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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7499
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 17 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 10:48 pm: | 
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No worries, say New Hampshire officials when cuts up to eight inches long are spotted in newly delivered ballot boxes. "The only seal that counts is the one on top."
Except the seal on top can be peeled off without leaving a trace, then reaffixed.
Black Box Voting has been doing a chain of custody exam for the New Hampshire Primary's recount. On Wednesday night, Election Defense Alliance's Sally Castleman mentioned a troubling observation: After following the ballots back to the ballot vault following Wednesday's recount, she had the opportunity to enter the ballot vault, and noticed what looked like cuts, or slits, in the side of many ballot boxes. New Hampshire officials assured us that these cuts, which slice through the tape and seals do not permit access to the uncounted ballots, pointing to a label on the boxtop which they call a seal.
But the "seal" can be removed, like a Post-it, and reaffixed. So it's not a seal all!
We wanted to know if the ballot boxes were slit while in the vault, in the transport van, or came from the towns with slits in them.
I confirmed this morning that many if not most of the boxes scheduled to be counted today had slits in them. I went out when a vanload of ballots arrived, and saw that they were slit at the time they arrived by van. Susan Pynchon and I drove to two nearby towns and watched as they handed over their ballot boxes to "Butch and Hoppy", the two men who drive around in the state in a van picking the ballots up. We observed as they loaded boxes of ballots into the van with no slits at all in them. We videotaped each of these up close. They arrived at the destination without slits. The label on the top was affixed, but in some cases was crumpled, or also damaged.
Of cource, the label affixed to the top can be removed and reattached without telltale signs.
No vault tonight
A significant departure from the normal chain of custody path occurred tonight. They decided not to use the vault to store the ballots.
More tomorrow. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 11:11 pm: |
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Thank you Bev and the rest of the American patriots in New Hampshire that are helping this recount happen. |
Hal Guentert
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Antifraud
Post Number: 9
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 12:35 am: |
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I have to laugh at the "seals" that seal nothing and the unexplained slits in the boxes, and wonder how this primary can be taken seriously.
There are probably hundreds of better solutions to the ballot storage and seals.
The problem is that each level of government seems to use this fumbling, hap-hazzard routine to explain away serious problems and many people continue to accept this as an excuse.
If there were some stiff felonies enforced, there would be fewer unexplained phenomenon, "coincidences", and destroyed evidence. Until these cuts are explained, this is an American tragedy, and a worldwide tragedy for the "democracy" we have forced on the world.
It is also more than a wake up call for New Hampshire and every other state, it is a fire alarm that cannot be ignored. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7500
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:30 am: |
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Writing this last night, I was quite tired. I will post photos - the slits are not "through the box" in the sense that they are in the middle of the cardboard. They deliver the ballots in a variety of cardboard boxes. The lid of the cardboard box is taped and has various seals on it, some old, from using the box before, some new. The slits cut through any tape or seals. They don't cut into the cardboard itself, and I'm going to edit the post above to clarify that.
The other thing that isn't clear from the above post is the timing.
The normal procedure has been:
- bring the incoming ballot boxes into the front door of the building
- roll them through the counting room, which is a large room similar to a library reference room
- from there to roll the cart containing the incoming ballot boxes through the back door of the counting room
- insert key card into the warehouse area door
- roll the ballots down the hall in the warehouse
- open the ballot "vault" door with a key (it is a sturdy metal door but opens with a single key)
- put the incoming ballots in the vault
- When they will be counted, take them from the vault back into the counting room.
1. We noticed the slits in the vault and confirmed when they brought the ballots out that the slits were still there.
2. Then we looked at the ballot boxes as they were being delivered. Those, too, had slits.
3. Then we visited towns that had ballots scheduled for pickup. We had time to visit only two towns. Both towns had ballot boxes with no slits.
4. While at these towns, we waited for the pickup van to show up. When it did, we videotaped the ballot boxes already in it.
5. When we got back to the archive building where they were having the recount, we awaited the van with the ballot boxes we just videotaped. We waited quite a while. Almost everyone left, the recount ended for the day, and still no van. The van finally pulled in after all but a couple observers had gone home. We videotaped what came out of the van. It was in the same condition as what we videotaped at the towns. Of course, Butch and Hoppy knew we had been taking videotape because we did it right in front of them.
What they did last night, with the incoming batch that we had photographed in the field, was roll them into the counting room. We waited. The handful of officials waited. These officials included Secretary of State Bill Gardner, Head of the Archive building Frank Mevers, Assistant secretary of state David Scanlan, Ballot transport drivers "Butch and Hoppy" (whose names are really Armand and Peter); Kucinich representatives Manny and Pat, a secretary of state assistant named, I think, Karen Hand.
They waited. We waited. It was very odd, to me at least. The ballots were sitting in the middle of the counting room, all these officials were standing around talking quietly with each other. I assumed they were waiting for something, results sheets perhaps. I decided to stay with video ready until the ballots were wheeled back to the vault.
One of the transport guys, "Hoppy" I think, then said that the ballots would not be taken to the vault that night because it was "closed" -- implying that whoever had the key was no longer there. Frank Mevers had the key. But I saw Frank Mevers. And the ballots had been moved to the vault even later the night before, because counting teams had stayed and counted up until about 7 pm.
So Sally and I waited. They affixed one of these post-it peelable labels on each front door and said everyone will leave out the back door and the order was given for all to leave. We filed out the back door. I asked Secretary of State Bill Gardner why there was a change in procedure. He did not answer. I asked him again. After about three tries, he just said "it's secure."
The handful of officials and the two Kucinich people hung around the back door. I asked more questions about why the ballots were being left in a room with no key card. They put one of the label stickers over the door and said "it's secure." I continued to wait with this small group of people. Finally they told us to leave and everyone left the building.
We got in our car and drove a ways away. Most of the people left. Bill Gardner and Anthony Stevens stayed around for a while, standing outside the loading bay talking. Then they left.
The upshot: The ballots we had videotaped in the van being transported, which arrived intact without slits, were not taken to the vault and were not kept in a location requiring keycard access last night (except that entering the building itself requires a keycard)
* * * * *
To put my concerns about this in context:
Paddy Shaffer and I arrived at the archive building on Tuesday afternoon prepared to videotape incoming ballots as they came in that afternoon and throughout the night. We were told the (in my opinion) contrived story that no videotaping would be permitted because mental patients from a hospital about a block away might wander into the parking lot/loading area. We made a point of pressuring Bill Gardner to have this ban lifted.
They had clearly been planning for ballots to begin arriving Tuesday. I asked Frank Mevers, head of the archive building, if he could walk us through the observation area where the ballot intake process would take place. At that point he went into the back, had a long phone call, and came out saying they wouldn't be delivering the ballots that night. |
Ed Kemon
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ekemon
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:58 am: |
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Hi Bev,
This is indeed disturbing. Perhaps a 24 hour citizen watch needs to be put on the Archives building to see who comes and goes. Will more ballots be delivered for the long weekend? Will there be lots of comings and goings all weekend by officials 'checking' the ballots?
Also,I thought the state police were required by law to pick up the ballots from each ward and town? Can someone get the complete name and address of the drivers so someone on the list can run background checks on them? |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 42
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:07 am: |
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Thank you, Bev, and likewise to all your partners out there.
The need for something better is as clear as the questions:
who needs it to be the way it is,
and why? |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 156
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:32 am: |
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Another thing I noticed was that, during the intake examination and sorting (sorting republican ballots and uncast ballots from cast ballots) some of the cardboard boxes were opened from the bottom -- completely avoiding the need to even touch the seal.
I will say that, to the credit of at least some of the staff (or to the credit that I was watching), when they put the labels on the boxes they were re-sealing they put the filament tape partially over a new label. While I observed this on some of the boxes that entered the room, I can't say I looked that carefully at most of them. (Also, I was only there the first day and thus only saw boxes from Manchester. It should be pointed out that some of the boxes are metal boxes -- I suspect that both labels and tape can be cleanly removed from them. The metal boxes also had locks on them -- I don't know how widely held are the keys.)
I still am wondering what the known handling of the ballots is after they leave the voters' hands. Do they immediately go into the machine? Or are they batched? Also, how are republican and democratic ballots separated? Are the boxes we saw at the recount supposed to have been sealed at the polls with the public (or at least observers) present? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7501
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 6 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:36 am: |
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Ballots will be being delivered for the next several days. They have not said whether the ballots will continue to be delivered over the weekend and Martin Luther King Day (Monday). At this point I don't take anything at all from New Hampshire state officials at face value, but they may NOT be picking up ballots during the long weekend, because no one will be working at the pickup locations.
In New Hampshire, the town clerks often only have office hours a couple days a week anyway. They are wonderful people -- it's the best of America, as I said. I expect they will be unavailable to give ballots to the pickup crew.
I emphasized to both the Kucinich reps and to the Republican candidate that they need to request the ballot pickup schedule. I don't think either one has done so.
I think it will be helpful to get photographs or video of the ballots WHILE STILL AT TOWN CLERK OFFICES and it will also be very helpful for citizens to follow "Butch and Hoppy".
Yesterday when we did so, they were speeding at one point and we were fairly challenged to keep up with them. We did, thanks to the skillful driving of Susan Pynchon. There was a dark green SUV waiting for them in a rural location. They stopped, one of the transport team jumped out, went to the driver of the green SUV, said something, then the transport team headed one direction and the green SUV the other. Clearly, he had been waiting there to hook up with the transport team. There may be a perfectly logical explanation for this, but I think it is important to witness and/or video where the transport van goes and who they meet up with.
Here on this site, it was posted that the ballots in New Hampshire are transported by the state police. That is incorrect. I asked more questions and they said that a liason from the sec. state office accompanies the state police. That is not true. Here's what is true: "Butch and Hoppy" who are represented as working for the secretary of state or the archives, depending on who you are talking to, pick up ALL the ballots in New Hampshire. They drive a white state van. A single member of the state police drives behind them. He can't see a darn thing about what is going on in that van.
Chain of custody - This isn't "the New Hampshire state police" moving the ballots. In fact, I'm not sure the Butch and Hoppy Show is legal, if the law says the ballots will be moved by the state police.
The chain of custody during transport is two guys named Butch and Hoppy. That's it.
My antennas would be up now for:
1) Ballot chain of custody, rendezvous points, capturing evidence of what goes into the transportation pipeline and what comes out.
2) I expect there will be efforts to persuade candidates to shortcut their recounts.
ALSO:
Note that Republican ballots have been being transported with Democrat ballots, that they are sometimes in the same box, and that as the Democrats do their recount the Republican ballots are being unsealed with no witness from the Republican campaign. They are taped up before going back to the ballot vault, but last night, Republican ballots were stored outside the vault just as Democrat ballots were. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7502
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:46 am: |
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When the video goes up you'll see something else. This is really like the ol' magic show. They make a great show of being "frugal" and sending ballots in reused cardboard boxes. One even said "Christmas decorations" on it.
Then, when you point out that the bottom is out of the box or the side is split open or whatever, they say "well we are very thrifty here, we use old boxes."
They can't spend $3 for a new box. That's mighty handy. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 34
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:09 am: |
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Hi Bev.
I think I speak for many of us here when I say, I love you.
Do the Kucinich or Howard camps seem concerned about the slits? Enough so at least to go to the public or release a press statement about it?
Bill |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4432
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:14 am: |
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Bev,
Do the slits allow enough space to put ballots in or take ballots out?
I'm still confused about whether or not the slit goes all the way through the cardboard. The photos may clear that up.
This is fantastic work that you and all the others are doing.
Is there anyone from the media who is the least bit interested or concerned? Or are they being instructed to believe the reassurances from all the top officials that there's nothing to worry about? |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 35
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:29 am: |
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I think what Bev is saying is that the boxes are sealed with tape (packing tape I'm assuming??), either on the top or bottom of the box or both. And the tape has been slit across the middle top of the box (again this is how I interpreted Bev's post). This should mean anyone can easily reach in and pull out ballots. Or if the sides of the box where it is taped is slit too, they could simply open the box.
This sounds like what should be a blatant breach of chain of custody, but it doesn't look like Gardner sees it that way. Or if NH doesn't have explicitly stated in it's laws, "the tape to seal boxes shall not be slit", I don't know what will Gardner will do about it. But I am curious about the candidates and media's concern about this as well. |
Steve Vail
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Shaggy
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:31 am: |
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Thanks for your dedication Bev. You are an American Hero. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 10:05 am: |
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I hope those ballots are safe this weekend. I believe it was four years ago this weekend when one of the strangest crimes in NH history to my knowledge was committed - the brazen theft of 247 tons of road salt. Yes, 247 tons of road salt, or over thirty full size dump trucks disappeared from a small New Hampshire town. I have only been able to conceive of one possible explanation for such a crime, but the local and state governments and papers didn't come to the same conclusion, or any conclusion at all for that matter. Just a big "WTF?" story and no further investigation. Unfortunately it appears the granite
I do not know how accurate this recount shall be, but I do believe a great deal of documentation regarding the inaccuracy and insecurity of the current voting process will be procured. |
Bryan White
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bambalotta
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 10:36 am: |
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Bev Thank you so much for your time and extrenuous efforts. We cant thank you enough. GET EM GF!!! |
Jody Holder
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Holder
Post Number: 39
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 11:05 am: |
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In this day of cell phones there is no need to meet another car to discuss anything.
How would the other car know where to meet the van except if it was arranged either beforehand or while on the road via cell phone. If the latter then any discussion could have taken place.
The only need for a physical meeting is to exchange something physical.
New Hampshire's electoral process, especially at the state level, STINKS! Has anyone checked for a rotting corpse hidden away?
I wrote earlier at BradBlog my thoughts of when the major changes in Manchester Ward 5 and Bedford occurred. The local election officials report to the media of the results were relatively close to the recount numbers. The changes had to occur either locally between the time of the report to the media and the results were uploaded (?) via GEMS to the SoS, or at the SoS's office. Since the SoS is supposed to only report what is sent to them from the county I do not know why they would be re-adding up the figures. Yet it has been claimed that someone added the VP totals to the Presidential totals by accident. Where and when did this supposedly occur?
Thank you all who are on the ground in New Hampshire. You keep raising more questions than answers through your observations and investigations. Now if we will get truthful answers from the election officials.
It doesn't seem to matter which state, but the more activists examine how our elections are conducted, the more it appears we cannot trust that who governs us were truly elected by the people.
If election officials have nothing to hide, they better stop hiding the process. Until they stop fighting transparency they will be under suspicion. |
Chris Chatham
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Neuronomy
Post Number: 20
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 11:14 am: |
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Given these recount issues, I'd like to encourage people to continue helping with the statistical analysis. I've been in touch with a statistician at one of the country's top Ivy League schools - he has additional relevant experience that I won't divulge b/c he prefers to remain anonymous - and he needs the following:
- the X and Y coordinates of the center of each NH precinct
Please consider doing this if you want to contribute but can't be on the ground in NH.
Latitude and longitude will work, or you could print it out and position a rule at the bottom left of the map, and find the coordinates that way (or do it in photoshop). The important thing is that the map is not distorted and you're using the same measurement unit on x & y axes. |
Tom Hodges
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hajji
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 12:01 pm: |
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Howdy!
I've just been selected (recruited) to function as a "Poll Checker" for the Obama campaign during the 1/26 primaries.
I've been certified by the Obama folks and have a letter from the SC Scy of State explaining my function.
While the Obama folks are primarily concerned with making sure THEIR voters are counted, I really look forward to the observation of the entire election process.
What advise/warnings/instructions can y'all give? I'll be a lonely Obama-guy in a Democrat-shy Bush-uber-alles county in a "We Still Write In Strom Thurmond" kinda state.
-Tom Hodges, Easley, SC |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7503
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 12:09 pm: |
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Received via email:
There is a pending correction that is subject to a minor delay in getting posted. Bill Richardson received 184 votes in the town of Bedford in the Presidential Primary recount. This count was mistakenly posted as zero last night.
Anthony Stevens
Assistant Secretary of State
New Hampshire
(from admin): What did Bill Richardson get in town of Bedford as originally reported? If he originally had 184, but when posting the recount results had zero, which was then corrected, that would lead to one kind of problem tracking. My understanding is that a long-time employee named Karen Hand types the recount figures into a spreadsheet, which would be the source of the "zero". At some point in the past, an incorrect entry by Karen Hand in the spreadsheet, caught by an alert observer, changed the results of the election. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 12:42 pm: |
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"Then, when you point out that the bottom is out of the box or the side is split open or whatever, they say "well we are very thrifty here, we use old boxes.""
Bev,
Welcome to New Hampshire.
I do believe the state government still collects and freezes road kill that is sold off in a once a year auction. In my current residence of California I believe it is illegal to collect road kill. New Hampshire is special in more than one way.
I believe though that many people including at least some of those in the government you are dealing with would be willing to spend much more time and money on election accuracy and security if they learn about the issues. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 1:03 pm: |
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Bev,
Richardson got 183 votes in Bedford. It has been on the SOS webpage from the beginning. When they posted the recount results, it said [184 (orig)] [-- (recount)]. This was clearly a typo and should have been obvious to anyone with a spreadsheet.
They corrected it to say 183 184 (recount) on the recount page. I'm not sure this is a big deal, but it does make the case that I have been saying: States need spreadsheets that do dummy checking for stuff like zeros, doubled counts, more votes then registered voter, etc. I can't tell you how many things have made it on to "official" tallies or even unofficial that have to be pointed out by internet folks. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7505
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 1:07 pm: |
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Tom Hodges: Welcome to Black Box Voting
Here's a tool that will get you started: The Black Box Voting "Citizens Tool Kit" - http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.html
Choose any module you like. Several of them focus on what to look for during elections. Pay close attention to the public records module too. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 36
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 1:41 pm: |
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Chris,
Attached is a spreedsheet with the latitude and longitude by precinct. I input the data manually and double-checked it, but if anything looks off, my source was www.lat-long.com.
Bill
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4436
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 2:29 pm: |
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Bill, could your data be used with the wiki that Jason Reed has just set up?
His post and links are here. |
Chris Chatham
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Neuronomy
Post Number: 21
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 2:35 pm: |
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Bill, you're amazing. I just sent it to our new stats guy. Unfortunately, he's on the east coast, so he may already have left for the day.
I may tinker around with it but I don't think my statistical package will support spatial autocorrelation.
Thanks again! |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 38
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 2:48 pm: |
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Catherine,
Jason's wiki site has the precincts broken down by ward. I didn't take the data that far (although by ward is certainly better for statistical purposes).
lat-long.com has nearly every small town and city listed in New Hampshire, but they don't drill down much further than that (schools, churches, etc...) Even if a site can zero in on those coordinates, my guess is that most of the entries are going to have to be eye-balled. That could take some time. I also discovered in my efforts to double-check my latitude/longitude for the precincts, almost no two sites state the same latitude/longitude coordinates for a given town. Their approximations are all equally distant from each other, but it means we have to pick one source for coordinates and use that exclusively.
I'll see if I can find a site that makes it easy to locate the wards, and if the work can be split up among several people, the information can come together more quickly. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 39
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 2:51 pm: |
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Thanks Chris. I'm on the east coast too but I'm not leaving until the real work is done |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 3:03 pm: |
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Man you guys are too quick. I started doing this from the EAC data and the zipcode. Here is a spreadsheet with my data plus the wiki and above spreadsheet in one place.
It might be easier to use this as a template because it has all the correct precincts, though the wiki looks correct.
