Election problems due to a software glitch (11,283 x-tra for Bush in N.C )

[shawn703]

A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.

<snip>

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.


http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&Section=Local


on edit, forgot link

[LosinIt]

1. link???

[shawn703]

2. Sorry, added it to the original post n/t

[SmokingJacket]

3. Tip of iceberg

I love this quote: "it really has nothing to do with the integrity of the vote as cast or counted."

Hahahahahahahhahahhahahahaha

[phantom power]

12. LOL. That really captures the insanity, doesn't it.

We didn't count the votes correctly, that really has nothing to do with how the votes were counted!

[Tiberius]

23. I'll tell you something

As someone who does IT for a living, all of my focus and energy will be on joining a mass popular movement to eradicate these machines from our voting methods.

All the well-run campaigns in the world will never beat this stuff. The number of different ways it could be rigged is beyond comprehension. Hidden code, "glitches", encrypted tally changers... it could be distributed in such a way so that we will never know.

Anyone else find it interesting that Bush won Florida within the margin of error in the pre-election polls? If he won 60/40 that would be too obvious.

[phantom power]

24. I'm also a programmer. Couldn't agree more.

Anybody who thinks otherwise is either completely ignorant about software (which I'm sure is plenty of people), or just engaging in willful denial.

[Tiberius]

26. it's astounding

These companies hide their source code as a "trade secret". You're a programmer, so you know. There are an infinite number of ways that this could be done.

Fragmented code could be spread across the OS that says "change every twentieth Kerry vote to Bush". The total number of votes wouldn't change, and a 50/50 vote would turn into 52.5 to 47.5. Some machines could have this code and others might not. Some states could have this code and others not. It could even be adjusted on the fly so as not to tamper with the totals unless it were needed.

How we educate the masses on this is another question.

[Straight Shooter]

28. BINGO! "It could even be adjusted on the fly ..."

In the night, someone whispered in bush's ear, "the fix is in."

That's when Drudge had his flashing siren and "Ignore Exit Polls" and that's when the White House called the press conference.

I don't bother defending Kerry or attacking bush when a bushie gloats at me, I just say, "You have been played."

This ain't the end of it. Democrats are incredibly intelligent and diligent about IT issues. I can't see us giving up until every vote is counted and all those iffy machines are verified. And I don't give a damn how long it takes. As long as there are questions, bush gets no stinkin' mandate.

(Code word "mandate" = layperson's term "blank check")

[foo_bar]

54. I remember that

11/2 morning: "The exit polls were rigged by liberals!"
11/2 afternoon: "Let's, uh, let the people decide. Heh heh."

[DBoon]

44. Like the story of the Swiss Crypto AG systems

http://jya.com/nsa-sun.htm

I do computer security....

[bloom]

47. that is interesting

"I was idealistic," Mr. Spoer says. "But I adapted quickly ... the new aim was to help Big Brother U.S.A. look over these countries' shoulders. We'd say, 'It's better to let the U.S.A see what these dictators are doing."

[phantom power]

48. It's hard to combat naivete. I couldn't even get my wife to believe

that people would *do* it. She's full aware of what's possible with software, but she thought I was indulging in paranoia when I told her we couldn't trust it.

I haven't even bothered to bring up the discrepancies between exit polls and vote-counts yet :-)

As far as "educating", I'm genuinely at a loss about how to fix the system, because the system that's really broken is "us", the people.

I've pretty much run out of new things to say to anybody who doesn't yet see how screwed up this country has become. If they can't see it for themselves, nothing I have to say is going to change their minds.

[reprobate]

67. You won't convince them with facts. Their minds are made up.

I've had the feeling for a couple of years now that there is just one thing that will return this once great nation to a truly representative democracy. Things will have to continue to descend into chaos to the point that everyone, including the fanatic repugs, will have to acknowlede the fact that this is no longer america in anything but name.

Americans have never been an introspective lot (most couldn't even define the word), so it will take a truly siesmic shock to make them think for a change. One they reach that point, hopefully we can become that which we never really were, of the people, by the people and for the people.

