NEW HAMPSHIRE Vote Recount Report!! - Optical Scan Machines Violate Federal Law

[kpete]

February 24, 2008 at 14:02:27

Headlined on 2/24/08:
NEW HAMPSHIRE Vote Recount Report!! - Optical Scan Machines Violate Federal Law

by Bob Schulz Page 1 of 1 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com



NH RECOUNT 2008 - Optical Scan Machines Violate Federal Law
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Click Here To Access the Full WTP NH Recount Report & the complete supporting analysis.
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/MISC/NH-Recount/NH-RecountRpt-Feb-2008.htm

With an interest in defending the individual's constitutionally guaranteed Right to have and to know that his vote is being accurately counted, this Foundation determined the 2008 New Hampshire Primary recount offered an excellent, real-world opportunity to independently assess the statistical performance of optical scan, electronic vote counting machines relative to hand counting of ballots.

WTP has just completed its analysis of the data. Our principal findings are as follows.


Of the 347, 905 total ballots processed during the recount 305,207 (87.7%) came from towns and cities that use machines to count the votes, and 42,619 (12.3%) came from towns that use People to count the votes.

New Hampshire's vote counting machines violate federal accuracy standards. New Hampshire's machines experienced an error rate approximately 163 times greater than the error rate allowed under federal Election Law.

.............

In brief, the analysis data supports the conclusion that not only are machine counts of votes much more likely to result in error, but the machine errors are of a significantly larger magnitude and variance than those observed for hand counting.

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_bob_schu_080224_new_hampshire_vote_r.htm

[suston96]

1. Optical scanners use paper ballots. That's a good start.....

If optical scanners make an unacceptable number of "mistakes" in New Hampshire then fix the machines. How does New Hampshire's experience with optiscan compare with the rest of the country, statistically?

With the paper ballots as backup, there should be minimal problems arriving at the correct vote totals.

Optical scanning is used worldwide in many different ways including and especially with barcodes. Don't trash the system because of anecdotal events based on poor technical support or inadequate training of precinct workers.

[dragonlady]

2. The problem lies in getting a hand recount

A candidate who wants a recount generally has to pay a significant sum of money unless the difference between candidates is very small (far less than 1 percent or so). Most campaigns could not afford to seek a recount unless there is some serious discrepancy, for example between the exit polls and the machine results, that would bring in lots of donations for that purpose. So the backup aspect is really not to be relied upon for proper elections.

[cloudythescribbler]

3. surely the ballots of an optiScan system can ALSO be counted (checked) by hand, starting w/ samples

[pnwmom]

4. Exactly. We should be doing recounts of a sample of randomly chosen

ballots, and if the numbers aren't close enough, then an automatic hand recount.

[kster]

14. Thanks, but no thanks, we will be Hand Counting

all of OUR ballots before they leave the polling place after we are done Hand Counting them, we will decide if we will let you use OUR ballots for your random audit of the machines. :mad:

[pnwmom]

15. Where will that be happening? And who are "we"? n/t

[Peace Patriot]

8. Electronic voting machines are a huge and unnecessary expense for the simple act

of voting and counting the votes. That is reason enough to dump them all into 'Boston Harbor' forthwith.

Second reason: The votes in both optiscan and touchscreen voting machines are turned into electrons and tallied by "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by private corporations with very close ties to the Bush/Cheney regime, the Republican Party and far rightwing causes.

Feeling a little insecure about our voting system yet?

These corporations lobbied heavily for paperless touchscreen systems--the most insider hackable of the machines--and are still lobbying for them, even thought it has become apparent to most people that these systems are extremely vulnerable to manipulation. One of the three Bushite corporations who make them--ES&S (brethren to Diebold)--manufactures them in miserable sweatshops in the Philippines. In other words, they are anti-labor, anti-democratic shit-heads. (See Dan Rather's "The Trouble With Touchscreens," www.HD.net.)

These three Bushite corporations--Diebold (now called 'Premier'), ES&S and Sequoia--have also strongly resisted any kind of auditing or accountability. The machines, for instance, are "tested" by the industry itself! They recently won a court case in Florida in which ES&S refused to disclose their secret code, in an election in which ES&S machines 'disappeared' 18,000 votes for Congress in Democratic areas, with the Bushite 'winning' the election by only 369 votes. The judge ruled, in essence, that ES&S's "right" to profit from our elections, with their secret code, trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted. Our sovereignty as a people, visa vis corporate power, ended with that ruling. Pfsst! Gone!