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Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 3:55 pm: |
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If NH is so darn frugal, why pay for expensive electronic machines and outside vendors to count your votes when you could get citizens to hand count for free, in a publicly verifiable way. You can hand recount one party's elections statewide for $70,000 with paid employees? How much does LHS make each election? How much did those machines cost? Penny wise....
If you are trying to make boxes tamper resistant, it isn't very hard to find some options, I found this tamper resistant tape after 10 seconds on the web. Seems like an awful cheap way to get some control, and I am sure security experts could provide a whole host of cost-effective, proven options.
www.securityseal.com/international/etichettevoid.html
>Anti-tamper evident security labels
These labels separate into layers when removed. The surface is marked with a white pattern. The label is rendered useless by becoming clear in the xx areas. Also available labels with you own title. - Security labels for industrial and commercial purposes, transport, advertising office, e-commerce, on line, logistic.
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The lack of such security procedures seems so naive to me (at the least worst), that it seems the State staff as whole does not even seriously consider someone might try to tamper with transported or stored ballots. Because if just a few of them were seriously worried, I am sure they could wisely anticipate different security issues, alert others to them, and fix them very efficiently and economically.
Perhaps the state election folks don't take possible vote count rigging seriously because they are thinking it may not be a common or frequent thing. If that is the case, I would ask them, would they leave their toddler sitting in a stroller alone outside a store for more than 1 minute? even if the knew a lot of the people in that town, the town seemed safe, and most people seemed nice. Its the one-in-million bad guy that makes us hold our kids close, even in familiar, generally safe environments, and we should be similarly wary about our elections, or we are just plain not seriously concerned about our precious democracy. Its our baby, we are the only ones this democracy can rely for protection. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4438
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 4:02 pm: |
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quote:it seems the State staff as whole does not even seriously consider someone might try to tamper with transported or stored ballots.
It looks more and more to me (from SoS's reaction to recent events as described by Bev) like the system's loopholes are "features" known to a select few and carefully preserved for their use. |
Alex Berger
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Glamdering
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 4:59 pm: |
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Bill,
I'm just a spectator from the sidelines so it may not be immensely useful but Microsoft's Streets and Trips has a lat/long feature built in that is pretty accurate (within a few hundred feet or so at max i'd say). It also allows for basic geocoding.
I believe Google Earth does as well - don't have it up atm. but pretty sure it's all plotted. |
Wayne Holton
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wh61193
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:24 pm: |
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Look, two elections have recently been tampered with in the United States- presidential elections that we know there was funny business going on. Both times a president that wasn't probably the elected president served. This is manipulation of the vote and election theft the likes of which we'd have thought only went on under dictatorship yet here it is going on in the US!! And yet business goes on as usual! Are we really even a democracy? |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:35 pm: |
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Catherine - Yeah, I don't resist your judgment that a few people are likely purposefully perserving some holes and I have a similar take, so the "whole" part of my post was wrong.
I was just thinking about some of the regular NH folk who likely want clean elections in NH, who could reasonably question some of this and attempt to fix it....even if they can't wrap their mind around being suspicious of those close to them. If no one is up to anything bad, such questions and attempts at good security should be tolerated. Even if such an effort were thwarted at some points, they could at least begin exposing things, just as BBV's field work has done. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4441
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:58 pm: |
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I agree, Karen. I really liked your analogy to leaving a child in a stroller unattended outside a store. Even if you trust all the people around, and know most of them, it's just not a good idea and everyone understands this.
When something is really important you've got to be more careful and not just leave things to chance and trust. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 40
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:13 pm: |
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Justin, Jason, Chris,
Let me know how exact you need/want the coordinates for the database to be? Is one precinct coordinate for all wards good enough? If not (and it's probably better to plot each separate ward), we should probably all come to a consensus on one source for lat/long. I've been finding that Google Earth vs. Microsoft vs. Zip Finder, etc... all plot 'slightly' different points for the same location (a difference that looks enough anyway, to throw off someone crunching the data seriously). Any one source seems to be fine so long as we're all consistent with using it.
Let me know how detailed you need the precincts/wards to be, which source you think is best (probably between Google and Microsoft), and we should probably settle on that one lat/long source for the accuracy of the database.
Bill |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7508
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:31 pm: |
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As Paddy Shaffer observed, New Hampshire is "Beauty and the Beast" -- but in this case, "the beast" is not a prince in disguise.
Beauty -- the people of New Hampshire -- are really salt-of-the-earth patriots who believe in simple, straightforward community.
The beast is very reminiscent of the Cook County/Chicago machine. Its footprints look like those of organized crime. The Beast exploits The People's wholesome nature with procedures that are almost a caricature of the way New England life is supposed to be. The beast MARKETS the people's self-image right back to them, complimenting them for their quaintness while exploiting the holes found in delightful old traditions. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 554
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 7:00 pm: |
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Bev - I'm looking for photographs that show ballots from anywhere other than Manchester Ward 1.
Any ideas where to look?
See my email for more info.
HG;) |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 1028
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:05 pm: |
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For Tom Hodges in South Carlina; please use BBV's citizens' toolkit(s) BUT also be aware that "Article II, § 1 of the Constitution of South Carolina states, "the ballots shall not be counted in secret." Computers count inside their case, with no oversight, just like they are told to do, unless of course, they malfunction or are hacked. Remember, the code that counts the vote is considered a 'trade secret'; also see here:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_mark_a___080117_an_open_letter_to_se.htm
Bev, take care of yourself because without your health, there's nothing; it is so obvious that the NH SOS needs to be referenced to the EAC Voting System Security guidelines:
http://www.eac.gov/election/quick-start-management-guides
that it's sad. |
Mac Hathaway
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mac_hathaway
Post Number: 84
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 5:46 am: |
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Hello Bev,
Nice work. I believe I saw that there were "too many" volunteers asking what they can do. If this is true, perhaps a canvass of Town Clerks by some of these volunteers, asking (perhaps with photos in hand) whether boxes were sent out with slits in them. Also... actually, the remainder of this post I'm sending via email, as it probably wouldn't do to reveal ones tactics on a public forum.
Keep up the good work, and perhaps get some of these extra volunteers to work as ballot chain-of custody monitors...
Mac |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 43
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 5:59 am: |
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“Look, two elections have recently been tampered with in the United States- presidential elections that we know there was funny business going on. Both times a president that wasn't probably the elected president served. This is manipulation of the vote and election theft the likes of which we'd have thought only went on under dictatorship yet here it is going on in the US!! And yet business goes on as usual! Are we really even a democracy?”
re: “we’d have thought only went on under dictatorship”
Appreciating apt caution in this statement, I’ll state a well-documented flip side:
US foreign policy and national security establishments have sponsored (and trained police-military terror squads for) de facto dictatorships de jurely guised and labeled ‘democracy’ throughout latin america and also elsewhere for half a century quite openly, and openly bragged in some cases about election frauds perpetrated with help of USintel installing and supporting such terrorist ‘democracies’ as well, wherever democracy rears its (often arguably inapt) populist head.
A studious look into Marine Corps General Smedley Butler’s career, speeches, published writing, invites one to seriously consider removing ‘half a’ from the ‘half a century’ above, as do several other sources. There is a wealth of election fraud experience developed via decades of practice rigging ‘democratic elections’ in those endeavors. A different but related direction to look is: Matthew Josephson’s The Politicos and The President Makers for interesting reading re: methods between Civil War and WWI, and an opportunity for further reconsideration.
----------------------------
“The Beast exploits The People's wholesome nature with procedures that are almost a caricature of the way New England life is supposed to be. The beast MARKETS the people's self-image right back to them, complimenting them for their quaintness while exploiting the holes found in delightful old traditions.”
A very apt phrasing of a very important point that often goes unsaid and could IMO be much more widely applied! |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 44
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 6:03 am: |
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Some interesting sources re: history of relations between organized crime and politics in US (pg#s not limited to, but include, this focus topic):
John Edgar Hoover; an inquiry into the life and times of John Edgar Hoover, and his relationship to the continuing partnership of crime, business, and politics, Hank Messick.
Secret File, Hank Messick. NY: GPPutnam’s Sons, 1969.
25,129-30,137-8,141,153-164,174,183-6,189-92,197,223-5,232-3,245,257,264-5,305,3 27,
349-60,363-4
Conflict of Interest in the Eisenhower Administration, David A Frier. Ames,IA: Iowa State UnivPress,1969. 10,14,29,39,45,57,84-5,89,123-4,147-53,192,200
(can also compare Ch2&14 Goldfine-Adams tale to Messick’s Secret File version of same)
The Facts About Nixon: An Unauthorized Biography, William Costello. NY: Viking Press,
25,37,44,51-7,65-73,78,86-8,97-101,107-113,126-32,182,193-6,210-7,251-5
Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Peter Dale Scott. UnivCalifPress,1993. 28-33,36-7,40-51,
58-74,77,91-6,100-13,134-5,146-8,177-91,198-208,226-41,254-66
The Shame of the Cities, Lincoln Steffens. NY: McClure, Philips & Co, 1904.
7-18,20-41,72-87,90-1,95-100,103-11,116-22, {134àunread)
The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (abridged), Lincoln Steffens. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1931. 138,143-5,152-5,160-2,166-89,193,208,214,21921,227,254,263,271,
277-80,294-300,307,313,331,363
and a few of the individual first-hand accounts in:
Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, StudsTerkel
No intent to cherry-pick Eisenhower and Nixon admins re: this topic, this is a semi-random intersection of sources, read for another inquiry, that happen to also apply this topic. |
Tom Hodges
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hajji
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 6:06 am: |
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Bev, Bruce, et al.
Thank you for the info. I read the SC poll managers' handbook. One of the instructions included "must open ballot box and show it is empty" in the "start up" instructions.
How can one do that with the I-Vote machines? I can see a "zero talley" at start up, but is that really like looking at an empty box?
-T |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7509
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 6:33 am: |
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Seeking real first and last name of Hoppy and Butch, or Hoppy and Buddy, who told me their real names are Armand (Armond?) and Peter. This may be findable with Google or a news search, shortcutting the public records process. I understand there was a news story on them in 2004 with the Nader recount. I haven't had time to run it down, if anyone finds it I will appreciate it. Would also be interesting to know if the state police office in 2004 was the same as the one this year. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4443
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 7:04 am: |
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Joel,
Thank you for those references. There is a dark underbelly to US government activity that, while well documented, is not widely known. In civics and history courses to which one is typically exposed one is presented with an idealistic flag-waving portrayal of the US as being honorable and "pro-democracy" and "pro-freedom" at home and abroad.
One is encouraged by media coverage and educational systems to believe that this portrayal reflects reality. Since it is repeated so often this inaccurate perception sinks in to the American psyche. ("Our government is the best. Our government acts in our best interest. Our government officials would not lie to us. Our elections are free and democratic. We can count on our "Freedom of the Press" to give us the truth and all the news. We have the right to do what we want in the world because we are truly promoting freedom and democracy. If there are problems it's just a few isolated bad apples.")
Investigations of our US election systems challenge many peoples' framework of reality regarding their beliefs about America. Sometimes people feel threatened by discovering that cherished beliefs do not reflect reality.
It is a big responsibility--and not without pain--to examine what truly exists and to follow the facts no matter where they lead.
It is another big responsibility to follow up with personal action and involvement to create a better future that is closer to the ideals that we rightly cherish. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 12
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 7:09 am: |
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Bev,
Put out a message to a CT Green who might be able to network back into the Nader recount folks -- couldn't quickly find anything on google. |
Elling Disen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Elling
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 8:29 am: |
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Why is this so slow ?
The official recount page was fast publishing for the Manchester5 ward in Hillsborough. And the Bradblog highlighted a 10% discrepancy both for Obama and Hillary.
As you might have seen from the statistical analysis carried out at Scienceblog and Eurotribune, the smoking gun might be found in total Hillsborough tally.
Start with that and look for a flip of 7000 Hillsborough votes from Obama to Hillary. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4447
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 10:40 am: |
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Might be a good idea to save these images to your computer just in case, if you know how to do that. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7510
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 11:12 am: |
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I don't think those are correct. From the log sheet, an observer provided the name for Butch is Armund Dubois.
Armund told me Hoppy's real name is Peter. Question is, what is Peter's last name? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7512
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 11:49 am: |
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Not sure of spelling of Armund, but have a confirm that it is Armond or Armand or Armund Dubois. Also listed as Butch Armand (sp?) Dubois. Two separate sources with two separate documents. I got one report by phone, reading off a sheet and I forgot to ask how Armand or Armund was spelled.
The Black Box Voting Citizen's Toolkit has helpful information in the "Following the Money Trail" module for getting more info, but please do not post personal information here or information of a speculative nature -- send that to me by email.
Again, do not post home addresses or names of family members or anything like that here. Email me privately at the email on the home page if you have that information. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 14
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 12:06 pm: |
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Bev, sent you a private email with a photo of another person named Armand DuBois - have a look at it - long shot but fwiw. |
Freddie Bolin
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Froggie
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 12:25 pm: |
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There's an interesting article that references blackboxvoting, the 2008 election fraud and Time Magazine's new offensive article where they try to convince us that we shouldn't trust polls because "It's the Voters, Stupid!" |
Hal Guentert
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Antifraud
Post Number: 10
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 1:34 pm: |
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Was someone able to video the "dark green SUV" with license number? This could be useful if things go from bad to worse with the recount.
Bev Harris wrote:
"Yesterday when we did so, they were speeding at one point and we were fairly challenged to keep up with them. We did, thanks to the skillful driving of Susan Pynchon. There was a dark green SUV waiting for them in a rural location. They stopped, one of the transport team jumped out, went to the driver of the green SUV, said something, then the transport team headed one direction and the green SUV the other. Clearly, he had been waiting there to hook up with the transport team. There may be a perfectly logical explanation for this, but I think it is important to witness and/or video where the transport van goes and who they meet up with. "
New Hampshire brags on being the first state to offer a state lottery since 1964. Obviously, the state has people who know how to handle and secure the ballots with reasonable care, instead of this "casual" process. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 50
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 1:43 pm: |
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"the first state to offer a state lottery since 1964"
Pardon my obtuseness, but I'm confused as to what this means, or how it implies
"Obviously, the state has people who know how to handle and secure the ballots with reasonable care, instead of this "casual" process." |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 51
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 1:44 pm: |
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The first state to offer a state lottery?
and
Which they've offered since 1964?
??? |
Jenny L. Hurley
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bolivar
Post Number: 45
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 2:03 pm: |
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I JUST sent you an email with phone numbers for
Armund Dubois in anchester and Laconia -
You can usually find a lot of phone numbers in White Pages.
Thanks, Jenny |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 15
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 2:17 pm: |
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JOEL - I assume Hal is referring to the need to keep lottery tickets secure so they are not stolen. |
Hal Guentert
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Antifraud
Post Number: 11
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 2:54 pm: |
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What I mean is that state lotteries, like New Hampshire's, are run by Lottery Commissions that have experience with handling & storing valuable documents, public audits and operating within the law. If the New Hampshire Sec. of State's office does not have this experience to handle ballots properly, and not able to afford, or required to be publically audited; they still have other state commissions that after 44 years could offer help to avoid the current situation of unsealed ballot boxes, etc.
Here is a link to an audit report to the New Hampshire Lottery Commission providing a list of problems and recommendations for eliminating these problems in the future.
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/LBA/Synopsis/Sweepstakes/Sweeps_1996.html
New Hampire Lottery Commission site:
http://www.nhlottery.org/about-us/history.asp
I hope that clears up what I meant. In other words, New Hampshire is not a state full of "bumpkins" who have to keep their ballots in old used boxes, and completely ignorant of the need for better safeguards or the concept of "willfull negligence". It is a state of characters leaving huge holes in the voting process.
With 44 years of experience with the security required to run a state lottery leaves the state without the excuse of ignorance that better voting and ballot safeguards exist, and are needed. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4453
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 3:17 pm: |
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There's also the aspect of some state lotteries being magnets for corruption.
I seem to recall a number of stories about this in relation to several states, one of them being FL and another TX. There have been questions raised about highly unusual contract agreements that occurred in Texas in relation to what company would get the contract for running the state lottery.
I also vaguely recall (forgive me if I'm wrong or mixing two corruption phenomena that are independent) some linkage between state lotteries and questionable/suspicious administration of huge amounts of cash coming in through state toll roads.
Toll roads are apparently a notorious vehicle for money laundering. I can imagine that state lotteries are an attractive target for corrupt officials. I cannot remember if the two are known to be linked. |
Jenny L. Hurley
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bolivar
Post Number: 46
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 3:41 pm: |
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There have been the names of several high-powered politicians connected to the Texas Lottery and I have no respect for two of these politicians. I would not trust either one.
I am talking about things that were in the press, in the past, but I don't want to add anything else. I believe that where there is money, especially big money, politicians will do anything to get what they want. And, saying you are a Christian does not mean that a politician is an honest person. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4458
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 4:11 pm: |
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Jenny, I agree with you about TX.
I was kind of bemused to hear that NH was bragging about being the first to have a state lottery. It makes we wonder what we'd find if we started looking there.
Right now I really don't want to know.
But nothing would surprise me. I wonder who runs the NH state lottery. I wonder who runs NH elections. I wonder if there are any connections, by chance. (Especially as there are hints at ties to Mafia bosses in Boston . . .)
It is so disappointing when the places that you'd hoped would be clean end up looking really dodgy--particularly when most of the staff and volunteers are probably very honest. But if the people at key junctures are lacking in integrity, the integrity of the entire system collapses, taking down all the honest people with it.
It was so disappointing in NH seeing how the SoS responded when the chips were down (waiting to take delivery of the ballots, and then somehow the schedule mysteriously changed and then ballot boxes were left in an unsecured room).
It is worst when people or places you think would come out well end up looking questionable or worse. |
Hal Guentert
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Antifraud
Post Number: 12
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 4:18 pm: |
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Catherine Ansbro wrote:
"There's also the aspect of some state lotteries being magnets for corruption."
I agree, but you could say the same about state primaries being magnets for corruption (probably more than we will ever know). That is why safeguards are more important in these operations.
How do you give ballots and the results enough value (financial or otherwise) to increase the safeguards to a reasonable level to prevent manipulation by just writing in the "wrong" number and playing with the ballots as required? I am against a poll tax, but would pay a insignificant fee (like $1) to ensure strong safeguards, get a receipt for my votes, and an independently auditable process.
It is interesting that Ron Paul appears to be second in the Nevada Republican primary, a state with the most experience in gambling regulation and preventing cheating. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4460
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 4:28 pm: |
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I agree with you completely about state primaries being magnets for corruption.
There have been a number of surprising results in the past. Probably many--but no one was looking, no one was talking about election corruption in the context of primaries. People just didn't pay that much attention to voting in primaries, let alone observing them. And no one even knew where to look, or how to identify problems.
We're only just starting to scratch the surface on where to look--especially in primaries, because the party control of the process expands the possibilities for running "creative" elections.
My point about the state lottery was that, to me, it is more likely to guarantee the presence of institutionalized state corruption than to guarantee its absence. But what do I know? Maybe NH is as clean as the driven snow, except for some of these little election irregularities coming to light. Just a few bad apples who happen to hold key positions, etc. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 153
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 5:23 pm: |
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Off topic but to the point of the lottery being a magnet for corruption: a few years ago NH residents woke to the news that multimillionaire NH Senator Judd Gregg just "happened" to win the NH lottery. Something like $200K or more. Some of the more cynical amongst us wondered whether Judd did something that warranted laundering that nice sum to him through the lottery. It was never really looked into, but it seemed a bit too convenient to believe.