Admittedly it does take a bit of a disasocciative mindset, but the plus side of this is that the pain is much less.

But then I've always been a pollyanna.

[Supersedeas]

31. well it is not supposed to do that.....funny how it DID

[UpInArms]

4. Wow! Those Electronic Voting Bandits are making

this so easy!

Other than the cranking sound of numbers adding and an occasional ring of the phone, the office was dead quiet as they scrutinized the emerging tapes and hand-posted them on notebooks to be added by hand.

and doesn't Chuck Hagel own lots of ESS?

Andrews arrived and made contact with the ESS home office in Omaha, Neb.

and look! there's more!

Election difficulties also were reported in a number of other North Carolina counties, including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably lost.

:argh:

[killbotfactory]

5. "glitch"?

Yeah whatever. Let us see the code, assholes... oh, we can't? Okay, nevermind. I'm sure you have our best interests at heart and wouldn't do anything so callous as rigging our democracy.

[VegasWolf]

33. "glitch, my pimpled ass!", If you want a laugh, see this link

http://www.billionairesforbush.com/video/votingmachine.mov

[nolabels]

61. Thanks

:kick:

[eleonora]

6. to guess it is one thing. To know it is infuriating!!!!!

bastards...!!!!

[leftchick]

7. we had those "glitches" (I hate that word) ALL over NC....

A little sampler....


More than 4,000 early votes lost in Carteret County

11/04/2004
Associated Press

Several North Carolina counties reported problems with voting, including Carteret, where more than 4,000 early votes were lost because the electronic voting system could not store the volume of votes it received.
It was unknown what affect the problem would have on local or state voting results or what action the state Board of Elections might take. Two statewide races, for superintendent of public instruction and agriculture commissioner, remained unresolved and too close to call on Thursday.

In Carteret, the county was told by the manufacturer of the voting system that its units could store up to 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.
Officials said 3,005 votes cast early were valid.
While waiting for the final precinct Tuesday night, election workers began tallying the absentees, no excuses ballots and Election Day tallies. They found their numbers didn't match the numbers they were getting from a computerized printout.
"That's when we started looking," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the Carteret County Board of Elections.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the electronic voting system, acknowledged it had given the county wrong information about how many votes the system can store.
Verdon said that after a ballot is cast, the electronic vote is stored in one of the units, known as a black box. Because the county believed the storage capacity was 10,500 votes, only one black box was used during early voting.
"If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," Verdon said.
The loss of the 4,530 votes didn't appear to change the outcome of the county races, but that wasn't the issue for Alecia Williams of Beaufort, who voted on one of the final days of the early voting period.
"The point is not whether the votes would have changed things, it's that they didn't get counted at all," Williams said.
State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett said he did not know if the lost votes could somehow be retrieved from the computer equipment, but that is an option being looked at. He said there was some discussion of whether the votes could be extracted from the unit's internal drive.

In Mecklenburg County, a discrepancy in unofficial totals posted on election night had officials recounting early voting results Thursday.
The county election office said before the election that 102,109 people voted early or returned valid absentee ballots. But unofficial results from election night showed 106,064 people casting early and absentee votes for president.
The difference was pointed out by county Republicans on Wednesday.

Elections director Michael Dickerson said late Wednesday that he was unsure if there was a problem but acknowledged the situation was unusual. He said election officials had not lost any votes.

"I'm confident in the process we did election night," he said. "I'm never confident (in numbers) until we post the official results."

A recount could change results in the race for at-large seats on the county commission, where unofficial results showed Democrats pulled off a surprising sweep, ousting two Republican commissioners.

According to the unofficial tally, Republican Ruth Samuelson trailed third-place Democrat Jennifer Roberts by 1,921 votes. Republican Dan Ramirez was a distant fifth.

There are three at-large seats on the county commission.
In Craven County, vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled. The outcome of most races isn't expected to be affected.
But in close races, particularly the contest for the Craven County Board of Commissioners District 5 seat where candidates Leon Staton and Anthony Michalek are separated by a mere 35 votes, the outcome could change.