So, now, these rightwng 'BAD ACTOR' corporations want to be rewarded for selling us this pile of crap voting machinery by getting MORE billions of our tax dollars to replace the touchscreens with optiscans. They also make the optiscans, and the "trade secret" code tabulators, and get the contracts to print the ballots as well. Optiscans are only slightly more secure than touchscreens, depending entirely on the audit (handcount to check against machine totals). Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia have lobbed successfully in many states for ZERO auditing. NO hand-count at all. This is the case in New Hampshire, for instance. They have ballots but they don't count any of them as a regular procedure! Even the best of states do only a 1% audit--very inadequate for a "trade secret" code system. And NH and all states have made it very difficult and expensive to get a recount--and the recount is often of only maybe 3% of the vote.

I could go on and on, but I think my point is clear. These corporations have polluted our election system with corruption and lack of accountability. They have corrupted our election officials, who now defend the interests of the corporate vendors, rather than the interests of the voters. And they have robbed the taxpayers of billions of dollars for crapass machinery, voting systems that are wide open to election theft--most especially by corporate insiders--as well as for "patches" and other repairs when the machines break down (which they frequently do), replacement systems, and long term maintenance contracts.

The very least thing we need to do is get a 10% automatic audit of results from these machines. And all paperless systems need to be banned. These are emergency measures in the dire situation of an EASILY hackable upcoming general election of great importance. Even these bottom-line measures will be difficult to obtain from our entrenched and corrupt county and state election officials--but local/state level grass roots pressure is a better hope than expecting the Diebold II Congress to do what's right.

And, ultimately, there is NO PLACE for private interests, corporate profiteering and corporate secrecy in our election system. That we have it is a fascist coup that occurred in the 2002 to 2004 period, as a result of a $3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress. Open Source code electronics may be possible (with a high percent audit--such as they do in Venezuela--an open source code electronic system with a whopping 55% handcount as a check on machine fraud). But in the meantime, until such a system is thoroughly tested out here, the old-fashioned, paper ballot/handcount system should be restored.

Election theft can occur with any election system. But never with the speed, magnitude of votes that can be easily switched, and lack of transparency as is possible with electronic voting of any kind--touchscreen or optiscan--with trade secret code and virtually no audit/recount controls. This system should never have been put in place at all, let alone without the strongest of audit/recount controls. That it was put in place, so quickly, under the radar of the American people, needs thorough criminal investigation of everyone involved.

[Rene]

17. In our town...with just 3700 Optically scanned ballots we had a recount because 2 people were within

20 votes. Triggered a recount when one of them requested it. 3 recounts later we had 4 different totals. The state impounded ALL election material because of my Election complaint after watching lousy procedures being followed, during the 3 recounts. Our officials kept 'finding' more ballots in envelopes and counting in a side room -- away from the public. It became very suspicious. One week later they even 'found' another 117 ballots. The first recount held on Saturday would have changed office holders on our Twn Council...but the vote counters didn't like that and asked the state to allow another recount, then a 3rd. The assured us on Monday, Veterans day that the sign-in book totals and ballots absolutely matched so those counts were what they would certify. Tuesday they found the 117 more ballots. When they counted them at 5:30pm..our 3rd party candidates, who were called by a poll worker, rushed down to the Town Hall to witness it. One of the TC candidates made a notation every time she'd heard her name called 41 votes in the 117. After 20 minutes the vote counters came out of the side room and announced the totals...giving her 22. She challenged that. They went back into the side room---adjusted everyone's counts to give her the 41 she'd heard. Vote counters can be so corrupt. Dems and Repubs worked together against out 3rd Party- The Chatham Party. I bet this goes on all over the country.
If that 20 vote margin hadn't occurred....we would have never known that our votes were counted erroneously.....what do we trust the machine count or the 3 or 4 hand counts after - al with different totals.
Do the Diebold systems have a log in them with date/time stamps of when the votes are recorded? During the hand recounts I heard a LOT of 2 name ballots all being read in a large group together....ballots for 2 of the same Town council names....rather than the 5 they should have selected.....a bunch of these ballots were being called out all together. I doubt a large number of people -- one after the other -- went to vote and only selected 2 of the 5 possible names. I'd like to find out if a log can confirm this batch was read /logged all in a group at siilar times.

[flor de jasmim]

5. THANKS TO DENNIS KUCINICH for this one!

Thanks, Dennis!!