In any event, I think the picture being drawn here is not too off the mark. NH is quaint and trusting and old fashioned and frugal. And the NH election system reflects these qualities. And, as noted above, the NH election system therefore offers many "features" to unscrupulous types. And to top it off, anybody questioning the system in NH is considered a blasphemer and promptly shut down.
Just in the thick of this recount the NH legislature killed an election audit bill! Now, I didn't support this bill because post election audits are bogus, but you would have thought they might just have passed it in recognition that something is not working in the state election system! And if they had done so, maybe we could have even made it better in the Senate.
But, like all the other election integrity bills proposed in the past several sessions, the legislature killed this one too.
NH officials and politicos are either too trusting, too dumb, too ignorant, too misinformed, or too corrupt. Whatever combination thereof has landed us where we are now.
It's an uphill climb like everywhere else, but I do think NH has enough legal and infrastructural support to effectively kill Diebold. All in time, and with the right strategy. Obviously, it is not going to happen with the help of the state officials. |
Hal Guentert
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Antifraud
Post Number: 13
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 5:49 pm: |
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My point is that if ballots are treated like cash by being tied to the payor/voter with by a receipt, it should eliminate many of the more obvious problems being found.
At least the lotteries are audited and observations are documented along with suggestions to correct weaknesses. I don't think the voting processes have been audited at all and no documentation of weaknesses are available.
The electronic voting machines and privatization of part of the voting process have now caused this to change thanks to Bev Harris and associates. |
Hal Guentert
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Antifraud
Post Number: 14
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 6:19 pm: |
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Nancy Tobi wrote:
"NH officials and politicos are either too trusting, too dumb, too ignorant, too misinformed, or too corrupt. Whatever combination thereof has landed us where we are now."
I vote for too corrupt. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4463
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 6:31 pm: |
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I'm with Hal. I vote for too corrupt. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 156
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 8:16 pm: |
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We have the largest citizen legislature in the nation - 435 reps - 1 for every 3,089 citizens. So I think it's safe to say we have a pretty good mix, including those who are corrupt.
I can count on one hand those in the legislature who have honestly worked with us citizens for good election reform, and I'll still have a few fingers left. Many of the rest are MIA from apathy and complacency (everyone in NH thinks everything is just dandy fine thank you very much).
Some of our state officials, on the other hand, have willfully obstructed our efforts at every turn. They are personable and accessible, but the facts speak for themselves, and it's anyone's guess what the mix is at that level. Although I haven't found any who are dumb or all that misinformed.
Our local election officials are, I believe, for the most part doing their best and giving their best.
It always comes down to the same thing, though. It's up to us if it's going to get fixed. |
Jo Kleeb
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jkay
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 3:32 am: |
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Hi all - I'm from New Zealand - I've been following what Bev has been doing with the New Hampshire recounts. Unfortunately I can't help you in body, but I'm a researcher/statistician and have been looking at the spreadsheets of recount results to date. What I found very interesting in spreadsheets of counts to date at Nolan was this:
Across 20 different areas, with variable under and over counts in each, across the three front-leaders, this result was obtained:
Clinton: 71-59 = 12+
Obama: 46-34 = 12+
Edwards: 38-26 = 12+
The amazing symmetry in these balances, thus nullifying any movement between the candidates, to me seems improbable given the diverse base from which these figures had to come together to balance.
The way the numbers are falling to say 'hey, yeah there was some counting error, but it didn't impact on the results' is 100% precise - not mostly precise - 100% precise. If you look at the numbers in each row they look variable enough - but when you come to subtract the overcounts from undercounts it's like an accountant has balanced profit and loss to come out with zero tax to pay. The variability in the rows might distract you, but the net effect - that's the interesting bit.
The response to this observation by Westmiller at Nolan was:
If the human errors are random, then the probable result is that the correct counts will match the original distribution. The precise corrections aren't known, because recount results aren't yet finalized (probably not until Monday), so don't take the literal numeric match as improbable.
Now that doesn't seem a very convincing answer to me - sort of more along the lines of 'we stuck a post it on it - it's secure' 
Yeah right!
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Jo Kleeb
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jkay
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 4:15 am: |
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Also, to the fella who is going to be watching over the votes for Obama in South Carolina all on your lonesome - can you possibly get some Obama supporters outside of the location, ghosting Clinton supporters? This is just to make sure that they are not mis-directing people away or trying to put a bad word in just before people go in. Some of the former was happening in Nevada - and they were shutting people out 1/2 an hour before they should have closed the doors. The other thing was 'running short of vote ballots' - every location should have more than ample and sign off for how much they have (so they can't claim otherwise later). NO-ONE should be turned away because of a lack of paper.
Supporters from both parties should also be watching the exit polls - particularly watching each others behavior (actually, there's a point - are exit polls tamper proof?). In Nashua there were reports of Clinton supporters continously being distracting to Obama people who were only checking off who came out to vote after they voted. Consequently, they were not able to complete their job accurately.
Since you might be in a small locale - there might not be so many distractions and bad behaviour.
However, the Obama people need to learn from the tactics of the last two primaries and be prepared to nullify them. So really there is the 'before the vote' issues, the 'during the vote' issues, and then the 'after the vote' issues - which these good people here would surely know much about.
I think steel boxes with locks should be the norm - no paper boxes, all memory cards going into boxes too.
Other note for South Carolina - they had major issues with the touch screens failing. Back up paper votes are a must - perhaps preferable.
If any funny business is going on, South Carolina is one state where the polls can't be miles out from the result - at least not without it becoming patently obvious what is going on. |
Jo Kleeb
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jkay
Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 4:27 am: |
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Also - good work on the videotaping, it would be good to see some videotaping of people being caught in the act turning people away or misdirecting them for voting. All we hear is people saying this happens - we need evidence that it does if anyone is to take these concerns seriously. It's amazing how easily people discount and are pacified. It takes strong evidence to counter-act spin.
People with video cameras either have to be discreet and if not, at least it might be a deterrent. Getting people turned away from voting on camera to say what happened immediately after being turned away would be helpful, making sure to gain appropriate consent from them to use their images.
Stacking, I think, is going on just prior to, during and after. Hard evidence is needed for this to be taken as anything but the complaints of 'tin foilers' (i.e. conspiracy theorists), which is the usual dismissive term used for those who question.
Turning away people for voting is as serious as fiddling the votes. The easiest to get evidence for, this would give weight to suspicions about the entire process. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 157
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 5:47 am: |
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Statisticians analyzing NH data might look at the scatter vote differentials. There have been reports of people not being able to vote Dem because they are shown in the registration database as R's. So they were told to write in their D candidate on a R ballot. These become scatter votes and don't count. It would be interesting to see if there is higher scatter vote activity on the R side this year, and in general higher than usual scatter activity compared to other years. Historical recount data is found on the NH SoS website here:
http://www.sos.nh.gov/election%20stats%20and%20districts.html |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 6:20 am: |
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Nancy, there are actually very few "scatter" votes on the GOP data, most places did a good job putting the GOP write-ins under the candidate names. But, yes, the total number of cross-over write-ins voted on the Rep primary is a lot larger than votes in the Democratic primary. One could also argue that the GOP candidates are less attractive to traditional Dems as compared to fed up GOP voters who might want to send a message.
NOTE: These cross-over write-in votes do not count for anything as a DEM candidates are not eligible for a GOP presidential elector
1.96% of all Republican votes were for "Other" and the majority of those write-ins were Obama, Clinton, Edwards.
1.77% of all Republican voters wrote-in Clinton, Obama, or Edwards. (Obama 1800 votes, Clinton 1743 votes statewide)
0.87% of all Democratic primary votes were "Other"
0.77% of all Democratic primary votes were write-ins for the five GOP candidates (McCain 932 votes, Romney 611, Paul 267, etc.)
Wow, 1.77% and 0.77% that must mean something... No. Just because you "see" a pattern like 53/47 and 47/53 it means nothing. Just because three candidates all gained +12 votes means absolutely nothing, please STOP. Please. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 9
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 6:33 am: |
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For comparison, in 2000,
1.1% of Republican primary votes were write-ins for Democracts or other (1155 for Gore and 1025 for Bradley)
3.9% of Democratic votes were write-ins with about half of all write-ins being McCain votes (3320 votes).
I think it just depends on who is running that year. |
jonathan t paine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jonathantpaine
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 7:32 am: |
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Hi Bev, can you (or someone) give me what the quick summary is of the problems you listed above. Why are the slits and other things you mention important issues, etc? I am not trying to be difficult, I just think the only 2 real problems are: (a) all ballots should be done by paper, and the voters should be able to keep a receipt of her/his paper vote in the event of a recount. when/if a recount is done, there should be a recount of both the paper ballots by one independent group, and also a recount of the receipt ballots by another independent group. And (b) all counting of said paper ballots should be done in public view with multiple independent sources allowed to view/monitor.
thanks,
jtp
(Message edited by jonathantpaine on January 20, 2008) |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 16
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 9:01 am: |
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Jonathan, glad you are interested in this topic -- you are posting under "latest investigations", however. Some of your questions are policy related and are a separate topic and should be put under a separate thread. Someone else may suggest which thread.
To bring yourself up to speed (so as not to take the time of volunteers supported by donations who are involved in field work or volunteers supporting field work), I think the easiest way is to comb the threads for the reports from the field from Bev Harris and read them in reverse order (oldest to newest).
Hope that helps. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 158
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 9:08 am: |
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RE: Scatter votes comparisons
Jason, the thing I am asking is whether the implementation of the electronic voter registration database had an impact on incorrectly showing people registered as Rs when they have always been Ds. The database was first used in NH in 2006 and now in 2008. Prior to that all reg was hand entered. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1886
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 10:09 pm: |
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Nancy,
On that topic. When an Independent comes to a primary and "chooses" a party ballot, does that voter then leave the polls that day re-registered in that party? From what we heard in Iowa, that's what happens in their caucuses. Is it that way in NH?
I ask this because I am completely unfamiliar with open and quasi-open primary state rules. I come from a strictly closed primary state. If you haven't been a D for the last 30 days, you don't get to vote in the D primary. And if you aren't a D or an R for the last 30 days, you don't get to vote in the primaries AT ALL. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 10
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 5:57 am: |
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Kurt, yes that is right, except in NH after you vote and would be a registered whatever, you can walk into the clerk's office and change back to Independent.
In Ohio, any unaffiliated voter can vote in either primary but are then assigned to that party. There is also some type of oath that you can change party when you vote, and I think it takes more than four years to drop the party affiliation if you can ever do it at all. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 159
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 6:41 am: |
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Jason is correct. With 44% voters holding the "Undeclared" status in NH, the common practice is to go right to the registrar after voting and undeclare yourself again. The problem with this year's crossover write-ins is that the people complaining about being registered for the wrong party are saying they have never even voted R. They are lifelong Ds. So the registration error was not from "forgetting" to re-register at the last election. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 107
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 6:54 am: |
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Actually in NH there is a clerk at each polling place to take care of forms such as same-day registration and change of enrollment for voters to "re-undeclare" themselves. They can be quite busy people, judging from the one day I spent in a NH polling place.
Many NH voters that I know don't like being registered for a party because they voted a ballot, because of the hassle of filling out forms after. I think turnout would go down noticeably if the change had to be made separately. Massachusetts changed the laws so that the unenrolled simply stay unenrolled, and I have to say it is much nicer. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1889
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 7:52 am: |
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Nancy,
Have these party of registration "errors" been researched? Is there not a record of who made the last change to any voter's record and when? That is a key element of ANY statewide registry. Also, are not ALL paper records having to do with a person's registration kept, either in paper or electronic form? If not, why not?
I am NOT saying that what follows is the case in New Hampshire, but I have had the experience of people swearing up and down they have always been a [pick a party here] when they have actually changed THEMSELVES to [put the other party here]. And in virtually EVERY CASE OF THIS, I was able to produce a paper record with the voter's signature on it that made the change they claim should not have been made.
An experience like that does many things to a person, not the LEAST of which is to doubt first-person claims a lot more often. It is ironic but true that it seems that the louder one complains, the more likely it is that they made the change themselves, most times in order to have supported a candidate they really liked in the "other" party.
In my state, we call those "Arlen Specter" moments. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 35
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 8:46 am: |
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Re-count Of Primary Ballots Catches Human Error In Nashua, Amounts To 110 Votes Counted Twice
A re-count of ballots cast in Nashua's Ward 5 show that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden received a total of 110 votes less than originally reported because of human error. When someone writes in a name for vice president, a machine counts the presidential vote correctly but then sets those ballots aside so the write-ins can be tallied by hand. Election officials didn't realize that the presidential votes already were counted so they counted them twice.
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=78902
Human error in Nashua Ward 5 resulted in extra numbers Published: Saturday, January 19, 2008
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN Telegraph Staff
CONCORD – Errors hand counting ballots in Nashua's Ward 5 on primary day inflated the totals of three Democratic presidential candidates by 110 votes, a recount revealed Friday.
City Clerk Paul Bergeron confirmed the mistakes that awarded primary winner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of N.Y. (75), former Sen. John Edwards of N.C. (34), and Sen. Joe Biden of Del. (1) more votes than they were entitled to. Biden dropped out of the race Jan. 3.
"There were two human errors that occurred. These things happen especially at the end of a 16-hour day with a record number of ballots cast. That's why we have people checking each other's work,'' Bergeron said during a telephone interview.
The initial mistake in Nashua was the election officials in Ward 5 failed to understand that automated voting machines accurately count a vote for president even if someone writes in a name for vice president.
"The machine counts the presidential vote correctly, but then shifts those ballots to a separate place so write-ins for vice president can be tallied up by hand,'' Bergeron explained."In Ward 5, they failed to realize that. They added those presidential votes to the machine total which is why those three candidate vote totals reported that night were too high.''
The second error was on the final form reporting the total vote. These additional votes were incorrectly given to candidates on the left-hand side of the form but not to those on the right-hand side of the official paper.
That's why there were no additions for candidates such as runner-up Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., or fourth-place finisher, Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
The actual recount of all ballots in Nashua Ward 5 adjusted totals up or down slightly for several candidates.Here are the vote totals for the ward reported on Jan. 8 and the recounted vote for each candidate:
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080119/NEWS08/267211 607/-1/news08 |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 160
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 8:50 am: |
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Kurt - nothing has been researched. We have a lot of anecdotal stories. That's why I put out a call for an investigation instead of a recount. There are a lot of things to be researched. I have an email from a town official stating that they had repeated problems feeding ballots into the scanners, which she thought was due to the state "using cheaper paper this year". Shades of Dan Rather reports. Now, is this true? How many districts had problems feeding ballots? Who knows. Will anyone investigate what really happened in NH? Who knows. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1892
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 9:06 am: |
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Nancy,
Good stuff! But think just a second about that paper story. What if it's true? Do you see the bigger issue there?
Obviously, New Hampshire towns are FEELING so fiscally pressed that they see saving a few mils on a cheaper paper stock as something worth doing to save a few bucks in running an election with national implications!
I frequently see here amazement expressed about such moves, but that is the REALITY of local government. It is the "Peter Principle" turned backwards and applied to inanimate objects.
Keep buying cheaper and cheaper everything until something breaks down in a mission-critical application. I wrote a county department budget for four years and JOB ONE was to find ways to do EVERYTHING cheaper. Why? Because AFSCME employees got automatic raises and the elected officials didn't want to raise property taxes - sooooo everything else had to be repeatedly cut to the bone, and beyond. |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 13
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 10:55 am: |
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STATISTICIANS please read this.
The machine counts the presidential vote correctly, but then shifts those ballots to a separate place so write-ins for vice president can be tallied up by hand
Something odd here - how does the machine distingish between (eg) write-in's for VP, Pres counted, and write-in's for VP, write-in-for-Pres not counted - or other multiple votes on a single sheet.
Surely, if a sheet goes to the manual count bin, that should mean that ALL the votes on the ballot go onto the manual count, because the operator has no real way of knowing which votes the machine did or didn't register from the ballot.
More especially, the problem affected 110 votes, but did NOT affect Obama AT ALL
Clinton 959 / 1030 = 0.93
Edwards 377 / 405 = 0.93
Biden 8 / 9 = 0.88
Richardson 69 / 72 = 0.96
Obama 678 / 673 = 1.01
All others EXCEPT OBAMA recieved 8 or fewer votes, so would go down zero if scaled the same.
So what does this mean *IF* there is fraud going on, and this represents a case where they didn't get a chance to 'fix' it in time. Those are two very big and uncertain conditions, but lets play the game.
That would mean that the method to reduce the Obama vote was not by boosting Hillary specifically, or swapping Obama to Hillary, or spreading Obama votes (then he would have got alot more from the recount). Rather, it means artificially inflating the count for all candidates getting more than a certain number of votes, other than Obama.
The advantage to this strategy, if one wanted to cheat, would be this: In the event of a manual recount, all that needs to be done, is to insert into the boxes a shuffled pile of ballots for the other candidates to make up the 'missing' count. No need to (eg) sort through and extract Obama ballots.
So, I'm not saying or suggesting that this happened, but it is a hypothesis that could be fed into the statistical models to see if it fits better than a straight Obama-Hillary comparison.
It makes the focus on SLITS - on ensuring that especially machine counted ballots being collected are properly secured and photographed before transit even more (if possible) critical.
Also, If I were Kucinich's recount guy, I'd be asking to see the ballots and paperwork in question for this ward again to verify as far as possible the explanation released by the SoS.}
Is it credible that a systematic (as in, same process applied to all ballots in that ward) failure that seemed to scale every other significant candidate at almost identical levels (~9%) affected Obama not at all? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1897
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 11:21 am: |
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Justin,
ASSUMING the machines are set up the way they're supposed to be set up, ALL "standard votes" (non-write-in) are counted by the machine and none of the write-ins are counted, except perhaps to create a write-in total, against which the itemized write-ins must be compared.
The correct procedure is to examine the write-ins and tally those and leave any ballot-printed candidate votes alone because those are ALREADY tallied.
Am I missing something here?
It's a simple binary test. "Are there any write-ins on this ballot?" If yes, ballot goes to write-in bin. If no, ballot gets stacked in the "normal" bin. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 108
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 11:30 am: |
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The write-in fields have ovals next to them just like the pre-printed fields. To do a write-in you have to both write the name on the line AND fill in the oval next to it. The machine only reads the ovals, and puts the ballot in the write-in chamber if any of the write-in ovals are filled in.
Some people do make the mistake of not filling in the ovals next to their write-ins. If any oval for any pre-printed candidate is filled in, the machine puts the ballot in the regular chamber and probably no one knows that there is a write-in, unless they have occasion to look at those ballots (like a recount).
(Message edited by Mike_LaBonte on January 21, 2008) |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 14
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 11:34 am: |
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Kurt, you'd know better than me.
I see what you're saying - the machine is looking for ink in the write-in regions. I think I was assuming the 'write-in' destination would be the same for a 'multiple-selection' ballot. As I understand in these machines have three exit routes:
1) regular bin
2) post-closure-hand-count bin
3) reject ballot tray
So, thinking it through, I see what you're saying - I still have real issues with the stats that this human error affected everyone BUT Obama though. If it is true, it's yet another bizzare co-incidence that ZERO wrote Obama for VP when 30 wrote Edwards and 70-something wrote Clinton |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 11:38 am: |
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Justin, if you bothered to read the Nashua article at all, you will understand why only the left column of candidates had write-ins added to their votes and not the right column (like Obama).