In Onslow County, a software error changed the order of finish in the county commissioners race. The error didn't change who won, just who finished first through fifth.

The error occurred when a floppy disk that compiles voting data from the counting machines was programmed incorrectly, said Kim Strach, a deputy director with the State Board of Elections, who was in Onslow County to assist with the election.

Bartlett said there are an estimated 72,469 provisional ballots still to be counted in the state, with four counties not yet reporting.

Until those ballots are added into Tuesday's unofficial results, it's hard to speculate what impact, if any, voting changes in individual counties might have, officials said.
http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8654KG80.html

[soup]

9. What's a 'no excuses' ballot?

>"election workers began tallying the absentees, no excuses ballots and Election Day tallies"<

Is that what NC named their provisional ballots?

[Sparky McGruff]

71. It's early voting in NC

A "No Excuses" ballot is what they call early voting. They had early voting in several places in each county, for the two weeks prior to the election. I voted that way, and they estimated about a quarter of the votes in the Raliegh-Durham-Chapel Hill area were cast that way.

[Buns_of_Fire]

59. "Glitch," my ASS!

In Carteret, the county was told by the manufacturer of the voting system that its units could store up to 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

3,500 votes? 3,500 votes? I can do better than that on a friggin' SPREADSHEET!

This isn't rocket science. "If Selection = Kerry, KerryTotal = KerryTotal + 1"... "If Selection = Bunnypants, BunnypantsTotal = BunnypantsTotal + 1"... No complicated calculations. Just add one to a counter, over and over. Just what computers do best.

Either (1) these companies have the most INCOMPETENT programmers on earth, (2) they don't believe in TESTING their code, or (3).....

[leftchick]

66. I am a very firm believer in number 3....

why else would they be fighting the auditing procedures so hard? It is most obvious.

[shawn703]

8. Bet certain people knew that the override wouldn't function correctly

These things aren't glitches, folks. Computers follow the instructions they are given by their programming. To think that programmers wrote some code that is supposed to prevent double-counting but didn't actually test it is absurd. And to think that these errors are limited to certain precincts is naive. Every precinct using this software would have been vulnerable to this problem since the costs of developing different software for each precinct would have been too high. Because only a handful of precincts caught errors does not mean that they happened in a handful of places. The point that all of these so-called glitches all seem to benefit Bush is reason enough to suspect vote manipulation.

[Nihil]

10. Bet you something else too ...

> Every precinct using this software would have been vulnerable to this
> problem since the costs of developing different software for each
> precinct would have been too high. Because only a handful of precincts
> caught errors does not mean that they happened in a handful of places.

I bet that there is a significant correlation between the "glitches"
and the presence or absence of a particular release of the code.
This might be a "bugfix" release for the problem stations or a "bugfix"
release for the non-problematic ones. Compound that by the fact that
there are different groups of symptoms (some transferring votes, some
omitting to count them, some reversing the sign).

The icing on the cake is that there is no way to detect this except
for a total *binary* comparison of entire machines (which is simply
not going to happen anywhere).

No, I haven't seen their code (but there again, how many have?) but I
have spent enough of my life writing code and know how frequently such
"version slew" canhappen in the real world even when the intent of
*all* of the participants is to keep things in step. Combine the
real-world gremlins with the intent, capability and funding for
introducing subtle errors and there is no problem whatsoever in
migrating a few percent of the popular vote from one side to the
other.

Nihil

[Sara Beverley]

11. When the truth gets out, Bush will not have won the popular vote!

And that's the truth!

[LisaL]

17. Popular vote?

What about electoral vote?
Those little glitches could add up.
If one machine in OH can give Bush almost 4,000 extra votes?
Well, how many machines were used?
Think about that?
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/election/election-president.php?story=dispatch/2004/11/05/20041105-A6-01.html

[shawn703]

13. Like all the others, this are ES&S machines. n/t

[LisaL]

14. My, My, My.

I wonder why those glitches give Bush extra votes?
Like almost 4,000 extra votes here in OH?
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/election/election-president.php?story=dispatch/2004/11/05/20041105-A6-01.html
What, did computers get together and decided to give Bush some extra votes?