[crimsonblue]

6. I don't buy it

I have used bubble sheets (which are read using optical scan machines) since 1st or 2nd grade and I've never had a problem.. Not to mention that millions do the ACT and SAT using bubble forms. Computer voting = bad. Optical scanning = fine by me.

[Wilms]

9. Well, considering...

Optical scanning = Computer Vote Counting, I'm hardly assured by the fact that you "never had a problem".

[unc70]

10. How do you know you never had a problem? How could one know?

There is absolutely no way you could ever know you had not had a problem. I have enough experience with scanner technology to have seen various problems. Once had some inconsistent data that we eventually found was caused by the power supply on the scanner being too small. The stepping motors that feed the paper caused the light sensors and associated electronics to fail because of the voltage fluctuation. The mis-reads followed some patterns but it was really hard to find the cause.

Tell me how you would know if your SAT were off by 50 or 100 points?

[Peace Patriot]

12. It's the tabulators that pose the chief threat of election theft in optiscan systems

--and, of course, the lack of an audit (ZERO percent audit in many states, and only 1% in the best of states).

Also, your analogy doesn't work, as to the scale of money and power that are at issue with our voting system, versus an individual's career, or the careers of class of people, that might be at risk with ACT and SAT. The motive to steal an election, in order to loot the federal treasury of one trillion dollars for a corporate oil war, is so far beyond what is at stake with ACT and SAT, as to make the analogy simply not applicable.

In addition, what would be the motives of ACT and SAT officials is using their "trade secret" tabulation code to screw up test results? Compare this, say, to the motives of ES&S, whose initial funder and major investor is rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmamson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things)? Or the motives of Diebold CEO, Wally O'Dell--a Bush/Cheney campaign chair?

A SAT official might have a nephew he wants to give a high SAT score to, or some ACT tech might take a bribe to fix a result. Compare this to keeping Bush/Cheney in office, for more tax cuts for the rich, or more initiatives against gays, or more war profiteering? Or even compare it to a local election, where, say, big development is at issue, or a winger steppingstone to higher office is needed? The presence of potential motive is so much bigger, the amount of money and power at issue are so much bigger, in election systems, than in student testing, that we can't really compare them--except maybe for this: we place a higher premium on security for SAT/ACT testing, and for ATM and all banking transactions, and, indeed, for Las Vegas slot machines, than we do for the most fundamental component of our democracy: voting and counting the votes.

Unfairness in scoring (and designing) SAT and ACT is important, of course, and should not be permitted. Unfairness in vote counting, however, can mean 3,300 U.S. soldiers' lives, and 1.2 million innocent Iraqi lives, gone forever, a $10 trillion deficit, Great Depression II and the death of planet earth, as well as all the little deaths of our democracy, and lesser thefts, and incremental damage to the environment, that can occur when the wrong people gain office, by election theft, at the local/state level. Without accurate vote counting, we really don't have a democracy, or any hope of creating a country and world in which the high SAT/ACT scorers, or anybody, can have a decent life.

[harmonyguy]

16. No trouble with SATs? Remember THIS!!!

College Board Acknowledges More SAT Scoring Errors

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 24, 2006; A11

School administrators were stunned yesterday by the revelation from the College Board that an additional 27,000 SAT tests from the October exam had not been rescanned for errors.

The announcement was the third admission in two weeks by the testing organization of potential errors and underreported scores in the college entrance exam used by thousands of schools. A spokesman for the New York-based company said that the largest error was a discrepancy of 450 points out of a potential 2,400. The total number of students who will have higher scores resubmitted is 4,411.

full text here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032301655_pf.html


Whether it's SATs or votes, it ain't as 'bubbly' as some would like us to believe.
HG;)

[Stevepol]

7. Why can't they take this to court??

If as they have determined the error rate for the machines was greater than that allowed by law, isn't that a clarion call for a lawsuit? How else is the law supposed to be enforced?

[Wilms]

11. This snip is at once hilarious and ominous.

E. Fraud

Next, we identified and removed from the analysis 38 hand counts with discrepancies that could reasonably and fairly characterized as the result of fraud. An example was the redistribution to candidate Tancredo of all five votes cast for candidate Fred Thompson in the Center Harbor Precinct in Carroll County. Another example was the failure of the counters to give Fred Thompson any of the votes he received in the Precinct of Effingham in the County of Carroll. Another example was the failure of the counters to give candidate Giuliani any of the ten votes he received in the Second College Precinct in Coos County.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. Recommended. This story needs MUCH more traction. Please Rec. for visibility.