of voting for the first time with an "electronic voting machine" (in Wharton County we had been using paper ballots up till now) I actually saw the machine change my vote!
I was on page 2, item 11 (right hand column) when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the left hand column. In a blink of an eye my vote changed on Item 8 which I had already voted on. Incredulously I called for an election official to come over to my booth. With him looking on I changed my vote back to how I wanted it on Item 8 and then went on to my next item and we both witnessed Item 8 change back again ON ITS OWN!!!! The "machine" overrode my vote!!!
I am not naive enough to think this only happened once to me. How many other votes were changed is an answer I will never know. Even though a voter can review his votes on each issue before he "finalizes" his ballot there is absolutely no guarantee a change did not occur after he left a particular page, or even when he "finalized" his ballot.
The election official called a lady who is charge of Wharton County elections, a Ms. Owens, and informed her what had happened. He came back to me and inquired if I wanted to continue with the ballot, or if I so desired I could have a "new" electronic ballot. I told him, "No." If the electronic voting machine could override and change my vote once it could do it again.
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7073
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 8:15 am: |
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Regarding this:
quote:Is it possible (just a question) that what Jim was doing on Item 11 was having an effect on Item 8 due to a problem with the touchscreen, or an incorrect setting on the "active" portion for selecting either Item 8 or Item 11?
Review financial audits - when information in financial audits is incorrect and there is no ability to verify or authenticate, the auditor will often write something like this:
quote:Based on our assessment of fraud risk, we determined the risk for fraud to be too high and we were unable to apply other procedures to overcome this fraud risk...The significance of these issues prevents us from expressing an opinion and we do not express an opinion ...
(excerpted from Knox County Kentucky audit, 2003-04-05)
In other words, the burden is on the county to prove that their figures are correct and without that, and without the ability of an outside audit to independently corroborate the correctness of the result, the auditor refuses to certify the audit.
In still other words -- real audits take things seriously and presume fraud may be an issue.
Because the public can never check to see whether the vote counts were correct in Wharton County, and because even rudimentary documentation independent of that voting computer does not exist, this election should not be certified and a presumption of fraud needs to remain in place until an entity fully independent of county personnel and vendor can examine everything, including all other voting machines programmed by the same central entity.
All of the documents and processes need to be subject to public records, AS THEY ARE WITH GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS used in financial audits.
By the way, at least back in 2006, an independent subcontractor by the name of "DecisionOne" was doing the programming for the Texas iVotronics.
County clerk caught in the middle
Although County Clerk Judy Owens provided solutions nonresponsive to the problem, she is probably caught in the middle. Wharton County has a total population of just over 40,000, and no doubt this county clerk is wearing a lot of hats at once, probably none of which involve being a computer expert.
So she's trying to achieve damage control, probably with good intentions -- when in reality she was victimized by either the ES&S programmers or their subcontractor via a programming error or malicious coding. That situation would blow up her entire election, so she's faced with a PR problem and a damage control problem.
Vote of no confidence for Wharton County elections based on this incident.
Some solutions for Wharton County officials
Wharton County commissioners and the Wharton County Clerk should contact Bobby Kennedy Jr. to provide their information to his voting system false claims lawsuit, and should also talk with John Bonifaz of VoterAction.org to discuss how to use consumer protection litigation to get their money back on this defective system and its defective programming. BBV will provide Wharton County officials with the appropriate contact information for legal support if officials e-mail us privately.
Or, they can deny and minimize this very significant problem, which would take Wharton County officials out of the category of public officials vicitimized by opaque privatized programming and shoddy voting systems, and put them into the category of enablers, and there are generally consequences for that when citizen oversight groups kick in. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1579
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 10:38 am: |
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Presumably, since the machine in question has been positively identified, and WITH election official eyewitnessing, there should be NO problem getting a court order quarantining that machine, at least, for further examination. Should there? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7075
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 10:56 am: |
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The amazing thing is that they appear to have continued to use the machine. Am following up now to learn if that's the case, along with other information. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7078
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 12:08 pm: |
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Link to recommended follow up public records request:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/171/70672.html?1194982758#POST38157 |
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