Sure, is this acceptable from poll workers? No. But PLEASE stop everyone from these magic numbers games. You can see lots of patterns all over the place.
Manchester Ward 5 and Nashua Ward 5 were clerical errors either at the precinct or town clerk or when the SOS entered them into a spreadsheet. It is very manual process and these are human errors. In fact, this is not ballot box stuffing at all, or there would have been ballots to match the "shifted" reported results. This is a clerical error the recount has caught. In fact, the AP already had the Manchester Ward 5 errors, as some reporter wrote down the election night totals from the precinct, and guess what? They basically match the recount numbers.
To repeat, these results are posted at the precinct on election night. Just because two precincts have merged the VP write-ins is not "cheating".
If you want something interesting to look into, try Brookline. But, again, that is easily explained as not re-zeroing after the test stack went through. |
Jill Sturgis
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jillette68
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 11:45 am: |
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The condition of the boxes in NH is so horrid, is anyone in the media even covering this fiasco? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1898
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 11:51 am: |
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Jason,
My tongue is sooo far in my cheek here, I look like a squirrel with a jawbreaker.
Oooooooh. Similar errors in Manchester 5 and Nashua 5. Coincidence? Maybe we need to investigate whether ALL Ward 5's got surreptitious instructions to do things like this. If I hadn't stated it here making fun of it, I'd expect it to be posted seriously AT LEAST on Bradblog.
Justin, Mike is right. There is no search for ink in the write-in area. It is a search for the write-in bubble that is just like any candidate's.
HAVA required each state to create an objective list (not just 'voter intent') of what constitutes a legal vote on every system in use in that state. That means that IN SOME STATES AT LEAST, if a write-in vote is written in, and the bubble for "Write-In" is NOT darkened, then it is as if that write-in never occurred at all.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 21, 2008) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1899
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:03 pm: |
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Okay Jill (and others),
If you find the boxes being used so unacceptable (and I see that point, in hindsight) what would you suggest as an alternative?
Do you suppose that all these New Hampshire towns would have had secured courier boxes at the ready when no such recount had ever been done? What should they be? Steel? Titanium? Combination locks? Barrel locks? Lead caliper-pinched seals like an electric meter?
Should the need for these have been anticipated in advance? How? They've never encountered this hypersensitized activist community before. Read this and understand it. THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY PEOPLE SO SUSPICIOUS OF PUBLIC ELECTIONS AS PEOPLE HERE ARE NOW, NEVER! You simply could not have been anticipated. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 192
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:30 pm: |
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Don't these "it's a write-in double count" error explanations actually also imply an arguably more egregious error: failure to reconcile the vote and ballot numbers post election? If you count a number of Presidential votes twice, surely you end up with more votes than ballots. The NH SoS elections manual has very specific instructions for this procedure.
.
,
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christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 20
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:35 pm: |
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New Hampshire's Voting Procedures Manual is here:
http://www.sos.nh.gov/FINAL%20EPM%208-30-2006.pdf
NH election procedures protocol for state elections (not federal primaries) specifies putting votes into a container supplied by the NH SOS
BEGIN QUOTE
SEALING AND CERTIFYING BALLOTS. Ballots must be sealed immediately after the votes at a state election have been tabulated, the results have been announced, and the return prepared. The moderator or his or her designee, in the presence of the selectmen or their designee, shall place the:
• Cast ballots;
• Canceled ballots;
• Uncast ballots;
• Ballots from any additional polling places; and
• Successfully challenged absentee ballots
in containers supplied by the Secretary of State.
RSA 659:97. The container shall be sealed in public by the moderator with the sealer provided by the Secretary of State. RSA 659:97.
END QUOTE
The NH SOS has demonstrated an interest in quality records storage including type of box, and in chain of custody for stored records, in this offer to NH municipalities for $10,000 grants to improve records storage:
http://www.sos.nh.gov/VitalRecords/VR_pres_grants.html
And in various other places in the Archives section of the SOS website, detailed records and discussions of issues related to paper and electronic data storage are in evidence.
It is of interest to compare what the State of New Hampshire itself has set as its own standards in similar situations, and ask if it is meeting them or even selectively creating such standards or applying them (or are there multiple standards applied for various types of elections?). Likewise, for other interested states, comparing NH's "best practices" to what other states and countries do is in fact instructive. Finally, comparing the on the ground facts of chain of custody to various other professional standards for chain of custody (such as professional auditors, criminal justice rules for evidence, etc.) at least gives citizens data points to compare how seriously we take ballot security compared to murder weapons, cash, or accounting records. |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 15
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:36 pm: |
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Jason,
Perhaps I should have made more reference to the article - including Richardson was deliberate. I did, as Kurt pointed out, probably make a mis-assumption on the flow of physical ballots through the machine.
I also have a rudimentary grasp of stats (although my 9% at the end was because I was being talked at at the time) sufficient to go 'wow' at the universe rather than any supposed evidence when those 5 significant-digit reversed (incorrect) percentages for Clinton/Obama were all the rage.
HOWEVER: I think it is remiss of you, given the reason this recount is happening, to not consider hypotheses that would result from cheating, if it were actually occuring - something I am far from decided on either way - I struggle to believe such a conspiracy would really be possible, but it'd be wrong to not ask those 'what ifs'.
In this particular scenario, given that this is about detection of POSSIBLE election fraud and avenues thereof, what would happen IF the scenario as described was actually occurring. Just because a plausible story is released does not remove the requirement to ask, "Does this new information sufficiently explain the data, or is it also consistent with cheating"
It is incumbent on us in this situation to be skeptically minded, BOTH of any suggestion of cheating, AND of any official explanations - question everything.
In this case, the SoS information perfectly matches what would and could be stated IF there is well orchestrated cheating going on.
If it wern't for Green Jeeps and Slits in boxes, and the lack of a basic check of number of voters vs number of votes per ward (which SHOULD have picked this up prior to initial reporting!), it wouldn't be necessary to ask the question - but this is NOT magic numbers, this is one county (Manchester 5 is largely irrelevant to this) where the data in error happens to coincide near perfectly with the very basis for the investigation - consequently the evidence threshold must be set higher.
Yes, it supports the SoS that a very similar problem was reported for Manchester 5, but that should not be sufficient here. It is right and proper to not immediately accept the authority explanation.
Again, it's kinda odd that information on voter counts vs vote counts per ward hasn't been published on the recount website as a control.
Brookline is far less worthy of any particular attention - as the error is more obviously systematic in nature - It is yet another good example of why if you're gonna use machines, you should always still hand count regardless.
Rant over, I think. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1900
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:40 pm: |
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Michael,
Failure to follow procedure?
"Gambling in Casablanca? Rick, I'm shocked!"
Of course this speaks to AT THE MINIMUM a shocking lack of competence and ability to follow procedure at these polling sites. Funny, I thought we had already stipulated to that.
This is a REAL LIFE example of the limitations of "people centered" election management. Yes, these were so-called "machine precincts" but the human beings at the precinct insisted on screwing it up with their own brand of manual "post-processing".
NONE of this surprises me. It is EXACTLY THIS KIND OF ERROR that argues at least as a CAVEAT when people get all excited about HCPB. People screw up, big time. After all, it's only "retail" distributed error, right?
ANY election, regardless of election method, has LOTS and LOTS of human screw-ups.
There is a whole doctoral thesis waiting to be written about the group psychology of a precinct election board. I have seen examples of one completely full of sh... fecal material person who is wearing nice clothes and speaks with an air of authority talking otherwise intelligent people not ONLY into violating procedure, but indeed to completely violate state and federal law.
The problem is that even veteran pollworkers are so overwhelmed by all the recent changes that, combined with the fact they do these things twice a year and don't remember much, they can be talked into almost anything.
It's why we need STABILITY in PROCESS most of all, exactly what we are NOT getting.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 21, 2008) |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 16
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:56 pm: |
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Which is why I'm not anti-machine. Well programmed machines are really good at noticing most human-type system failures, and humans are really good at noticing most machine-type failures.
The two working together, harmoniously, is ideal. When the human count and the machine count match, it's very likely to be trustworthy.
Problem is people see machines as a REPLACEMENT to make things CHEAPER and FASTER, rather than an ADJUNCT to make things BETTER and FASTER.
[NB: Last four years of my life in systems architecture for complex form automated imaging and processing - some things correlate here, some don't] |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 193
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 1:07 pm: |
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Nice use of sarcasm, Kurt.
But this is another level. Not just failure to properly perform a function, but omitting or ignoring a whole section. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1902
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 1:31 pm: |
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"Not just failure to properly perform a function, but omitting or ignoring a whole section."
And not one iota, not one atom of that comes as a surprise to me. I've seen it far too much and far too often to expect otherwise. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1763
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 2:01 pm: |
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quote:It's why we need STABILITY in PROCESS most of all, exactly what we are NOT getting.
Stability in a process that is shit, only stabilizes on shittiness. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 36
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 4:34 pm: |
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After how many days now we have yet to have reproduced for us an actual copy of the paper ballot that's been at the center of all of this?
Isn't there even one blank paper ballot used by Nashua Ward 5 and Manchester Ward 5 - something that appeared in a newspaper perhaps?
Can BBV please provide? Thank you. Then we can determine how voters marked two separate votes by marking the President spot and the Vice President spot.
Then we can determine how the electronic machine handled those instances vs how a person handled those instances. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 13
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 5:54 pm: |
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Justin, I wasn't fully directing that at you, but rather the onslaught of people jumping to huge conclusions without any investigations or common sense. I think Brad Friedman is going out on quite a limb in that video. I do understand what you are saying, but which is more likely:
- a poll worker makes a mistake and adds Clinton write-in votes from either the VP or GOP ballot.
- someone hacked the electronic results to include extra votes, but only in Wards ending in "5" and they fail to stuff in the matching ballots, and they let the AP report the actual results on election night.
Here is a picture of the ballot. There are tons of Dem candidates, a bubble for write-in and I believe two VP candidates and a bubble for VP write-in. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 196
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 12:21 am: |
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Except, Jason, your account of events has an apparent contradiction. The official explanation is that an incorrect tabulation was made at the #5 Wards on election night. So how did the AP reporter get the correct numbers on election night? |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 15
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 3:46 am: |
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Maybe the AP read the results from the voting machine printouts, or maybe they were posted on the wall, or maybe this was just an error filling out a sheet that goes to the SOS office. The "official" explanation clearly is a cover-up an implausible and clearly I must be working for them. |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 22
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 5:34 am: |
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Jason,
I didn't realise that Nashua 5 had also been correctly initially reported via the AP.
However a few observations
It's you who keeps conflating Nashua 5 with Manchester 5 in this thread to support your position, not me.
My hypothesis (not belief) is that a number of machines in several wards [nothing to do with 5's] inflated electronic votes for dem candidates other than Obama, and that additional ballots were added to the boxes to match after polling but before the recount, and that this 'fix' failed for Nashua 5.
Any abnormal observation needs to be tested to see how it is impacted accepting the assumption that there is fraud going on. It is not appropriate for these purposes to consider the likelihood or otherwise of fraud to influence ones conclusion as to whether there was fraud, only how the absence or presence of fraud could bring about whatever is being observed.
You appear to do this above: effectively saying fraud is more complex, and therefore fraud is less likely, and therefor it wasn't fraud. Of COURSE anything involving fraud will be complex.
The Magic reversing percentages, and the Magic missing 12 votes per candidate, and probably other oddball numbers flying around, ALL require an EVEN MORE COMPLEX and less probable explanation if a RESULT of fraud than via chance alone, EVEN when one assumes there IS fraud going on. And it's frustrating when you see people leaping on these numbers as some sort of evidence of something.
In the Nashua 5 scenario, *IF* one assumes Obama WAS affected by fraud, the result is more easily (if one fails to check the AP results) or as easily explained through that fraud than through chance or human error.
[NB: the assumption of fraud here is being used to test hypotheses, not because I hold to that assumption myself.]
It does seem odd that the AP and the SoS get different numbers. It is still unexplained how that could occur. There is still therefore something either wrong or incomplete with the explanation provided.
So, my final words on Nashua 5 pending anything new
- the pattern fits the trigger for the recount;
- the explanation is incomplete;
- if one forces an assumption of fraud, then the result is possibly AS easily explained as a consequence of fraud compared to a consequence of error, with currently available evidence
That last point would have been 'MORE easily', were it not for the AP results.
AS a consequence, Nashua 5 should be subject to scrutiny until the 'caused by fraud' hypothesis can no longer be sustained, even when holding onto an assumption that the election itself did involve fraud.
Less ranty, but definitely my last words on this particular subject for a while. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 197
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 7:50 am: |
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Jason: "Maybe the AP read the results from the voting machine printouts, or maybe they were posted on the wall, or maybe this was just an error filling out a sheet that goes to the SOS office. The "official" explanation clearly is a cover-up an[d] implausible and clearly I must be working for them."
Just pointing out that all the 'facts' in your account don't fit together as conclusively as you imply. For example, saying that "-a poll worker makes a mistake and adds Clinton write-in votes..." (in line with the official explanation) has additional implications as discussed above in this thread--ballot reconciliation was not (correctly) done at that Ward, otherwise the mistake would have been caught. That means we don't actually know for sure what the correct total number of ballots is.
Alternate explanations like "...maybe this was just an error filling out a sheet that goes to the SOS office." could be plausible, but differ from the explanation given by election officials.
Oh, and sarcasm is not an argument.
And please don't think I am implying that there was fraud.
As Nancy Tobi has pointed out, the most likely possibilities are (1) there was no fraud or (2) the fraudsters aren't dummies--they used insiders who took advantage of lax security and an unquestioning public to remove definitive traces of tampering. So the recount numbers may not tell us that much (about fraud that is). However, a lot of serious procedural shortcomings have been documented that could lead to improvements, if the political will were to be fostered.
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Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 37
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:13 am: |
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Justin's post:
I didn't realise that Nashua 5 had also been correctly initially reported via the AP.
Has that yet been established?
AP reports different numbers than the SoS. Those numbers for Manchester 5 and Nashua 5 (after the recount) turn out to be the correct numbers.
The SoS has different numbers after those numbers are reported from ??
My understanding how things work is the Wards display a machine copy of the results from the machine count at the ward. The Ward is to retain a copy of the final tally report on the ward machine. Where are those printouts for Manchester 5 and Nashua 5?
Michael's post: the official explanation is that an incorrect tabulation was made at the #5 Wards on election night. So how did the AP reporter get the correct numbers on election night?
Often, a separate reporting system is provided to the media at an online source. This actually happened in our PA county. There were different "unofficial" numbers on Election Day provided on an online "live" resource than what appeared at the local election bureau. It was fascinating as a local news source (newspaper) followed the online report as it had done in past elections. At one point, it was obvious something was not jiving in a couple of local races. They stopped the live report program! Next day's news reports were interesting. But that may not be what happened here.
Justin It does seem odd that the AP and the SoS get different numbers. It is still unexplained how that could occur.
The pre-State certification, so unofficial ward report of numbers to the SoS would not come from these two places:
AP (not direct unofficial report to SoS)
Ward (not direct unofficial report to SoS)
The unofficial report of ward numbers to the SoS would come from the central election bureau, wouldn't it? |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 38
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:25 am: |
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I see the Nashua 5 and Manchester 5 are encompassed in the following
http://www.sos.nh.gov/voting%20machines2006.htm
(Message edited by truthnet on January 22, 2008) |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 161
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:29 am: |
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Hand counting is done at the town level. If a town or city has chosen Diebold, then it is all Diebold. I have never heard of any deviation from this recipe. There would be NO hand count wards in any Diebold cities. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 39
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:42 am: |
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So Nashua 5 and Manchester 5 are not hand-counted? |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 162
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:55 am: |
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No. In machine towns the only ballots hand counted are the writeins and usually the absentee (because the paper is thinner and folded and generally gets stuck in the machine). |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 40
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:56 am: |
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Jason thanks for the ballot photo, but it doesn't reveal the pertinent section for VP. There were only 2 VP names as you indicate. What happened in the circumstance where a voter marked the bubble for Clinton as President. Then the voter also wrote-in the Clinton name at the VP space? |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 41
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:58 am: |
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Thanks, Nancy. But who hand counts the writtens? Is this done in the wards? I surmise not. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 163
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 9:02 am: |
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All counting on election night is done at the polling place. In machine count towns, the hand count ballots (writeins and absentee) are counted at the polling place on election night by election workers. Every election worker in NH, whether machine count or not, needs to know how to hand count for this reason. Getting rid of the machines would just be expanding this already current practice from some, to all, ballots. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 42
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 9:03 am: |
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That's aside from the absentees. Those would be subject to the hand-counting in the ward/machine town. Correct? |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 43
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 9:12 am: |
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But therein would be the problem continued of persons double-counting from different columns. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 44
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 9:14 am: |
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Inadvertently so. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 16
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 10:10 am: |
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Nancy, one exception to "hand counting in diebold towns" is Stratham. According to the trouble reports, due to using the wrong pen on over 500 ballots, they hand counted all the ballots by the time LHS showed up.
I'm not 100% certain that ALL ballots were hand counted, or just the ones rejected by the AccuVote.
Not that I care to rehash this, but Manchester and Nashua 5 are both the same problem with the same description, and both precincts had inflated vote totals which were uncovered by the recount. The only difference is in Nashua, they only added VP write-in on the "left" columns, which was Clinton, Edwards, and in Manchester they added to all columns. Neither one had inflated about of paper ballots. The fact that Wards 1-10 all match and were reported by AP on election night should somewhat dispel the idea of a vote switch gone wrong. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 164
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 10:16 am: |
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OK - I stand corrected. I was thinking of standard operating procedure. If a hand count was done as a one-off in either of those wards, I don't know about it. |
Bob Fleischer
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Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 161
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 10:17 am: |
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Sorry, I haven't been able to follow the entire discussion in several threads, but perhaps somebody can answer me this: in NH towns with scanners, are the ballots scanned as the voter checks out, or are they batch scanned later? |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 165
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 10:19 am: |
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scanned when voter inserts ballot into diebold machine. no batch scanning in NH. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 45
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 10:58 am: |
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We would need to find out if the wards pulled out for special discussion, Nashua 5 and Manchester 5, were hand-counted at the polling place due to "wrong pen being used" or some such, then, correct? |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1906
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 11:06 am: |
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Del,
They were AT THE VERY MINIMUM, hand-"altered" after the machine count.
The pollworkers manually added in SOMETHING from the ballots that had been kicked out as having write-ins on them, contrary to proper procedure.
The reason AP had this right and the town had it wrong is not difficult to explain. If the AP person took his tally from the ward-posted report (And if there were enough reporters to do the legwork, why not? After all, these ARE population centers where a relatively short walk gets multiple wards.) and the town/SoS took theirs from the return sheet, ....VOILA! |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 46
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 11:10 am: |
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Jason: The fact that Wards 1-10 all match and were reported by AP on election night should somewhat dispel the idea of a vote switch gone wrong.
But they didn't all match. The SoS had incorrect totals after the election and before the recount for Nashua 5 and Manchester 5, the two we're selecting because of situation of double-counting.
Had there not been requests for a recount, those numbers reported and certified as accurate by SoS who had those numbers, not the AP numbers, would have stood.
