Voting Issues Follow-Up On Nov. 4th Election

Followup on Nov. 4th Election & Photos of "Two-strikes and You're Out" Touchscreen Warning Screen

Humor: Voting Machine Wins the Presidential Race http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/voting-machine.html

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There are still undecided Senate election contests in four states - Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota, and Oregon.

In Alaska there have been irregular suspicious voting patterns reported from some cities and 60,000 provisional and absentee ballots still to be counted and the margin between the two Senate candidates is about 3,000 votes.

Minnesota uses the inaccurate ES&S M100 optical-scan voting system to count its paper ballots. The error on some of Minnesota's precinct-based optical scan machines, the ES&S M100s may be as high as 2.5% and the MN Senator's race margin is less than 0.5%.

In Georgia, the absentee and provisional ballots have not yet been counted and reported. The Republican Saxby Chambliss, the incumbent, does not have 50% of the vote (has 49.9%), so there will probably be a runoff election under Georgia statute, to determine the winner.

Oregon, uses mail-in paper ballots and is just slow to report its counts. The challenger, a Democrat is ahead by about 1% of the vote, with 78% of the votes reported.

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The Diebold touchscreen voting machine "two-strikes-and-voters-are-out" rule warning screen:

http://utahcountvotes.org/images/DieboldWarningScreen.jpg

http://utahcountvotes.org/images/DieboldWarningScreen2.jpg

http://utahcountvotes.org/images/DieboldWarningScreen3.jpg

Notice that with all of today's touchscreen voting machines, even if the touchscreen paper roll ballot prints the wrong candidates, ones that the voter did not select, a voter only has two chances to try to correct it, on the third try, upon printing the ballot, THE PAPER ROLL BALLOT RECORD ROLLS UP INSIDE THE MACHINE WITHOUT GIVING A VOTER A CHANCE TO REVIEW IT!

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Touchscreen voting machines difficult for some voters to use

In Salt Lake County, Utah, according to the pollworkers, when the voter's vote had not registered after trying five times, one of the pollworkers helped the voter before the voter "cast" the vote.

Voters were touching the screen in a way that the screen is not responsive. They were pressing it with a wide surface of their finger, then pressing very hard. People touch things differently, and some machines are more responsive than others. According to the county's spokesperson, "The way people touch the screen has something to do with a machine's responsiveness."

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Some ES&S M100 paper ballot opti-scan printers miscount up to 2.5% of votes - swinging the margin erroneously as much as 5% in some precincts. These ES&S M100 precinct opti-scanners are used in some or all counties in the following states: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, IA, IL, IN, KS, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NM, OH, PA, RI, SD,TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, WV, and WY has been found

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From Gideon's Daily Voting News, below are a small portion of the voting machine "glitch" news of various types that were widely reported from numerous states:

ES&S Voting Machines in Michigan Flunk Tests, Don't Tally Votes Consistently http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/michigan-electi.html

E-Voting Machines in Two-Dozen States Incorrectly Count Votes http://www.pubrecord.org/nationworld/454-voting-machines-in-two-dozen-states-incorrectly-count-votes.html

Hart Intercivic and Sequoia Op-Scan Machines Have Trouble Reading Ballots http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/op-scan-machine.html

Dust, Creases Slow Ballot Count In Boulder Workers Have To Inspect Ballots [Hart eScan] http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/17895498/detail.html#-

Problems w/ Voting Machines or Ballots

Malfunctioning Machines, Ballot Glitches, Election-Law Litigation -- and a Busy Day for Lawyers http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202425803382

The OTHER Election Night Story in Georgia: No Early Votes Included in Reported Results http://savdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=19&ArticleID=20488

Kenton Co. Judge Rules For Vote Recount http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=ba97601c-a01a-431e-a8ac-acc0d2bc399e more problems with the straight party option not registering all votes

E-Voting Machines Used in Franken, Coleman Race Failed Tests http://www.pubrecord.org/politics/474-e-voting-machines-used-in-franken-coleman-race-failed-tests.html MN opti-scan machines found to be inaccurate

Centre County Recounts Ballots After Discrepancy http://www.wjactv.com/news/17900285/detail.html opti-scan counting problem

PA County's Voting Machines Impounded Following Complaints http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/pa-countys-voti.html straight party voting programming problems again

Charleston County suffers voting problems on Election Day http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=9300365

Election Watchers Report Problems Across Virginia http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2008/11/the_election_protection_coalit.html

Virginia: The New Florida? http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/gumbel

Voting Rights Watch: Voting problems continue to plague Virginia http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/11/voting-rights-watch-voting-problems.asp

Local turnout heavy as computer glitch delays count http://www.richmondregister.com/localnews/local_story_310073742.html?keyword=secondarystory

Hillsborough results frozen, tens of thousands still uncounted http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=93530&catid=8

Hillsborough results tied up by software glitch http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7794805&version=10&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Palm Beach County vote results still incomplete http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/11/05/1105stillcounting.html

Glitch postpones Manatee vote totals http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20081105/BREAKING/811050297/-1/NEWSSITEMAP

Ballot-counting problem should have been avoided http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/opinion/local_story_309220039.html?keyword=topstory

Final counts delayed as ballots sorted http://www.jconline.com/article/20081105/ELECTION01/811050349

Miss. voters face long lines, machine problems http://www.desototimes.com/articles/2008/11/04/news/doc4910d96493b52894290100.txt

Cuyahoga County elections workers rescanning ballots from more than 100 precincts http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2008/11/cuyahoga_county_elections_work.html

Miami County set to recount 7,500 paper ballots http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/11/05/ddn110508miamiwoesweb.html

Computer glitch stalls Northumberland County vote count http://www.dailyitem.com/0100_news/local_story_309211730.html the impounding of the voting machines should not delay the release of the official results

Software glitch delays vote count http://www.timeswv.com/todaystopnews/local_story_310033002.html

National voter Hotline

Voting hotline gets 3,000 complaints an hour http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/voting-hotline-has-received-3000-complaints-an-hour-2008-11-04.html

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Whether you are happy with the 2008 election outcomes or not, we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do in order to regain public oversight over election integrity in the United States. Let's all work together to ensure that all future U.S. election outcomes reliably and accurately reflect voters' choices.

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://electionarchive.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

How to Audit Election Outcome Accuracy http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/VoteCountAuditBillRequest.pdf

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

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