[okieinpain]

16. jesus loves the little computers.

[LisaL]

18. More like Republican Electronic Voting machine makers

love these computers?

[okieinpain]

15. kerry and company need to immediately demand a across the nation

checking of these machines by an impartial group. he has the money to pay for this. he should say that he's not over trying to over turn the election just that the people need to have faith in evoting. he needs to get on this now.

[wabeewoman]

19. If not Kerry

what about Move-on? IMHO SOMEBODY needs to be making noise about all these voter irregularities.

[EndElectoral]

20. Why do these "computer glitches" never seem to benefit Kerry?

[progressiveBadger]

21. Because the state governments of these places

are mostly republican. But we got back a couple of states this year, so don't loose faith!

[LisaL]

22. Because the people in charge of making these machines are

Republicans who want to deliver electoral votes to Bush?

[daleo]

25. 11,000 here, 5,000 there, another 5000 somewhere else

Pretty soon you are talking real percentages. It explains the variance between the exit polls and the announced votes. Someone also pointed out that the 6th district in Minnesota showed an extra 8000 votes for 7 different fringe candidates. There is another post with a screen shot somewhere. It was posted late Tuesday night.

[leftchick]

46. Think about it, NC is a REALLY Red state.....

This is just an example of what the DREs did here. I live in Guilford county and we don't even know if the early voting ballots were counted!!! :grr:......

November 4, 2004 Carteret County, N.C. Computer May Have Lost 4,500 N.C. Votes (According to Unilect President, the votes were lost) Yahoo News

"In Carteret, the county was told by the manufacturer of the voting system that its units could store up to 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes. " WCNC

Carteret voting machines Unilect Direct Record (DREs)
purchased May 96, 45 machines, Programmed by Connecting Points 252-240-2722
Firmware: Unilect Patriot model 2.54, Software: Unilect, model/version Intetilect 2.49
has modem capability
Website for Unilect Corporation: http://www.unilect.com/

November 4, 2004 Craven County, vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled. The outcome of most races isn't expected to be affected. ( How can they tell?) WCNC
Craven County Voting Machines, ES&S Votronic Model 1
Purchased 206 machines from 1997-2003, Firmware model 5.28 installed 2002
Software tabulator ES&S Unity version 2.2, Programmed by ES&S
ess 800-247-8683, has modem, does not use it
November 4, 2004. Mecklenburg County, early voting machines counted some totals twice affecting as many as 4,000 ballots. That problem has not yet been corrected. "There are always glitches," McLean said. http://www.wral.com/news/3891488/detail.html
Mecklenburg County, a discrepancy in unofficial totals posted on election night had officials recounting early voting results Thursday. The county election office said before the election that 102,109 people voted early or returned valid absentee ballots. But unofficial results from election night showed 106,064 people casting early and absentee votes for president. http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8654KG80.html

Mecklenburg Voting Machines, Microvote 464, Purchased 1,400 in 1995
NASED nr 10301, Firmware version 4.31, Software - MEMS model/version 2.02
Programmed by Board of Elections, No modem capability
service by Microvote, phone [phone]
November 4, 2004. Yadkin County, about 1,000 ballots were accidentally counted twice. The problem was later corrected. How? http://www.wral.com/news/3891488/detail.html

Yadkin County Voting Machines - ES&S Optech 111 - P Eagle, Optical Scanners purchased 13 machines 1996, Firmware Optech III, Software, Data Packs programmed by ES&S

November 4, 2004. Guilford County, early voting machines had capacity problems, which affected anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 ballots. That problem was also corrected.