We need to find out whether these two Manchester 5 and Nashua 5 were hand-counted due to wrong pen being used or in part hand-counted. |
Del Argenti
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Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 47
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 11:30 am: |
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The "ward" had it wrong. That's what is so confounding, Kurt. The reporter couldn't have gotten these numbers from the ward, as those as is being discussed, would include the as Nancy said "write-ins." Even in the machine counties, the write-ins are hand-counted.
It hasn't been specified as of yet whether these were from the absentees.
That I could understand as a case like that happened in Allegheny County. Pollworkers scanned in the absentees on the machines!
Now if somebody had not done that in this case, but did manually add in the total from the absentees as if they were from the "machines" well, I'm just postulating... |
Mike LaBonte
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Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 111
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 12:27 pm: |
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I can't guarantee that it works the same in NH, but in MA the precinct poll workers post the machine tapes soon after the poll closes. At this time a second tape is printed and sent immediately to city hall for posting on a bulletin board. Then the precinct workers manually count ballots as needed and fill in tally sheets. All of that is sent to city hall when they are done, usually at least an hour later.
I'm pretty sure reporters would have seen only the machine tapes immediately after the election. At our city hall we always have a flock of reporters waiting in the hall to get the results, We post the machine tapes on the wall as they arrive. If they instead had one reporter at each precinct, I think they would get their results about 15 minutes sooner, at best.
The reporters either hang around for a few more hours, or more likely call in later, to get the tally numbers including manual counts. Again, I don't know if it is done the same way in NH. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 48
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 1:56 pm: |
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Voter turnout in New Hampshire sets new primary record
By Stephen Frothingham
Associated Press Writer / January 9,
Manchester Ward 5 clerk Madeline Walsh reported heavy turnout.
"There was 1,961 voters reported, and based on what I can tell, that's almost double of typical primary years," she said. She still had to hand-count more than 100 ballots that were rejected by voting machines for various reasons.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2008/01/09/voter_turnout _in_new_hampshire_sets_new_primary_record/ |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 25
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 2:05 pm: |
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Presumably that includes republicans?
1466 dem votes reported initially,
1314 dem votes after recount. |
karen reineke
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 1
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 3:26 pm: |
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forgive me if this is a dbl post..im having trouble navigating the site
dems had 1314 votes after recount...the sos web page shows 725 on the repub side for manchester 5 thats 2039 votes,78 more than the clerk says she had voters |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 49
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 3:37 pm: |
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It will all work out if there are as much 78 on the Republican side which were similarly found to be double-counted?
How many new voters were registered that day might become a factor in the analysis going on?
Same day registration in polling place...
http://www.manchesternh.gov/CityGov/CLK/Elections/Register.html |
karen reineke
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 2
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 4:04 pm: |
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im having hard time buying the explaination for the drop in votes in manchester 5...that a clerk mistakenly added vp votes to the presidental race since the vp candidates names were bryk and stebbins and if the explanation is that the vp write ins were added whr is the written verifacation that "a clerk made that change" |
karen reineke
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 3
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 5:03 pm: |
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also from brad blog
As well, David Bright, a senior Kucinich representative, who has been in the counting room serving as an observer over several days last week, tells The BRAD BLOG tonight that in addition to the refusal to allow for the counting of uncast/unvoted ballots, they have also not been allowed to review the poll books, so they have no way of knowing how many actually signed in and cast ballots on Election Day.
"We have no indication of how many voters actually voted. No check lists. No list of who signed into the poll books," says Bright. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 198
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 5:09 pm: |
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Karen,
It turns out that it is not that the poll workers added VP votes to the Pres count, but that they counted some Pres votes twice.
The explanation printed in the Manchester paper does not give sufficient detail to figure out specifically what supposedly happened. But a very similar problem happened in Nashua Ward 5, and a much more detailed explanation was reported in the Nashua paper. A careful reading will tell you how the election officials believe the errors arose.
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Catherine Ansbro
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Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4495
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 6:46 pm: |
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It seems unusual that a recount would not allow review of the poll books. Is that due to an actual NH recount law, or is someone making up the rules as they go along?
Do primaries have a proper poll book at all? |
karen reineke
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 4
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 6:59 pm: |
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ty 4 the referance but numbers added to tape results should always have written verification to explain the reason for the add... then if a human error is dicovered the reasoning is documented..hopefully since bev is in feild she can witness for us....i am not hopeful because sos not allowing poll numbers out |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 17
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 4:34 am: |
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Yes, all the newspapers in NH must be liars and "falling" for the coverup story. I'm sure of it. It is much easier to assume that then the "official" story.
On a serious note, here are the opscan ballots used in NH |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 166
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 5:15 am: |
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A records request would release the poll books, but my exp with the SoS in NH is they drag their feet in delivering records requests. If people are committed to uncovering what really happened in NH it will take post-recount investigation. The official recount will uncover nothing. What we are gaining from this experience is the very important evidence BBV is uncovering with respect to chain of custody and accountability (or lack thereof).
With respect to the official NH newspapers and the mainstream Dems responses - as found at their propaganda site bluehampshire.com - (the same responses, btw, the Rs had when they were in power), you must understand that we are up against a 30-year history of the "myth and legend" of SoS Bill Gardner and the loyalty the people of NH feel towards him.
Much of his reputation has seemed to be well-deserved, although the evidence uncovered by BBV is throwing a dark shadow over the office of the NH SoS.
Additionally, with the local control over elections, and local election officials being neighbors elected by neighbors, people are hard pressed to assume the worst of anyone. And this, too, is more often than not well-deserved loyalty.
But something stinks in NH and the buck stops with Bill Gardner. There have been many bad ecisions made before the election and now during the recount, and somebody has to be accountable.
Nonetheless, it is only the foolish activists who allow ourselves to look at the evidence and ask the hard questions. Others prefer to see things as they want them to be.
Don't expect anyone in the mainstream NH culture - media, pols, or otherwise - to openly question SoS Gardner or our election systems. Not in the near term anyway. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1907
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 6:41 am: |
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Catherine,
While I recognize that in the aborted Ohio "recount" of 2004 there was initially a look at the pollbooks included, that is frequently NOT part of a "recount" per se.
A recount is one thing, frequently. Almost tautologically, it means "to count again".
The more exhaustive look at ALL documentation is in most states called something other than a "recount". It is sometimes referred to as an "audit" or an "election contest". In some states, the ONLY WAY ANYBODY ever gets to look at the pollbooks is in court under the supervision of a judge. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 50
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 7:59 am: |
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Michael: It turns out that it is not that the poll workers added VP votes to the Pres count, but that they counted some Pres votes twice.
This report says otherwise. I'll pull the one for Nashua 5 to follow.
Human Error, Not Machine, Found During Recount
Ward 5 Clerk Adds Vice Presidential Votes To Presidential Total
POSTED: 4:22 pm EST January 18, 2008
The one major exception has been Ward 5 in Manchester, where votes for all the major candidates dropped significantly after the recount. Clinton's total went from 683 to 619, Obama's went from 404 to 365, and other candidates saw similar drops.
But state officials said the problem wasn't with the machine that did the counting. The disparity appeared when the ward clerk filling out the official tally sheet accidentally added vice presidential votes to the presidential votes.
The New Hampshire ballot allows voters to also vote for a vice president, and some wrote in a presidential candidate's name in that spot. When the clerk was carrying the totals over from the columns, the votes were accidentally added to the presidential votes.
It was a human error, and the machine count was right, but that hasn't stopped hundreds of people from e-mailing the secretary of state calling him a "liar," calling the process a "sham," and threatening to have Gardner arrested by federal officials for rigging the outcome.
"It's unusual, to say the least," Gardner said.
No town clerk has raised any allegations of problems with the vote count...
http://www.wmur.com/politics/15087001/detail.html |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 51
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 8:22 am: |
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For Manchester 5 the total affected appears to be 152 among the Dem. candidates. See Justin Maxwell post, no link provided.
1466 dem votes reported initially,
1314 dem votes after recount.
So were there 152 Manchester 5 ballots which were hand-counted (over 100) according to the clerk, ballots which were rejected by the voting machines for various reasons?
Voter turnout in New Hampshire sets new primary record By Stephen Frothingham
Associated Press Writer / January 9,
Manchester Ward 5 clerk Madeline Walsh reported heavy turnout.
"There was 1,961 voters reported, and based on what I can tell, that's almost double of typical primary years," she said. She still had to hand-count more than 100 ballots that were rejected by voting machines for various reasons.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2008/01/09/voter_turnout _in_new_hampshire_sets_new_primary_record/ |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1909
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 8:35 am: |
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Del,
I think your use of the phrase "ballots which were rejected by the voting machines for various reasons" is incorrect.
In a normal opscan environment, ALL ballots that contain a write-in vote ANYWHERE on the ballot are kicked into a bin so that those write-ins can be recorded manually. The non-write-ins are already tallied by the machine. This is apparently what these ward officials did not know. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 52
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 8:52 am: |
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03 Kucinich
64 Hillary Clinton
38 John Edwards
39 Barack Obama
07 Bill Richardson
151
Primary recount continues with minor changes
By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
Friday, Jan. 18, 2008
The widest variations so far were in Manchester's Ward 5. Vote counters there mistakenly transposed write-in votes for vice president as votes for presidential candidate. As a result, all major candidates lost votes. Kucinich lost three in the ward and has a total of 20 votes there. Hillary Clinton lost 64 with a new total of 619; John Edwards lost 38 and has 217 votes; Barack Obama lost 39 and has 365, and Bill Richardson lost seven, leaving him 39.
http://unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Primary+recount+continues+with+mino r+changes&articleId=ad21f73a-f6e4-4f50-864c-2e417e08cdf6 |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 53
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 8:55 am: |
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Kurt it isn't my use it was the use of the reporter, according to the clerk...
she said. She still had to hand-count more than 100 ballots that were rejected by voting machines for various reasons. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 54
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:14 am: |
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The thing is, Kurt, it appears to me that the write-in votes for VP were then not valid votes, would you agree? Some
03 Kucinich
64 Hillary Clinton
38 John Edwards
39 Barack Obama
07 Bill Richardson
That's why they were separated into a category via the machine that wasn't for write-ins, they couldn't be because they were not valid write-ins. The machine would reject them. Nobody would count them. I suspect those were considered over-votes by the machines. But they weren't considered over-votes by the clerks.
That's the reason the recount numbers and the AP numbers match. That's the reason the ward numbers and the central spreadsheet numbers and the initial SoS numbers match.
According to info on the board, the original SoS numbers and the AP numbers did not match. |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 25
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:31 am: |
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Something's bothering me...Isn't the important thing the memory cards? Isn't that where you find an executable card? Sorry if I missed something. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1911
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:39 am: |
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Del,
I'm not sure I follow your logic here. He'p me, please.
Here's what I know about the ballot.
For President, there were 21 ballot-listed candidates and a write-in slot with the bubble to darken.
For Vice-President, there were 2 ballot-listed candidates and a similar write-in slot with bubble.
Now, there is NOTHING stopping someone from voting a ballot-listed choice for President, BUT THEN writing in one of those Presidential candidates for Vice-President.
I ran my county GOP caucus and straw poll last night and MANY people wrote in Presidential candidates (especially Thompson - who was still on our Presidential ballots) for Vice President.
What would make you say that ANY name would not be a valid write-in? That's what I'm not getting. Isn't the point of a write-in that anyone is valid? |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 55
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:49 am: |
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That's ok Kurt, we're just discussing work in progress.
Ok. I understand that the same candidate for President could also be a write-in vote for the office of VP and that would be valid for VP. Those would be counted by the machine for VP. {oops}
Isn't the VP column from where the clerks acquired the additional votes for President?
I was trying to account for how the voter registration would work out with no more votes for President than there were voters who showed up at the polling place.
(Message edited by truthnet on January 23, 2008)
(Message edited by truthnet on January 23, 2008) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1912
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:15 am: |
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Del,
"Those would be counted by the machine for VP."
This I think is the core of the misunderstanding. No write-in votes are counted by the machines, OTHER THAN perhaps just a total tally of how many total write-ins there are.
Any itemization of those write-ins is a completely manual thing. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1913
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:19 am: |
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Del,
It is not clear, and the story seems to have changed over time, where those "extra" votes came from.
It could be from the VP write-ins, and it could be from just re-counting and manually adding back into the totals the Presidential votes on those ballots that had VP write-ins.
To make it even more confusing, it could be one way in Manchester 5 and the other in Nashua 5. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 200
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 11:29 am: |
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Kurt: "...the story seems to have changed over time, where those "extra" votes came from."
That could be partly my fault. The description in the Manchester paper is too abbreviated to understand in detail how the mistake was made and propagated. The Nashua results came in after the Manchester results and the Nashua Telegraph gave a more detailed and plausible explanation, so I jumped to the conclusion that the error was the same in both Wards, and then I entered posts here that only cited the explanation given in the Nashua paper.
I hadn't seen the more complete description of the Manchester Ward 5 mistake published by the Manchester TV's web site. If this is correct, it would appear that the details of the errors made in each Ward are different. The net effect is the same, however, inflation of the Pres. count, which would have been caught by a proper ballot reconciliation.
.
.
|
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1778
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 11:30 am: |
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If it was the VP write-ins, then the people totalling those write-ins are incompetant, aren't they? A vote for VP isn't a vote for a president in the primary or the election. I would like to think that anyone who wasn't an imbecile would know that, whoever gets to count votes should know that. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1915
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 11:55 am: |
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Michael,
Please understand, I'm not stating that I have any clue what actually happened in these two 5's. I'm merely trying to "flesh out" the descriptions from what I've read.
I sat through hours and hours of advisory board meetings wherein all these scenarios were anecdotally offered to us. I never thought there'd be an application for those hours. Now there is.
Brant,
I'd say either explanation is pretty bad, but you're right, adding the actual VP write-ins into the Presidential total is orders of magnitude worse. At least it is plausible to think, even though it's wrong, that any ballot kicked into the write-in bin needed to be fully counted manually and added back in to the totals.
Also, Brant, I know you're not an absolutist on HCPB. You have other priorities and issues that you look for. But one reason I'm pretty skeptical about HCPB is that I know that somehow "imbeciles" (your word, not mine) get onto precinct (or ward, in this state) election boards all the time.
One particular "imbecile" can talk merely meek people more correct than he is into doing the most unbelievable things.
Kind of gives you all "warm fuzzies" about even the jury system, doesn't it?
Yes, Brant, they should know lots of things that they don't.
What's even more likely is that both places did the less eggregious error, and the reporter got the story wrong.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 23, 2008) |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 201
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 12:20 pm: |
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Brant,
Perhaps it is not helpful to engage in name-calling, especially when we don't really have all the facts.
It is definitely possible to know that a VP vote should not count for Pres, but to nevertheless mistakenly take a number from the wrong column and add it in. Especially at the end of a long day.
.
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|
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 22
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 4:27 pm: |
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I think it's useful to look at two pieces of information re: the supposed vice presidential write ins (is this confirmed explanation?).
First, in reading the NH statutes on ballot creation it states the following:
656:31 Form. On the presidential primary election ballot of each political party, there shall be one column for the office of president and one for the office of vice-president. The columns shall be headed “Candidate of the (insert name of party) Party for President (or Vice-President) of the United States.” Underneath this heading there shall appear the words: “I hereby declare my preference for candidate for the office of President (or Vice-President) of the United States to be as follows.” Below these words, there shall be printed “(VOTE FOR NOT MORE THAN ONE)” followed by the name, town or city, and state of each candidate with boxes directly to the right. There shall always be one blank space on the ballot below the candidates’ names to allow for writing in the name of a candidate. If no one files for the office of vice-president, that office shall not be listed on the ballot.
QUESTION: Was there a VP candidate on the primary ballot, and if not, why was this statute not followed?
Second, to get some insight into how local official are guided in determining voter intent, the following quote is from the NH Election Procedures Manual, which as I understand it is in fact a guide, not a mandated set of procedures (Maybe Nancy Tobi can shed some insight on this). It is a helpful place to look, because it represents some of the guidance the SOS has give local elections officials on how to count the vote:
WHAT CONSTITUTES A LEGAL
VOTE
The overriding consideration of how to count a
ballot is the voter's intention. Determining the
intention of a voter ultimately requires a common
sense judgment by the election officials.
Remember: the whole thrust of our election laws
and their application is to enfranchise as many
citizens as possible and to count their votes
whenever possible. RSA 659:64.
See this link, starting at page 41, for the guidance given in how to count ballots and an explanation of how write-ins may go undetected if the circle indicating a write in is not filled in.
http://www.sos.nh.gov/FINAL%20EPM%208-30-2006.pdf |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1917
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 4:55 pm: |
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Answer to question 1: Yes, there were two ballot-listed VP candidates.
2: In my learned opinion RSA 659:64 is legally problematic for New Hampshire in that it is too vague and subjective. That subjectivity is, again in my learned opinion not permitted by Bush v. Gore and the language of HAVA regarding standards for what constitutes a legal vote. I would bet my house the SCOTUS would strike down this recount if it uses RSA 659:64, if a case even got to the SCOTUS on this. Countless states have abandoned "intent" language for this very reason, in favor of objective strict standards. In my opinion, Bush v. Gore makes the NH statute here illegal in these particular circumstances. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 23
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 5:31 pm: |
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What I am attempting to point out here is something that already happened and the laws that currently exist, as a lens for trying to understand how there was a VP line on the ballot and how other than "being an imbecile" an official might either count or fail to count particular write in votes.
The manual specifically deals witih state elections and makes no specific mention that I saw of presidential primaries, so it is possible I am wrong to cite it and it is not relevant to the current recounts. (Does Bush vs. Gore apply to state elections, for example?)
Who were the two candidates on the VP ballot? |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 202
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 5:57 pm: |
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Christine,
Go here to view the ballot: http://www.manchesternh.gov/CityGov/CLK/elections/files/FCC62FC852ED4BD88AAAA0C2 982BA5E9.pdf
(courtesy of Jason's post above). |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 24
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 6:28 pm: |
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Thanks - missed Jason's post and I appreciate the repeat. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1919
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 7:31 pm: |
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Christine,
Excellent question. I believe most legal scholars have opined that Bush v. Gore does not apply to garden-variety state elections.
There is one legal point on which to quibble with that, but an assumption it does not apply will get you near truth.
Where is does apply is in a statewide recount of an election for federal office. |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 26
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:48 pm: |
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If we can't secure all of the memory cards and test each one, how can we ever have fair elections? |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1779
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 5:07 am: |
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I didn't call anybody in particular an imbecile, I said that an egregious error in execution of a base function of a job would require that you be an imbecile. No, Michael, I think I'm in the right here, and I think framing any kind of 'reasonable explanation' or 'contributing circumstances' for this type of behavior, in any fashion, will at best only serve to promote this type of 'Keystone Cops' mistake in the future.
And if I understand correctly, the other 'less egregious' mistake is that they re-added the ballots that had already been machine counted for presidential votes that are then kicked for manual counting of the VP write-ins? I don't think that this is 'less egregious', for the following reasons.
Standard Operating Procedure written for application to a specific machine would preclude you doing this as the procedure should have been written with a thorough understanding of what the machine does in these cases. At the very least, a thorough explanation of the machine's function would have to be supplied by the company who manufactured the machine, so that correct procedures could be written/followed. I don't see how this is any 'less egregious', it's a fundamental mistake in counting ballots. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1780
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 5:08 am: |
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also, either of these mistakes should have added up to more votes than people voting, no matter which mistake could have been made. You're counting some votes twice in either case. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 62
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 5:54 am: |
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As interesting and important as the questions:
(a) what mistakes were actually made?
