Our Electoral System Meltdown continues as more and more reports come in on epidemic Electronic Voting Machine failures around the country. It’s neck and neck right now as Diebold and ES&S battle it out for the prize of Worst Company, Worst Service, Worst Technology and Best Excuse Maker. But we’ve got a long way to go in this Election Year, so it’s still anyone’s contest. (Anyone’s but the voters, that is.)
A “glitch” — that’s the magical word that was used no less than three times in WOOD-TV’s coverage — in the Diebold optical-scan system used for the first time in Barry County, Michigan’s election yesterday forced Elections Officials to count all ballots by hand. Since it was an optical-scan system — which uses paper ballots — they were able to do so. That would have been next to impossible had a similar disaster befallen a touch-screen system with “paper trails” and completely impossible on a paperless touch-screen machine.
All seemed fine throughout the day on Barry County’s new voting machines until the optical scanner printed out the final results at the close of the election. The report was found to have had all matter of inexplicable totals including 0 votes for some candidates and no YES votes for any of the bond issues on the ballot.
Sound familiar?
The Barry County mess, as it’s being reported by WOOD-TV, sounds almost identical to the situation in Leon County, FL last December where “hackers” had exploited a security vulnerability in Diebold’s optical scanner memory card causing it to print results that were virtually the opposite of the true results on the paper ballots. The “hackers”, who were computer security experts, had hidden all traces of their “crime” in that mock election test, so it would likely never have been discovered.
The problem affected 15 out of 16 townships in Barry County on machines which cost $4000 a piece and were purchased because County Officials claim the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) forced them to do so.
WOOD-TV covers the story, “glitch” after “glitch”, with both text and a video reports. Here’s a few details from their text report…
HASTINGS ? Barry County was all set for yesterday’s election. New voting machines were installed and ready to go.
But they weren’t.
A glitch in a computer program is believed to be the cause of a problem with the voting machines in Barry County. All of the ballots had to be counted by hand after county officials noticed the optical scan machines scrambled the results.
This glitch affected 15 of the 16 Barry County townships, including the city of Hastings. All the votes had to be hand-counted.
…
“In the first precinct that we looked at, one candidate got zero votes, but there were 90 write-ins out of 125 votes cast,” he said. “Especially since the person who got zero votes was the person that I voted for, so I knew the zero was wrong.”
In the Thornapple school board race, the computer had both candidates with zero votes, but the write-in total was 35.
…
“All of the printouts where there were any bond proposals showed a zero total for a yes vote,” she said, “and it appears the actual votes cast as yes showed under the no total and the no total wasn’t appearing on the tape anywhere.”
The State of Michigan bought each $4000 machine for the county after federal law required a statewide standard for the way voters cast their ballots. Tuesday’s election was the first time Barry County used these particular optical scan machines. The county had used a previous model before without having any problems. Why the printouts were scrambled remains a mystery.
“It would all be speculation at this point,” Smith said, “whether the problem was with the actual ballot printing or with the memory card programming.”
(Thanks to BRAD BLOG reader Bill L. for the tip!)
Holy cow – I was down posting at John Gideon’s latest entry and came out to this new item. This is really a laugh if it wasn’t so serious. The idiots have got to catch on now! Don’t they? I mean how much clearer can it be that these machines are totaly useless for any thing more than hanging laundry out to dry!
"It would all be speculation at this point," Smith said, "whether the problem was with the actual ballot printing or with the memory card programming."
memory card re-programming?
JOSE CAN YOU SEE
MY FLIP FLOP
BY
THE SINGER IN CHIEF
Singing out of both sides of his mouth, the prez sez that the national anthem should be sung in english, unless as Singer In Chief, he says otherwise. Whatever in Chief (link here).
Deibold is following the Incompetent in Chief and when all else fails, blame some victim.
Dredd
Now you are getting the message out –
[Elections Officials to count all ballots by hand. Since it was an optical-scan system — which uses paper ballots — they were able to do so. That would have been next to impossible had a similar disaster befallen a touch-screen system with "paper trails" and completely impossible on a paperless touch-screen machine.]
It is great to tell about the problems, but it is essential to emphasize that the paper is the one dependable factor.
The machines can and will fail, and election workers
can and will hand out the wrong paper ballot.
But in the end, it is very easy to recount paper.
Always point that out.
Thanks for doing so this time.
I was talking to Clint Curtis about posibilities of verifying a suspected inacurate vote tally. Clint informed me it is now against the law in Florida to recount any ballot that has been run through a machine.
They are making sure the fixed results of the next election can’t be detected.
#5 Barry
How can Florida legislators get away with a law like that?
How can they possibly justify making a law that says you CANNOT recount any ballot that has been run through a machine, to the voters?
And if they slipped it by the voters, now that the voters know about it–why don’t they insist they repeal it?
Charlene
I don’t think Florida is the only state that has done this. It seems to me someone had posted about similar laws in Ohio or one of the east coast states. Unfortunatelly I can’t remember where it was posted or which state(s).
Anyone recall?
BlueBear2 #7
I remember it being mentioned, but alas, I can’t pinpoint it either.
Here is a link to Florida election law, which we can all look thru to see if we can find it.
DIEBOLD: Redefining "glitch," one election at a time.
Glitch has become synonymous with U.S. elections. When is the last time you saw that word used in any other application? It’s so bad now that Wikipedia’s definition of "glitch" should simply read: Election e-machines.
I hate to admit it, but I’ve heard that it is against the law in Utah to count the punch cards (method we’ve been using for years) by hand, and I understand our Lt. Governor is trying to pass legislation disallowing the new Diebold printouts to be counted by hand.
I can’t find where Florida forbids manual recounts.
Title IX at 102.166 specifically deals with manual recounts (2005->Ch0102->Section%20166#0102.166" target="_blank">link here).
Am I missing it?