(Problem was that the machines quit counting ballots when they reached capacity. Doesn't that mean that the machines ran out of space to hold the data, and that the data was lost, as happened in Carteret County? ) http://www.wral.com/news/3891488/detail.html

Guilford County Voting Machines - ES&S touchscreen voting machines, purchased 1,186 from 1995-2002, Votronic Model 1, Firmware 5.28, installed 2002, Tabulating Software Unity 2.2 installed 2003, programmed by Guilford County, has modem, doesn't use.

November 4, 2004 Onslow County, a software error changed the order of finish in the county commissioners race. The error didn't change who won, just who finished first through fifth. The error occurred when a floppy disk that compiles voting data from the counting machines was programmed incorrectly.. WCNC

Onslow County uses punch-card machines.
They have 28, purchased them in 1985 from
Business Records Corp. (now ES&S) and plan to replace them once federal standards are set.

November 4, 2004. Chowan County. Elections board officials were busy tallying corrections Wednesday to results in Guilford, Yadkin and Chowan counties, Bartlett said http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10094337.htm
Chowan County Voting Machines Not known what kind of machines used in Chowan this election. They did have lever machines. May have been testing other machines.
November 4, 2004. RALEIGH, N.C. -- Election Day has come and gone, but three statewide races still do not have a clear winner.

[VegasWolf]

27. Very odd, none of these "glitches" resulted in extra votes for Kerry.

One would think that there was some random probability that
Kerry would be the beneficiary occasionally. These "glitches"
look like nothing of the sort.

[Straight Shooter]

29. None we know of so far. That's the fly in Rove's ointment.

What are the odds, I wonder, hmmmm .........

[daleo]

35. We keep hearing about the religious turnout being the difference

In all seriousness, I think this meme is being planted so that the supersticous can interpret at the fact that all the "glitches" are in Bush's favor as being a sign from God. They will be primed to think of it as a miracle rather than a crime.

[michaelwb]

63. Random...not

"One would think that there was some random probability that
Kerry would be the beneficiary occasionally. These "glitches"
look like nothing of the sort."

It reminds me of a news story a few years back. Some reportered checked a large sample of supermarkets looking for price scanning errors. Almost every story had them adding up to hundreds of price scanning errors - AND NOT ONCE WAS IT IN FAVOR OF THE CONSUMER! Always it was a higher price, never a lower.

Another computer "glitch", huh...

[Tight_rope]

30. Other one!....I knew they would steal the election!

[West Coast Democrat]

32. They would only have to add an average of 70,000 extra, bogus votes....

per state to get at their "popular vote" lead. In the larger states, like Florida, they could have created thousands of "glitches" without many people noticing.

[icymist]

34. Has anyone noticed that all the computer glitches favor Bush...

and none favor Kerry?

[Catherine Vincent]

36. Yep.

Why?

[icymist]

37. Could it be....Satan? ..er, I mean, whoever counts the votes?

I believe Stalin said something like that.

[VegasWolf]

38. Harvard University tried to warn about Diebold - see link

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=353515

[VegasWolf]

39. Indymedia reports Diebold's code name for 2004 election -

Operation Jesus.

[Dancing_Dave]

40. All part of "the Rove plan"

There were supposed to be plenty of these "mistakes" as part of a nation-wide, systematic election stealing campaign. Of course, the local elections people just see a "Glitch" may be entirely sincere and we should thank them for coming forward with the info. They also are giving us a non-partisan way to go after the technological aspects of the problem and "fix the broken system" before anymore bogus elections occur.

But the angle of this article ignores the fact that this is part of a systematic, nation-wide pattern--and Kerry never benefitted from any of the "glitches".

We shouldn't let the election thieves get away with their illegal vote suppression and fraud activities ANYWHERE. Right now, it seems most urgent to figure out what happened in Ohio, because that is the one case where it is highly likely that the election fraud actually changed the outcome in the electoral college...and there is some chance of reversing the result. But we need to prosecute the fraud and fix fraud-prone systems everywhere!

[VegasWolf]

41. Blackbox voter says source available except for patches - still

trying to figure out what fn_jesus_helper( *inlist, *outlist ); does.