(b) did fraud also occur?
(c) which statistical tool/strategy most effectively reveals whether or where a closer look into (b) is needed;
(d) if fraud occurred, how, by whom?
...all are:
The ambiguities, complexities and levels of skepticism engaged in bringing those questions to public attention make them a less useful focus toward getting things right in the future than...
how many significant opportunities for fraud are built into the systems as defined and procedures as employed,
the differences between de jure and de facto procedure,
and the lack of apt consequences for those who don't follow established procedures.
The consequences certainly shouldn't be harsh for simple one-time errors, (who knows whether poll workers were effectively or accurately informed -- for instance,) and as certainly should be where fraud is clearly established.
The prize isn't finding a case of fraud that did or didn't make a difference of one or two delegates. The prize is maximizing accountability in all election proceses.
The case for that is as well made by what is happening in the NH election and recount, whether fraud is demonstrated or not -- in the details of how convoluted and impossible it is to accountably investigate and answer the question.
That case may in fact be weakened in the eyes of a public taking a quicky glance through cherry-picking hidden-agenda media lenses. "So much fuss and expense over one delegate? Even after the recount corrected all errors the difference wasn't enough to change the result! Some folk just need to hyperventilate."
As interesting and important as the stat and other analysis of potential fraud is,
agreeing with the need to look for it with a non-belief working hypothesis that it is there -- while simultaneously looking for it with a non-belief working hypothesis that it isn't there,
and very much appreciating and admiring all the time and work invested here and elsewhere by folk with tech skills I lack,
(and most definitely not implying any correction of the purposes or execution of any of that work, for which I'm personally very grateful on a number of informational and emotional levels),
nonetheless:
Demonstrating the opportunities, and untrackabilities of fraud, needs to stay the big focus.
The question of provable (or credibly inferable) fraud in any one primary is IMO a subordinate aspect -- to be used to support that bigger point.
Making that subordinate point the primary focus, even seeming to,
offers the several above opportunities (?and others?) to dismiss the larger issue,
and those opportunities WILL be used to further justify ignoring the larger issues.
We need to secure the process first, all of it: to make future questions of actual fraud more clearly investigatable and more credibly addressable. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 116
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:29 am: |
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quote:If we can't secure all of the memory cards and test each one, how can we ever have fair elections?
One answer is that the machine counts should primarily be used as a quick election night indicator for the media and candidates. The ballots are always counted by hand, and that is the final count. The machine counts provide an audit reference, indicating where a second hand count is called for. Of course the hand count has to happen the same night, at the precincts, to maximize ballot security.
One might ask "why give out machine counts when the hand counts will be available in a few hours?". Good question. I just like the idea of having both counts, and always cross checking. Obviously, cost is going to kill that idea. And in reality they might be recounting for days. But I think people would trust those elections. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 25
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:44 am: |
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JOEL said: The prize isn't finding a case of fraud that did or didn't make a difference of one or two delegates. The prize is maximizing accountability in all election proceses.
The case for that is as well made by what is happening in the NH election and recount, whether fraud is demonstrated or not -- in the details of how convoluted and impossible it is to accountably investigate and answer the question. ...
Demonstrating the opportunities, and untrackabilities of fraud, needs to stay the big focus. END OF QUOTE
Joel, you just hit the nail on the head as far as my own interest in this situation goes.
I personally have plenty of bad dreams and anxieties about the state of our nation, including election integrity, yet when I come to look at what's happening, I try to hold suspicion at bay and let the facts drive the conclusions. If the facts aren't strong enough, I want more facts to do the driving, rather than giving in to the temptation to speculate, characterize, or generally let myself get into stoking up the suspicion flames. Where can I find them? What else would it be helpful to know?
We have a hive-mind here, a group of smart and concerned people who can help dig for answers that support and add useful context to the ground work being done by Bev and other EI people in NH.
As a way of working, I take this idea very much to heart: QUOTE
...Look for it with a non-belief working hypothesis that it is there -- while simultaneously looking for it with a non-belief working hypothesis that it isn't there. END QUOTE
We face an uphill battle against the desire to believe "it can't happen here," so every evidence of having weighed both sides and come to a conclusion that facts support, or stating the questions as yet not clearly answered and the reasons they are unanswerable/steps to take to answer them, I think is an awesome goal.
You've articulated it for me, and at the same time I realize there are a variety of perspectives out there on what constitutes a helpful approach. I appreciate your post very much, because it gives me a clear and cogent frame for how I put together and explore what is unearthed and for anything I write publicly about this topic. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 26
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 7:45 am: |
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Kurt and/or others,
Is there is a separate set of federal laws, guidelines, or regulations that states must follow in counting ballots for a federal/presidential primary election? If so, could you advise what that is? Sorry if this has been covered before -- if so, I missed it. I saw Catherine's question about whether primaries are different from other elections, but am not clear on the specific sources of guidance the SOS or municipalities would use.
Thanks for any info you may have on this topic. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 7:55 am: |
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Christine,
No, there is no federal law or standard other than a federal requirement that each state must have uniform and non-discriminatory standards. In other words, the standard must be uniform from place to place in a state, and over time in counting an election.
Specifically, two counties using a differing standard when using similar systems is illegal, as is changing the standard from day to day in a count.
The federal interest is not with a particular standard, but in ensuring that there is one in each state.
It is entirely okay that there be no similarity from state to state, because "there is no such thing as a national election in the U.S.A." There are only state elections, whether they are for state or federal offices. |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 8:31 am: |
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thanks, Kurt, and could you please just clarify something I'm unclear on: Uniform and nondiscriminatory (nondiscretionary??) standards for what? Anomalous ballots with quirky methods of indicating preference only, or overall rules for running the election?
What would you say is the correct source to consult for NH's specific rules of the road and general election law that underpins it as it relates to presidential primaries and recounts, and how much is left to SOS discretion and in what areas? What has been codified?
I have been reading the NH statutes on election law and there is much that appears not to be codified into law (but there may be other places to look for relevant info). Just trying to understand how much is written and pinned down, and how much is SOS or local discretion, whether that's legit or not. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 9:24 am: |
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Christine,
Hmm. Do you know you are one of the best question askers here? I mean it! You have a knack for zeroing in on the key issues really well.
"Uniform and nondiscriminatory" is a general mandate of just about everything in HAVA, but it is especially important for the counting of ballots. It is actually an interpretation of most legal scholars that those two words mean "nondiscretionary" as well. That point can be debated by people of good will. I come down on the side that establishing "nondiscretionary" as the best way to achieve "uniform and nondiscriminatory". We on the Pennsylvania HAVA Advisory Board took that approach. I suppose it is possible to imagine a discretionary system that preserves "uniform and nondiscriminatory" but I feel it is risky and difficult to get right.
I don't know what has been codified in NH for recounts, but they have built a little insurance policy for "uniform and nondiscriminatory" for themselves by making all recounts central at the state level. That takes "place to place" non-uniformity off the table. What remains is "over time". If they are extremely careful to make sure the standards don't move, they could be alright.
What conducting a tight recount has proven to meis that it is difficult to anticipate every situation you will encounter. I had to reject ballots that were actually quite clear in their intent, because they were so non-standard as to be unanticipatable. That made me nuts! We used nondiscretionary standards that were quite severe, so lots of non-standard ballots were rejected, even though intent was pretty damned clear.
States vary widely in their strictly codified vs. executive discretion balance. My state is heavy on the codified side. NH may be a different kettle of tea. Probably is. |
Robert S. Whitehorn
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 12:50 pm: |
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A good analogy to the two issues of accuracy} and integrity in elections is the situation with college transcripts.
Colleges insist that people who want to provide information about their previous college courses order a transcript of their academic record from the earlier college; the applicant tells the earlier college, and the earlier college sends the transcript--with an official stamp and in a sealed envelope--to the new college. So imagine this phone conversation, which is analogous in every way to the situation in New Hampshire and in I don't know how many other jurisdictions.
New college: Is this Sidney McSidney?
Sidney McSidney: Yes.
NC: We won't be able to use the college transcript you sent us of your earlier academic work.
SMcS: What! Why not, for heaven's sake?
NC: Well, as you yourself must know, what you sent us is a photocopy of your transcript, with parts that were not clear in the copy written over in ballpoint. There are circular coffee stains and in pencil there is a note "eggs, broccoli, bread, cereal, coffee, make apt w kids dentist," and one corner has been torn off. It's..., it's just not an official transcript.
SMcS: Are you,... Are you saying it is not accurate? This is an outrage!
NC: No, no that's not what we are saying. What we are saying is that it is not an official transcript received with an official college stamp in a sealed envelope. It may be quite accurate but, because we can't know whether or not it's accurate, it's not valid. |
Joel Morine
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 10:52 am: |
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Kurt,
This isn't germane to anything but my curiosity in trying to visualize what you said, but if that is reason enough to reply:
(1) what would be some standards by which ballots were rejected as non-standard?
(2) what does your experience recommend re: severe discretionary standards that would minimize inadvertent non-standard ballots?
(I appreciate that the difficulty in the last question is how unanticapatably ?creative? inadvertence can be.) |
christine c reid
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Post Number: 37
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 11:40 am: |
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Joel, not Kurt here but while awaiting his response, wanted to post a snippet from the NH Election Procedures Manual that might be a useful example of guidance on handling nonstandard ballots:
If a voter votes for more names than there are persons to be elected to that office (overvote), his ballot shall be regarded defective for that one office and the vote shall not be counted for that office. The ballot is treated as if the voter did not vote for any candidate or for either choice of a question. It is helpful in reconciling ballot counts to have counting teams record the number of abstentions, including overvotes, for each contested office or question. See the Election Night Reconciliation, page 110.
If a voter marks a straight ticket, but clearly cancels out the name of a candidate for a particular office in that party, then no vote should be counted for that particular candidate.
If a voter marks a straight ticket and then votes for an individual candidate for a particular office, then the straight ticket vote for that office is not counted, but the vote is counted for the individual candidate so marked. RSA 659:66.
Straight ticket voting is not required. An individual may vote for one or more candidates by making the appropriate mark (i.e. an X for hand count style paper ballots or fill in the oval for Accuvote ballots) opposite the name(s) or by writing the name(s) on the write-in line and filling in the oval beside the name.
Does that speak to your request for examples of nonstandard ballot situations? If so, there is more at this link,
http://www.sos.nh.gov/FINAL%20EPM%208-30-2006.pdf
starting on page 41, entitled Guidlines in Determining Legal Ballots. |
Nancy Tobi
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 12:21 pm: |
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Straight ticket voting was eliminated by law this year, the manual has not yet been updated to reflect this change. There were no straight ticket choices on ballots this year. |
Catherine Ansbro
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 1:06 pm: |
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I look forward to hearing from Kurt, but I'd guess a "non-standard" ballot would include things like a ballot on a piece of paper torn out of a notebook (e.g., if the polling place ran out of paper ballots and the machines weren't working). Or a ballot on a piece of paper that was too thick or too thin. Or if the voter used the wrong writing implement, or didn't darken the oval but wrote in the desired candidate's name clearly.
States will all have different rules about how to handle this, and as Kurt has pointed out a state must be consistent with how rules are applied. (As a result of the FL 2000 SCOTUS decision.)
I don't know if that can mean being "consistently inconsistent" by allowing each county election officer make those decisions--but I doubt it. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 1:51 pm: |
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Catherine and Christine,
Close, but non-standard marking means such things as circling a candidate's name and not darkening the circle, or on a HCPB writing an X-mark that enters more than one box on the ballot, etc., or an opscan done so inelegantly that the darkening scribble intersects more than one circle.
Under our laws, those are non-votes, the former because it is an undervote, the latter are overvotes. We have a very "persnicketty" standard. Precision is required.
I know this will bother a lot of folks, because it bothers me and I live here, but a ballot done in such a way that a theoretically perfectly programmed scanner would reject it as an overvote or undervote is an invalid vote, even if voter intent is unmistakable. The test here is what did a voter DO, not what did he or she attempt to do.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 25, 2008) |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 1:54 pm: |
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This is PA law, you are speaking about, Kurt? |
Paul Howland O'Day
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 1:55 pm: |
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"I know this will bother a lot of folks, because it bothers me and I live here, but a ballot done in such a way that a theoretically perfectly programmed scanner would reject it as an overvote or undervote is an invalid vote, even if voter intent is unmistakable."
Seems much of the problem is voters mismarking ballots. My thought is that the machines should be used to mark paper ballots that are then confirmed accurate and true by the voter before they are turned into the ballot box. Does that make sense? That would greatly increase the accuracy of the optical scanners and prevent many mistakes from happening...or so it seems to me. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 1:58 pm: |
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I am indeed. It is memorialized in our Standards of What Constitutes a Legal Vote, which was then ratified by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. I was proud to serve on the first board in my state that wrote those standards (post-Bush v. Gore but pre-HAVA), but I was frequently outvoted. I voted to maximize enfranchisement. The group voted to maximize hyper-technicality. |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 2:05 pm: |
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It would seem that without an extensive voter education program to go along with that legislation/set of standards, the hyper technicalities almost become a catch-22 that disenfranchises the less technically sophisticated voter. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 2:32 pm: |
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No doubt in my mind. That's why I voted against most of the hypertechnicalities.
I chose to go with the bulk of case law expanding opportunites to have an effective franchise. The majority chose to bow to technical statute law (state). |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 2:56 pm: |
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Is there a link to the PA Standards of What Constitutes a Legal Vote, (coming back to Joel's initial interest)? I tried to round one up in a search but didn't find it. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 4:29 pm: |
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Christine,
Yes, the link is below. This is the work of the second standards board, whose work replaced the one that I served on. This one was empanelled post-HAVA. Mine was between Bush v. Gore and HAVA, and was effective only for the 2002 elections.
This is about 99% identical to the first version, though.
http://www.pabulletin.com/secure/data/vol33/33-31/1538.html |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 4:38 pm: |
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The state law that codified this report into state law is Act No. 45 of 2006.
This was made necessary by an appellate court ruling that said that such a board decision did not have the force of law, so the legislature adopted this report and gave it force of law. |
Joel Morine
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 7:36 am: |
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Thank you all for details re: 1st half of my query.
Re: 2nd half, Kurt's comment ...
" I voted to maximize enfranchisement. The group voted to maximize hyper-technicality. "
... invites this way of re-framing the question ...
Your thoughts, pls, on maximizing the intersection of the two?
The two goals seem opposed at first glance...
but not necessarily so, given creative applications of experience's lessons?
[Thanks, Paul ... your 2nd paragraph seems to naive me a useful suggestion, but I'm unqualified to judge, IMO ... and I seem to recall reading elsewhere of shortcomings to the same/similar approach] |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 8:34 am: |
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Seems like marking methods could be studied for percentage of accuracy, intuitive ease of use, and how easy/difficult they are to defeat or alter. Automatically inked rubber stamps are another possibility - but the more mechanical something is, the more chances for it to fail.
The current system of pens, as we have seen, has some downsides. To think hypothetically, pens that a "voter" switched when voting at a particular precinct at a time of day when particular candidate's supporters are likely to vote, and then a later "voter" switched back, seem like they could create an undercount "bump" that would help their candidate but perhaps go undetected in a machine count if it was within a statistically "normal" rate of voter nonmarking.
In the case of the standardized lists of eligible/ineligible vote marking patterns, PA's list is interesting to ponder.
Specifically, in PA, if I voted straight party by coloring that circle, my vote could be changed by marking the other party straight party and then also marking a candidate's name. The 3-circle vote would be considered an eligible vote for the candidate.
That's one I'd throw out and require that people ask for a new ballot. Just an example of the difficulties to which Kurt alluded in standardized vote eligibility lists. When those three circles are colored, imho voter intent is anything but clear. |
Brant Lamb
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 4:42 am: |
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In any state that uses mark the bubble ballots, why isn't there a stencil that lays down over the ballot, and then the ballot and the stencil are fitted over a set of corner posts, leaving only the bubbles to be written on? This may seem like a stupid question, but wouldn't that eliminate a lot of errant marks? |
Mike LaBonte
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 6:20 am: |
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Ellen Theisen's Vote-PAD combines a nice stencil-like sleeve with an audio recording to assist blind voters. I've seen it demonstrated. The sleeve exposes only the parts that should be marked, and has Braille for those who can read that.
But that would not avoid the overvoting that Christine is musing about, especially since I think she has in mind subversive remarking of a ballot after a voter has marked it. I have heard of punch cards being invalidated simply by adding another punch. But those are usually not precinct counted, increasing the possibility of mischief.
The idea about pen switching is diabolical. But I don't see how it would succeed. If the scanner sees no marks it will reject the ballot. The election workers may suspect the machine at first when they see the ballot is actually marked. But the problem will be resolved. Few if any ballots are likely to be machine cast with the wrong pen. |
Del Argenti
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 6:50 am: |
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What are the statistics for the spoiled over-votes in Hillsborough County before the recount after the recount? |
Mike LaBonte
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 7:20 am: |
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That's an interesting question, but I doubt the data on spoiled overvotes will be available. I know of no specific information regarding rejected ballots.
The scanners reject overvotes on the spot, and voters get to try again. Any cast overvotes would appear in hand count wards and on write-ins. |
Catherine Ansbro
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:04 am: |
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quote:Few if any ballots are likely to be machine cast with the wrong pen.
On what basis do you make this assertion? It would be an easy vector to exploit and if unsuccessful would be explained away as "just a mistake" by a staff or volunteer.
Didn't this just happen at NH? No way of knowing if it was an accident or not.
Regardless, one cannot assume that all mistakes of this kind would be caught. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:40 am: |
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Catherine,
Please, can we determine whether the Diebold/Premier OS is susceptible to pen differences?
My understanding is that pen-sensitive opscans are quite old technology, and the new ones are "visual spectrum" sensitive, rather than relying on a specific narrow wavelength band. That said, even a full visual spectrum one can be fooled by a soft pencil filled in to a point of glossiness. The reflected light off the gloss can mask the density of the mark. So none of these are perfect.
I just think all this talk about wrong pen attacks is awfully speculative. Besides, as long as red ink is avoided, even the narrow wavelength ones are very good with blue and black. |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:57 am: |
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Kurt, agreed, very speculative and my fault - I I try not to speculate.
Wonder if John Howard may know: What are the facts about what happens when wrong pens are used on the Accuvote OS?
From rereading snippets about the 550 votes in Stratham that some say were linked to an incorrrect ballot marking pen type being used, it looks like the ballots were initially accepted by the machine, as the machine tape is reported to have said 550 blank ballots were cast. I didn't follow Stratham closely (did try to search the original report without success) so I am not confident I have correctly stated the case. |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:57 am: |
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Kurt, agreed, very speculative and my fault - I try not to speculate.
Wonder if John Howard may know: What are the facts about what happens when wrong pens are used on the Accuvote OS?
From rereading snippets about the 550 votes in Stratham that some say were linked to an incorrrect ballot marking pen type being used, it looks like the ballots were initially accepted by the machine, as the machine tape is reported to have said 550 blank ballots were cast. I didn't follow Stratham closely (did try to search the original report without success) so I am not confident I have correctly stated the case. |
Brant Lamb
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:57 am: |
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Anybody thought about re-marking a ballot that was filled out in the first place with the wrong pen. It doesn't overvote or undervote then, it just comes out the way you want it to, if the pen is "wrong" enough. Then you have a ballot that passes muster, for entirely the wrong reason.
And, hell, Kurt, everything is speculative, until it's proven. |
Mike LaBonte
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:16 am: |
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It is my understanding also that the AccuVote scanners are much less restrictive about marking devices than the Optechs. But my reason for asserting that "Few if any ballots are likely to be machine cast with the wrong pen" applies to both machines: if the machine reads no marks made by a pen, the ballot is rejected on the spot. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:22 am: |
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Mike,
Good point! The question then is how can there be 550 "blank ballots" in Stratham? Are we to believe that 550 voters had their ballot kicked back at them as undervoted (in a two office election, no less) and decided to ignore it?
Stratham needs a better explanation than we've gotten so far.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 28, 2008) |
Mike LaBonte
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:24 am: |
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I just read Christine's post about Stratham. I think we would have to be absolutely certain about what happened there first. It turns out the AV-OS machines can be programmed to accept blank ballots, but I sincerely doubt that anyone does that. |
Mike LaBonte
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:38 am: |
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Actually the incident log as shown at BradBlog does indicate that the Stratham really was accepting blanks, and "lucid machines" would be brought in:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5568
But their L&A test would have to have included a few blank ballots, right? One question is "which pen was used for testing"?
It is not clear to me who's incident log that is, by the way. It reads as though it is an LHS log. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:44 am: |
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Mike,
If Stratham had their OS machines set to accept blanks without kicking them back, then that is a per se violation of HAVA's standards. It is the whole reason for precinct scanners, as opposed to central, to exist.
Now I'm about the last guy to believe in conspiracies, but the combination of an OS set to accept blanks AND a wrong pen being used even makes the hairs on the back of MY neck stand up. |
Del Argenti
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 11:02 am: |
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But it's a voter's right to cast a fully blank ballot, even in a Presidential election, thus making a selection
"none of the above on the ballot"
"none to be written-in as alternative to those listed on the ballot"
A voter could write-in None so that something is visibly marked, but what if the voter doesn't want to do that for privacy concerns. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 11:06 am: |
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Del,
They do have the right to cast a blank ballot, and every system must be set up to allow that. On a DRE, it requires a separate "Blank ballot" button (or the machine won't accept the "vote" button). On a opscan, it can be done that way or by having the rejected undervote sent through again. Opscans are supposed to "warn" of undervotes, but not prevent them. |
Del Argenti
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 11:33 am: |
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Yes, they do warn of undervotes, and the voter over-rides that. The point some may be missing is there may be a flaw in that over-ride feature for the over-voted paper ballot. How can a ballot with stray marks get through? Are those what were hand-counted as per the clerk's comment she had to handcount about 100 because the machine rejected ballots.
(Message edited by truthnet on January 28, 2008) |
Brant Lamb
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 11:53 am: |
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quote:Now I'm about the last guy to believe in conspiracies, but the combination of an OS set to accept blanks AND a wrong pen being used even makes the hairs on the back of MY neck stand up.
Oooh, the paranoia, it burns! It burns! (Remember, one man's ceiling is another man's floor......) |
christine c reid
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 1:50 pm: |
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I hope Mr. Howard's campaign succeeds in getting to look at the original tapes comprehensively. Blank ballot reading machine prevalency would be an interesting data point.
The next question is, "How does the Accuvote OS define a 'blank' ballot?" Can that be made to vary? I think it would help to know what gets kicked into this category and what makes it vary.
And yes, the source of the explanation about Stratham apparently was LHS's log book: "She [BH] also noted that the error report came from LHS Associates, the private company..." (bradblog.com)
Is there a rapid reporting procedure for mechanical problems between precincts and the NH SOS? It would seem essential.
I have to observe that if LHS has the sole responsibility to field and service calls, it is also a company that has some sort of consumer profile research arm. How does LHS maintain a Chinese wall between the two? |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 1:59 pm: |
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See that, Christine? You did it again!
You nailed the $64,000 question. Chinese wall? Oh please.
For years and years (I am pretty sure it changed in 2005) virtually the only company in Pennsylvania providing counties with USPS address change database matches, for the Change of Address mailing program mandated by the NVRA of 1993, was also two other things - a Republican direct mail consulting firm, and a commercial direct mail firm. They are Precision Marketing, Inc. of the Allentown area.
The only county I know of that didn't use them was Philadelphia and then mine, Berks, because they couldn't or wouldn't do the mailings bilingually. They did the database matching gratis, in exchange for getting the voter lists from each county.
Now that SURE is in place, instead of 67 county systems, anyone can buy the voter list for the whole state for $20, and the state contracts for the USPS database match. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 57
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 2:10 pm: |
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Kurt, you have to understand that I am trying not to speculate here (wry grin).
Chinese wall indeed. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4522
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 3:00 pm: |
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Please all--not that the opscan issues with pens is not speculative as a real issue.
John Howard and others have posted extensively on the varying limitations of different op scans. Some are extremely limited in what pens they pick up, and only 3 or 4 brands can be used, all specified by the manufacturer.
It really all depends on the particular kind of machine and what kind of sensor it uses.
Op-scans also have calibration issues, which is a completely separate thing. And it is also an equally valid issue.
Some op scans may be more vulnerable to calibration issues, others may be more vulnerable to pen-type issues.
The technical issues are real ones. They are vulnerabilities that can create errors, either accidentally or on purpose. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 58
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 3:09 pm: |
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On the subject of pens, Candidate Howard has identified another procedural issue to be clarified and corrected involving pens. See the letter reproduced in bradblog.com for details.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5616 |
Mark Michaels
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mark_michaels
Post Number: 11
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 5:58 pm: |
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Many New England States have never taken advantage of "second chance" features that notify voters of overvoted or blank ballots. The States have directed that the machines be programmed to accept all ballots unless the ballot is unprocessable because it cannot be identified by the tabulator.
These States justify accepting all ballots regardless of how they are marked because they feel a voter has the right to fill out his ballot any way he desires. To some voters, a blank or an overvoted ballot is a political statement. Since the second chance notification messages are directed at the poll worker tending the machine and not the voter, the notification procedure itself is considered a violation of the voter's privacy.
I doubt that the election authorities will turn on second chance notification until their own state election statutes are changed to require that they do so. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 134
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 7:47 pm: |
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Mark, you would have to be more specific about the "Many New England states" that "have directed that the machines be programmed to accept all ballots unless the ballot is unprocessable". In MA our machines are programmed to reject blanks, defined as ballots with no vote in any race. I just spent 6 hours today testing the machines, and blanks and overvotes were kicked back out every time. Maybe other New England states program differently, but I don't know of any source for that information. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 560
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 8:21 pm: |
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Diebold/Premier OS IS susceptible to pen differences.
LUCID machines
There are two different read heads used in the Accuvote OS. One uses an infrared light source and the other a visible light source. While the infrared model IS older technology, there are a great MANY of them still in use. Interestingly enough, BOTH the infrared and visible light models are really 'LUCID' machines. Lucid Technologies Inc., was the original designer, and, as I understand it, the manufacturer of both the infrared and visible light read heads used in the Accuvote.
GLOSSINESS of marks - actually the glossiness of a pencil mark (referred to as specular mirror-like reflection ) is specifically addressed in the Lucid readers through the use of a polarized light source and cross polarizers at the photodetectors, which apparently attenuate the specular reflection and enhance the contrast of the mark. I have no information on the techniques used by the Optechs.
'Anybody thought about re-marking a ballot that was filled out in the first place with the wrong pen.' Now you're thinking down a line that has really bothered me for years. The opportunity to have a ballot marked by the voter in one ink and also have it at some point surepticiously marked with another ink is VERY VERY real - especially with the infrared readers. The result from scanning is either an overvote, or a vote of the surepticious marker's choosing. The ONLY way to detect it would be a hand recount. (Running the ballots through another scanner will, of course, produce the same result. Chain of custody of the ballots (including the print shop) is paramount in preventing some of the opportunities for additional ink.
According to the Accuvote Ballot Printing Specifications....
"Infrared card readers only accept the following marking instruments:
Berol 7700, PN 61 1-1 11 1, Felt pen, black ink, black plastic casing
Pencil 4mm, PN 61 1-1 115, Pencil, graphite, red wood casing, 4mm OD
Eberhard Ebony, PN 61 1-1 116, Pencil, graphite, grey wood casing
Contak 440, PN 61 1-1 117, Pencil, graphite, black wood casing
Sharpie Power Mark, PN 61 1-1 118, Felt pen, black ink, white plastic casing"
From the same specs....
"Visible light readers, on the other hand, except a broad range of marking instruments, including those listed above. Do not use yellow, orange, or green markers."
Although it isn't specifically mentioned,
I believe that red really falls into this category as well.
HG;) |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1808
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 4:50 am: |
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quote:From the same specs....
"Visible light readers, on the other hand, except a broad range of marking instruments, including those listed above. Do not use yellow, orange, or green markers."
Although it isn't specifically mentioned,
I believe that red really falls into this category as well.
I hope that 'except' is a misprint from 'accept', otherwise it changes the whole meaning of the statement! |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 77
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 6:59 am: |
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Speculation is a variety of Investment,
useful when it knows what it is. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 60
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 8:40 am: |
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when the scanners detect paper ballot over-votes, do they account for the potential of the voter marking the oval next to the candidate's name and additionally handwriting in the same candidate's name in the write-in area?
Would the machine reject those on the spot?
Would the machine accept those, count the oval marking vote, but not count the write-in, leaving that for a later handcount? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1962
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 9:25 am: |
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Del,
You have asked two questions here - one technological and one legal.
If a voter darkens a candidate's oval, and then also writes in that same name, then the machine will just count the oval and there is no problem.
If the voter ALSO darkens in the oval for the write-in position, as well as doing all the above, then a technological overvote is created. How that is counted depends on state law. In some states, it becomes a legal vote based on intent. In my state (PA) it remains an overvote, and is void.
But it is worse that that. In my state, if a person writes in (only) a name that is already pre-printed on the ballot the write-in vote is void anyway. It is illegal to write-in a name already on the ballot for that office.
When I was a county ED, we had one guy who always wrote in names already on the ballot, hence voiding all his votes. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 561
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 10:33 am: |
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Brant,
From the same specs....
"Visible light readers, on the other hand, except a broad range of marking instruments, including those listed above. Do not use yellow, orange, or green markers."
I went back and checked the original - I, too hope that's a misprint rather than intentional. The word in the document IS except, although I must admit to having interpreted it as accept.
HG;) |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 61
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:14 am: |
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John, if it is a typo, it's a serious one, because the meaning "flips," to borrow a term.
Coming back to the discussion of election officials deliberately allowing machines to accept blank ballots as a "freedom of speech" statement, I find that confounding. Is that accurate in your realm of experience - are scanners indeed deliberately programmed to accept ballots that read as blank?
One of the problems with machines permitting blank ballots to be voted as "free speech" is that, unlike voted ballots, the fact that a voter has cast a ballot they have not marked is observable from a distance and is the one type of ballot cast that could be verified and paid for, if other conditions to make use of a blank ballot slush fund exist. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1963
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:25 am: |
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Christine,
Be careful about generalizing about this. Many states use "security sleeves" which would prevent even a blank ballot from being seen by anyone.
The bigger question I have is how setting an opscan system to NOT warn of undervotes (and a blank is the ultimate undervote) can be legal under HAVA. HAVA seems to REQUIRE the prevention of overvotes and warning of undervotes. One need not be much of a lawyer to go into federal court and get a ruling that "turning off" undervote detection is federally illegal. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 136
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:38 am: |
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The information that AV-OS machines use two different scanners is interesting. It has me wondering which scanners we have in MA, since they are required to ignore red ink markings that are impressed on the ballots upon insertion. I assume we have infrared.
But I'm note sure where this discussion is going. If this is about whether ballots can be altered after a voter marks them, I don't see the point. The voters place the ballots in the scanner. At that point they are counted and locked up until the poll closes. Wouldn't it be pointless for someone to alter ballots after the poll closes? Also, you have at least 5 poll workers at each precinct, all watching what everyone else is doing. Short of conspiracy I don't see the opportunity for any sleight of hand that would take as long as remarking a significant number of ballots. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 137
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 11:58 am: |
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I'd like to point out some state documents that pertain to blank ballots.
ELECTION OFFICER TRAINING MANUAL (LHS, MA)
Office of the Secretary of the State Election Day Protocols (CT)
OPENING THE POLLS (MI)
The last one calls for overriding blanks by inserting with the Yes button pressed. I'm still searching for proof that AV-OS machines can be programmed to accept blanks without an override. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 61
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 1:13 pm: |
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{purple The voters place the ballots in the scanner. At that point they are counted and locked up until the poll closes. Mike Labonte \purple
The write-ins on these same ballots are handdcounted before the polls close, aren't they?
In Manchester 5, the clerk reportedly said {purple she still had to handcount over 100 ballots rejected by the machines for various reasons.\purple
It would be difficult for the reporter to get that bit of a statement wrong since what would the reporter know about what happened in the ward during voting not having first-hand on-the-site access. When were over 100 ballots handcounted? Before or after the polls closed?
{purple Voter turnout in New Hampshire sets new primary record By Stephen Frothingham
Associated Press Writer / January 9,
Manchester Ward 5 clerk Madeline Walsh reported heavy turnout.
"There was 1,961 voters reported, and based on what I can tell, that's almost double of typical primary years," she said. She still had to hand-count more than 100 ballots that were rejected by voting machines for various reasons.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2008/01/09/voter_turnout _in_new_hampshire_sets_new_primary_record/} |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 63
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 1:41 pm: |
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Del, the link's not working for some reason - I googled what looks like the same article:
http://tinyurl.com/3725k6 |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1964
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 2:46 pm: |
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...and the purple text seems not to be working either.
And right there in that news story is the evidence that Madeline Walsh, Machester 5 Clerk, had no clue what she was doing. The foreshadowing is already there that she was going to add those votes back into a tally that already included them. She should have been saying something like, "she still had to count 100 write-in votes".
There was nothing "rejected" about those ballots. They just had write-ins (probably for VP, but maybe some for Pres. too). Pity.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 29, 2008) |
Mark Michaels
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mark_michaels
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 5:43 pm: |
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Mike LaBonte is correct and my post from yesterday is wrong. I want to apologize to everyone on this forum.
Massachusetts and Maine have conducted prior elections in which totally blank ballots have been accepted without notification to the voter. However, I am not aware of any instance where overvotes have not been reported and the voter has not been given an opportunity to correct his ballot.
I promise to be more careful with my facts in future postings. |
Mark Michaels
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mark_michaels
Post Number: 13
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 6:16 pm: |
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The behavior of optical scan tabulators when they detect overvotes, undervotes, and blank ballots is programmed for each election. By that I mean the person preparing the Ballot Definition File selects how the machine is to respond in each case.
A totally blank ballot can be rejected outright with no override option (rarely used), questioned so the voter has the option of correcting his ballot or directing that the machine accept it as it is, or accepted without notification.
For overvotes and undervotes, the options are to alert the poll worker so the voter has the option of correcting his vote or having it accepted as is or to accept it without notification There is no option for absolute rejection (no override) for these errors.
Tabulators have had the ability to process blank and overvoted ballots for many years. Being able to process undervotes is a fairly recent option.
Undervotes in individual contests are rarely questioned, except in elections with very few contests. Many voters do not vote in all the contests on ballots, so questioning every individual undervote could be frustrating.
For instance, Cook County, Illinois had an election a few years ago that included 92 separate Judicial Retention questions. If undervotes had been questioned, I doubt if more than a handful of ballots would have made it through the system.
Most States rather than local election authorities determine how these ballots are to processed. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 562
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 6:37 pm: |
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Mike: re scanners
"...since they are required to ignore red ink markings that are impressed on the ballots upon insertion..."
Do I understand this to mean that there are red marks made on the ballot, at the time that the ballot is inserted into the reader? If so, are the marks made BY the reader? Where on the ballot paper are the marks made, and can you describe the marks?
HG;) |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 138
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 7:14 pm: |
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The red markings are just a Massachusetts thing. Each of our scanners has a metal assembly attached with a rubber wheel and inker. The ballots pass through this before they enter the scanner. It puts a thin red stripe on the ballot, interrupted with precinct identification.
I can't remember the explanation for this, but it is a safeguard of some kind. Actually I had planned to research this, having been unable to find the law requiring it. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 563
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 8:56 pm: |
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Thanks Mike - In what position on the ballot paper does the red mark go, and does it go the full length of the ballot?
Interesting that the red line would have precinct identification in it, since that's usually a function of the Card and Sequence ID that's typically already printed and encoded on the front face of the ballot.
While finding a law requiring it will be interesting, I can't help but wonder if there's not a law about adding any kind of additional 'mark' to a voter's ballot.
HG;) |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 71
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 9:01 pm: |
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John, one reason I kind of like Mike's MA red line and precinct mark for NH: they have permission to create extra ballots if they run out. It might be a uniform way of assuring all ballots run through the scanner at time of election are marked with an identifer. NH statutes appear to provide for election officials to put a special mark on their photocopied ballots to designate them as official, as long as there are more than 10 of them. (think I found that quote in the elction admin manual for NH) |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1816
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 4:51 am: |
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Christine: unfortunately it is also a way to make extra ballots if you just want to yank some and replace them, too. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 62
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 5:07 am: |
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 Brant. My similar observation in the post y'day didn't make it to the board along with the purple faces. relieved yours did. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 139
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 5:44 am: |
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A Massachusetts general law about writing on ballots:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/54-80.htm
quote:Chapter 54: Section 80. Prohibited markings; use of red pencils or red ink by election officers
The red stripes go pretty much down the middle, from top to bottom. Some voters put the ballots in face up, and the stripe actually does run right over
Section 80. Except as authorized by this chapter, no voter, election officer or other person shall place on a ballot any mark by which it may be identified; nor shall any person place a mark against any name upon a ballot not cast by himself; nor shall any election officer engaged in counting ballots, except the election officer or officers actually entering the count of ballots cast on tally sheets, hold in either hand during the counting of ballots a pen, pencil or other marking device. Election officers shall use only red pencils or red ink in recording or tabulating the vote in election precincts.
When I get a chance I will look though the SoS regulations (CMRs) related to elections, which are separate from the laws and not available online.
The red stripes run from top to bottom, approximately down the middle. They are 1 or 2 mm wide. It seems to me the ink wheels were built into the Optech III machines, so I thought that was universal. When we got the AV-OS machines last year I was surprised to see a custom metal assembly attached on top. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 63
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 5:47 am: |
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Could substantiation and resource be provided for the statement as fact
Massachusetts and Maine have conducted prior elections in which totally blank ballots have been accepted without notification to the voter. (Won't even try to highlight in any color)
without notification to the voter is the part that needs substantiated.
The scanners I've seen demonstrated provide a warning message concerning over-voted ballot and under-voted ballot. the voter has additional notification to opt to contact an official for help should the ballot not re-scan "as is."
So there are basically triple layers of messages of a "not propertly marked" ballot to notify and prevent over-votes, but allow for a completely under-voted ballot should that be the way the voter wants to cast the ballot.
The question still remains can the situation of an "over-vote" be over-ridden by the voter who should be paying attention - by pressing "cast ballot" "as is."
The screens notify yet again you need the assistance of a poll worker to cast ballot "as is." |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 140
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 6:33 am: |
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First, the GEMS software can program the memory cards to either accept or reject blank and/or overvoted ballots. I read somewhere that undervoted ballots can be rejected as well, beginning with some firware version. I haven't had a good look at GEMS, but a clue from http://urrightto.livejournal.com/14895.html :
quote:The 'Use' procedures state:
"4. Election Setup and Definition
The following procedures are unique to California and should be set in the GEMS database.