[FraDon]

42. Old Joe Stalin's Opinion

"The people who cast the votes do not decide an election;
the people who COUNT the votes do."

- Joseph Stalin (1879 -1953)

[ChiciB1]

43. www.BlackBoxVoting.org

Just received a message from this site. I'm sure some of you already know about it, but I can't get any answers to any posts.

I want to find out how to organize an ANTI-BUSH PROTEST in Washington D.C. and don't know how to go about it. There are some posts at the Activism Site.

Check this site out!!

[mcg]

53. I donated, might donate again

[Riptide]

45. Isn't it odd that all these "mistakes" work in Dubya's favor???

NOT!

[Zhade]

49. With all these stories of computer fraud (or 'glitches') coming out...

WHY DID KERRY CONCEDE???

The impression formed is that b*sh won, and it's getting clearer and clearer that he STOLE IT AGAIN!

[Eloriel]

58. I don't think he gets it re the machines.

And face it, he wouldn't be the first or only Dem so-called leader who refuses to listen on this issue, would he?

Mark Crispin Miller confirmed for me my suspicion re his not getting it (rad down in OP):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2596312&mesg_id=2596312

[B Calm]

50. I HATE REPUBLICANS

[skip fox]

51. If Soros did not offer a $10 million reward for evidence of such fraud

then he might well consider it.

That's the only way to jog a programmer loose from Diebold (or wherever) who might tell what and how it was done.

[B Calm]

52. Great idea even if Soros won't consider donating. Hell I'll pitch in 20

dollars!

[Lilli]

55. i must be tired...i dont see where it says they were for Bush

its still outrageous though

[robbedvoter]

56. Funny how all them "glitches" go one way - towards W

[symphony]

57. why am I not surprised?

all these "errors" favor *

I am surprised at the euphemisms used by the media to report these things. They are termed either "errors", or "glitches", or "miscalculations". How pathetic!

[neomonkey]

60. Just what in the F is going on here??

Tuesday night, depressed, a little drunk, I went to bed and I didn't want to hear squat about voting problems or irregularities or chads or BBV or any of that, I just wanted to not think about this.

Little by little, my fight has come back. Every time I turn around, another "incidence" of voting problems.

Election difficulties also were reported in a number of other North Carolina counties, including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably lost.

4530 votes lost, and it becomes a footnote.

[riffraff_va]

62. DEMOCRATS LISTEN UP!

If you don't force the media to report this nonsense, and allow George W. Bush to cheat democracy again, then YOU ALL ARE PUSSIES!!! YOU ALL ARE COWARDS AND DESERVE EVERY SECOND OF HELL THAT GEORGE BUSH IS GOING TO GIVE YOU! DO YA'LL THINK THAT A REPUBLICAN WOULD ALLOW JOHN KERRY TO CHEAT DEMOCRACY AND STAND BY SILENTLY! NO! RIOT! MARCH! PROTEST! DO SOMETHING BESIDES COMPLAIN ON THE INTERNET! REPUBLICANS ARE LAUGHING AT YALL! THEY ARE CALLING YALL "WEAK"!

WHAT ARE YALL WAITING FOR?!! ANOTHER MICHAEL MOORE MOVIE BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING! I'M NOT JUST ASKING, I'M BEGGING TO YALL TO GET A BACKBONE!!!

[struggle4progress]

70. Write LTTE expressing concern about black boxes. eom

[FlaGranny]

64. Does anyone know

if anything like this happened in the other direction? I would actually like to see lots and lots of reports of it happening to Republicans because then maybe they'd get their asses in gear and help us get rid of voting into the mist.

[michigandem2]

65. YET another claim that bush got EXTRA votes...

so where are Kerry's? nobody finds it odd that bush got extra votes in numerous places???? seems heavily slanted to bush...yet there is no problem...just a glitch

[otohara]

68. Kerry Who?

His name wasn't on the machine..

[greyXstar]

69. Nobody finds it odd...

...because nobody cares. The media has done too much for Dubya over the years to suddenly turn on him now. And the repukes don't care because it all went in their favour.