On TS options tab – Disable print Barcode
On OS options tab – Reject Overvoted races and All races blank voted
On OS options tab – Use report 195/196US and version 196
NO characters (“&%) shall be used in race or candidate names"
When the machine is set to reject these ballots, a ballot can be accepted anyway by pressing the Yes button while inserting it. But the yes button is protected by a door and only the election officials have the key to unlock it. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 75
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 6:41 am: |
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In answer to my own question, the red line doesn't defeat the need for identifying the "official photocopies" because they would need to be marked at time of creation and controlled custody done. Sounds like a law intended to enfranchise voters; devil would be in the details, wouldn't it?
In statewide centralized recounts, one characteristic of that setup is that the ballots have been separated from the person who guaranteed they were from the election, and many towns' ballots are together in one place with a very small number of "minders". Having a precinct identifier on used ballots would appear to contribute assurance to counters and candidate/s that the ballots being counted were in fact from the precinct and being counted, not e.g. mixed with other ballots to come up with the number on the machine count tape, despite so many other ballots being collected and stored together out of the public's eye.
That and tamper evident seals might do wonders for voter confidence, as long as the scanner's chain of custody was intact and it was not easy to change the precinct identifier to other names.
An honest person's reassurance becomes a crook's patina of legitimacy, so I fully expect someone here to point out the folly of the suggestion! One can never fully defeat problems; only make them harder to cause. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1821
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 10:04 am: |
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quote:An honest person's reassurance becomes a crook's patina of legitimacy, so I fully expect someone here to point out the folly of the suggestion! One can never fully defeat problems; only make them harder to cause.
Yes, for the successful crook, that is.
I have a problem with all chain of custody, unless you have a ton of people sign on (literally sign on) a no-sh*t-tamper-proof-seal, and then have all of them validate their signatures wherever those boxes go, how are you sure that someone hasn't gotten into the box and re-seal it, if the person that you're worried about is an insider? It's too damn easy for an insider to poison this process.
What we've got here is a system with very little appropriate feedback/reinforcement/protection methods, where the motivations for people to cheat are strong. How the hell do you protect that? It's kind of like having the stage coach drivers/protectors not even be allowed to carry guns, and then telling the passengers that they can't either. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 76
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 10:32 am: |
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I bet a pretty good system could be put together by taking a look at best practices from a number of industries and professions, as well as the best practices from election administration in other states and countries.
Seems like we are in a moment in our nation in which significant numbers of people don't participate in elections, choose not to affiliate with political parties, do not trust election results and suspect malfeasance.
In that environment, one of the purposes of transparent, observable election practices IS to build confidence in the system. "I'll show ya this, but ya can't see that" only fuels citizen distrust. Regardless of whether election officials manage to make it through a particular recount with that approach, there is the potential for a long term cost to public confidence. |
Mark Michaels
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mark_michaels
Post Number: 14
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 3:46 pm: |
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Del Argenti: What sort of substantiation that Massachusetts and Maine tabulators were once programmed to accept totally blank ballots without voter notification would you like?
This practice was very common through the 2000 General Election. How do I know? I coded many of those elections. Unfortunately, the paper files that directed my employer to program the elections in that manner no longer exist. I know that at least two jurisdictions continued to request that blank ballots only be red stripped (and not returned to the voter) through the 2006 election, but I cannot provide you documentary evidence. I coded those elections. You'll have to take my word for it.
Bev knows of my past experience working in the industry. I do not wish to be linked to my former employer in this Forum. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 65
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 4:34 pm: |
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That's sufficient, Mark. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1824
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 4:43 am: |
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quote:I bet a pretty good system could be put together by taking a look at best practices from a number of industries and professions, as well as the best practices from election administration in other states and countries.
The problem with using business models is that all transactions that involve money in business also involve getting a receipt, something voting no longer has. If our nation had adopted the view that ballots were as valuable as money in cash, we'd have a whole different ball game here. Actually trying to safegaurd the ballot and trying to safegaurd cash have a lot of similarities...... |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 81
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 6:26 am: |
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Brant, take heart, I don't think your problem is as much of a problem that the idea must be thrown out wholesale (and of course, you didn't). There is so much to learn, e.g. from good receipt keeping/log keeping in chain of custody practices. Another is in how money is kept safe with checks and balances and controls. Another is in e.g. GE's Six Sigma quality improvement program that strives for 6 bad parts per million, or other quality efforts.
Rather than quickly move away from a transparent voting method, why not dedicate some research to developing a 6 Sigma model for vote counting excellence? I could live with 6 wrong votes per million.
I think it's helpful to get outside the thinking that originally produces a system and infuse other very different thinking. There used to be a consulting firm (don't know if it still exists) that operated by keeping a database of people with wildly different occupational and life experience, and assembling them together to toss out ideas and work on solving problems that companies were finding intransigent. The old saying "You/he/I/we/they can't see the forest for the trees" comes to mind -- as does "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, will it make a sound?" |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1831
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 1:02 pm: |
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I've been studying this problem for a while, Christine, and I've got to tell you, the anonymous/unreceipted/unprovable-valued ballot is the Shroedinger's Cat of election data; the fact that their contents and their quantity is unknowable to the general citizenry is, to me, where all these possible shenanigans start. It resembles a control system with no intelligent feedback.
Whether or not people love secret voting or not, I would like to see all people intellectually honest enough to admit that, and then realize whenever you're trying to take best practices from other venues, you have to keep in mind that those other venues don't have so many incentives to cheat, nor do they have untraceable product.
I bet you that rum-runners had a lot of problems with quality control! |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1976
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 1:38 pm: |
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Brant,
I'll take the bait. You're absolutely correct about this. If we throw secret voting under the bus, solutions to other concerns instantly abound. It's like a key opening the strongbox with the combination inside to the other strongbox.
At that point, we now have essentially a "value" judgment, made by each person. What is the value of solving these "auditability" issues? What is the perceived cost?
All I'm saying is that, for me, the cost of losing voter secrecy is simply overwhelming! I can't envision any value I could receive on the security/accountability side that would be worth it, for me.
Everyone here has their own "bottom line". How much is solving this problem worth? For me, this price is too high, and it's not even a close call for me. It's a complete non-starter. There is nothing I can gain here that is worth losing the secret ballot.
Are there other ways to enhance the security/acountability/auditability issues? Well, there'd better be, 'cuz I ain't payin' that price.
Are they anywhere near as easy?
Heck no, and I never said they were.
The danger from having all my votes known by everyone is far far FAR higher than not knowing absolutely that my vote was counted accurately.
I'll give you one "real world" example. For the first three years I was the county Election Director, my Deputy Director lived in a very small town with very few voters. In the years our bosses were up for re-election, she would often find herself the only Democrat in her town who needed an absentee ballot. So her bosses could instantly determine who she voted for for the office of Commissioner. She just refused to vote under those circumstances. Voter secrecy was mathematically compromised, and under those circumstances she simply would not vote.
Remember, we are an "at will" state with no protection from politically motivated firing in the public sector, because her position (and mine) did not have union protection. Everyone else in the office did.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 31, 2008) |
Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 129
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 3:40 pm: |
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On vote-secrecy:
I lived in Brasil for ten years, and still speak fluent Portuguese. There, they now run their elections on DRE's, and as I understand it, they are networked for counting and reporting.
One community activist in this arena of voting system integrity, uses as his signature-line:
"I know how I voted;
So do they.
But only they know for whom my vote got counted!"
Hmmmmmmm.
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1835
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 6:56 am: |
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Yeah, it's hard to say how "secret" our ballot really is, anyway. I don't vote wearing gloves, does anybody? Too hard to mark the ovals well, wearing gloves. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1978
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 7:09 am: |
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{Tongue in cheek}
Hey Brant, I can vote on my Danahers wearing mittens. No problem. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1839
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 7:42 am: |
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quote:Brant,
I'll take the bait. You're absolutely correct about this. If we throw secret voting under the bus, solutions to other concerns instantly abound. It's like a key opening the strongbox with the combination inside to the other strongbox.
At that point, we now have essentially a "value" judgment, made by each person. What is the value of solving these "auditability" issues? What is the perceived cost?
All I'm saying is that, for me, the cost of losing voter secrecy is simply overwhelming! I can't envision any value I could receive on the security/accountability side that would be worth it, for me.
Everyone here has their own "bottom line". How much is solving this problem worth? For me, this price is too high, and it's not even a close call for me.
Thank you for the intellectual honesty and candor of that admission, Kurt. I have copied a substantial amount of your rebuttal into this as an honest attempt at reciprocity.
The possibility that your "playing against the house" or trying to get help out of a reluctant "house" certainly plays big in this, too; what about the idea of having "co-stewardship" of the ballot custody from the start of the elections on through? Including original transport to the polling stations, throughout chain-of-custody?
As to voting on the Danahers with your mittens, I understand why you have confidence in them (although I don't fully agree with you), but the voter on the street who walks in to vote on them should have reasons to have confidence in them, and that information should be public enough that they could, but it isn't that way, is it? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1979
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 8:37 am: |
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"it isn't that way, is it?"
No, Brant, unfortunately it's not, and I don't quite know what to do about that. It's not practical for the voter on the street to be paid for 4 years to noodle over any system and gain confidence that it's as good as it can reasonably be. I am fully aware of the uniqueness of my positioning. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 97
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 8:51 am: |
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what about the idea of having "co-stewardship" of the ballot custody from the start of the elections on through? Including original transport to the polling stations, throughout chain-of-custody (end of quote from Brant Lamb)
Brant, can you add some info here to flesh out how you envision your specific proposal? Maybe some version of this is practiced somewhere, and people can comment on it.
In the case of NH, I wonder if e.g. the signing election officials might want to accompany their ballots to the centralized recounts, and have them counted at an appointed time and then returned home with the officials. That might involve e.g. a D and an R, I don't know.
As the possibility of viable third parties starts to shape up in this country, then the D and R model may actually not be sufficient, as there could be a shared benefit in damping out the influence of the third party -- but let's stick with the simple analogy and see where this is used or what the challenges of it are. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1980
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 9:32 am: |
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Christine,
There is a fundamnetal shortcoming of the whole model of "co-stewardship". And you almost touched on it. Who is part of "co-"? An R and a D? Is the R a "RINO"? Is the D a "DINO"? What about everyone else?
Stewardship is a role defined in law. It is done by the people paid to do it (however meagerly). What many call "co-stewardship" means "co-" between the "insiders" and the "outsiders".
In other words, running an election is supposed to be a "co-stewardship" between the elecetd officials whose job it is, and those who think they are corrupt, or evil, or just wrong.
In other words (again), elections management responsibility should not be determined by the outcome of a previous election. That is as lofty an idea as it is nearly impossible to implement, Who appoints the self-appointed "outsiders"? Does any wild-eyed ideologue get to be a "partner" in the process? What about the paranoid schizophrenic self-mutterer around the corner who walks the street yelling at lampposts? Where does it end? |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 100
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 11:48 am: |
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Yup, completely not perfect.
The question for me is not where does it end -- it is where shall we begin? |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1842
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 11:53 am: |
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Kurt points out all the problems in this, I know there are problems and I don't know how you get around it. But in not having it, I can see where honest questions can and have been asked, ever since somebody thought a secret ballot election didn't go the way they were honestly sure it was going to go. Also, no one does this anywhere, Christine. At least, as far as I know, I thought it up.
And in order to work it would have to go down all the way to the local level, as well. It would take a lot of people (avoiding coercion of the few, again). Unless you dragooned random people off of the street (probably trying to assure mixed party affiliation in the group, by checking affilation post-grab of a candidate dragoonee) I don't know how you'd do this in any way that would avoid predictability and so avoid potential coercion or bribery.
Kurt:
quote:In other words, running an election is supposed to be a "co-stewardship" between the elecetd officials whose job it is, and those who think they are corrupt, or evil, or just wrong.
No, it's this: In other words, running an election is supposed to be a "co-stewardship" between the elected officials whose job it is, and those who think they might be corrupt, or evil, insufficiently careful, or just wrong.
"Trust everyone, but always cut the cards." |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 103
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008 - 1:57 pm: |
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Any way to incorporate the use of videotape in such an idea? |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 116
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 2, 2008 - 1:25 pm: |
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MAINE STATUTE DEFINES AS ILLEGAL POST IT SEALS
Just thought you'd be interested in this snippet of Maine election code:
§699. Sealing of ballot container
When a container is required to be sealed, it shall be done so that the seal on the container must be broken before its contents can be examined. [1985, c. 161, § 6 (new).]
http://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/21-a/title21-Asec699.html |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1845
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 8:15 pm: |
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CCR said
quote:Any way to incorporate the use of videotape in such an idea?
Sure, but here's the real hang up in the whole thing: Just because you think you're taping all the time that the ballots are exposed, are you?
And the problem with the seals. If the guys that make the seals break the seals, what's to stop them from making another one, or taking out a fresh box and affixing another seal? Nothing, I think. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1846
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 8:20 pm: |
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Also, if they re-use these boxes year after year (if it's a good box, you'd want to), don't they have some way to clean them up for re-use (if it's a tape-type seal)? (Sorry, I'm at home on dial up, I can't look at the other site right now. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 88
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - 6:34 am: |
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" There is so much to learn, e.g. from good receipt keeping/log keeping in chain of custody practices. ... Another is in e.g. GE's Six Sigma quality improvement program that strives for 6 bad parts per million, or other quality efforts. "
Seems like a high % of GE lightbulbs I buy die w/in a month or two of moderate use.
One of many dilemmas is --
if/when time comes where nationalized election process "reform" occurs,
the folk who do the writing will be ???
I'd love to see some independent organization develop something more apt in the way of
ideal-approximating transparent electoral process
in an entirely separate context/realm
that could demo precedent w/ positive trackrecord before pols "reform" the election process ...
Past decades of Federal
education, pollution control, & other reforms
offer egs of:
"reforms" that have been effective Trojan Horses for nationalizing "controls" that look,
(& often DO significant,)
good on one hand,
while also creating delivery conduits for eventual deviled-details in gradual long haul. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 136
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - 1:55 pm: |
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Joel, your report on GE lightbulbs is a great example of how great work might be undone by poor control over delivery conditions -- just as with ballots! (Some might draw other conclusions about what is touted/heard in the media versus actual, on the ground experience with products OR election administration performance of officials - making it also relevant to our challenges here)
(Message edited by ctwatcher on February 5, 2008) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4578
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - 3:15 pm: |
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Also, just because a company is using 6 sigma doesn't mean it's being implemented in every department in the company. For example, it might be being implemented only in Customer Service, or only in Accounts. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 140
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - 3:21 pm: |
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There's another aspect to 6 Sigma - it's definitely not the holy grail, but we are so far from it, it seemed like an example of a focused effort to make great strides toward concrete goals.
What happens in a 6 Sigma environment can be that people focus not necessarily on what needs to be improved, but rather on what can be counted. If it needs improvement but someone can't figure out to quantify it, it's an orphan child, because no one can use it for their Six Sigma Project. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 147
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - 4:59 pm: |
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Albert Howard has released the following letter sent today to SOS Bill Gardner. I received this from an email mailing.
February 5, 2008
Mr. William Gardner
Secretary of State
State of New Hampshire
Dept. of State
107 N. Main St. Rm 204
Concord, NH 03301
Re: UNACCEPTABLE DELAYS
Dear Mr. Gardner:
During each of the last three days the recount has had to go into “sleep mode” for hours at a time waiting for the next batch of ballots to arrive from one or more of the towns.
In response to my “Where are the ballots?” questions you have been telling me you lack the resources required to retrieve the ballot boxes more quickly from the outlying towns.
Also, in response to my request to begin counting the un-cast ballots that are showing up in many of the ballot boxes, you said you needed ten days to “pull the information together.” Obviously, you misunderstood my request. There is nothing to be pulled together. Either uncast ballots are in a ballot box or there are none. If there are any in a box, I would like them counted, and if there are none in a box, I would like to have that noted on the certified tally sheet for that ballot box. It is unimaginable why any legislative body – state or local – and/or any chief election official would not insist on a strict accounting of all ballots, used or not.
I find your response to these issues wholly unacceptable.
The longer it takes to retrieve and count the ballots, more time is available for someone to tamper with the evidence. Recount delayed is recount denied.
These latest delays come on top of the long delay caused by your decision not to start the Republican recount until after the completion of the Democrat recount, and your failed attempt to recess the recount for two days last week.
As you know, 40% of the Democrat recount was completed in approximately four business days. The Republican recount has taken nine business days to complete approximately 60%. There is no acceptable reason for this work slowdown.
As we have discussed, delays harm not only the public interest, they take a heavy financial and personal toll on me and the observers.
The public is harmed in two ways.
First, a delay in the publication of my final report on the results of the recount, including the performance of the vote counting machines, means less time is available for the People and governments elsewhere to take the report into consideration as they prepare for their primaries and the General Election.
Second, and God forbid, delay in counting the cast (and uncast) ballots allows unsavory characters additional time to use uncast ballots to bring the recount vote totals in line with illegitimate (rigged) machine totals.
This distinct possibility is heightened by the fact that one private company has programmed all machine memory cards in the state, and quickly collected and removed from the State all machine memory cards immediately after the voting period ended on Primary Day.
The condition of the ballot boxes and their “seals” has only added to our concern that something untoward is behind the repeated delays.
Once more, I need to remind you that time is of the essence. Recount delayed is recount denied.
Very truly yours,
Albert B. Howard |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 180
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 1:57 pm: |
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Michigan Law Prohibits Use of NonOfficial Ballot Containers.
Here's a link to the statute:
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(n04kbe55mob5go450rwc5qzf))/mileg.aspx?page=getO bject&objectName=mcl-168-24j
There is no doubt in this statute that recycled boxes are not an option in Michigan.
Maybe NH should consider such a statute. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 177
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 2:32 pm: |
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Christine - can you post the statute right here? The link isn't working. |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 183
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 8:21 pm: |
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Sure, Nancy. Here it is:
Section 168.24j
MICHIGAN ELECTION LAW (EXCERPT)
Act 116 of 1954
168.24j Ballot container; examination by board of county canvassers; approval; procurement; use of disapproved container.
Sec. 24j.
(1) A ballot container includes a ballot box, transfer case, or other container used to secure ballots, including optical scan ballots and electronic voting systems and data.
(2) A manufacturer or distributor of ballot containers shall submit a nonmetal ballot container to the secretary of state for approval under the requirements of subsection (3) before the ballot container is sold to a county, city, township, village, or school district for use at an election.
(3) A ballot container shall not be approved unless it meets both of the following requirements:
(a) It is made of metal, plastic, fiberglass, or other material, that provides resistance to tampering.
(b) It is capable of being sealed with a metal seal.
(4) Before June 1 of 2002, and every fourth year after 2002, a county board of canvassers shall examine each ballot container to be used in any election conducted under this act. The board shall designate on the ballot container that the ballot container does or does not meet the requirements under subsection (3). A ballot container that has not been approved by the board shall not be used to store voted ballots.
(5) A city, village, or township clerk may procure ballot containers as provided in section 669 and as approved under this section.
(6) A clerk who uses or permits the use of a ballot container that has not been approved under this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.
History: Add. 1969, Act 184, Eff. Mar. 20, 1970 ;-- Am. 2000, Act 207, Imd. Eff. June 27, 2000
Popular Name: Election Code |
NH Precincts (latitude x longitude)
