ES&S: Big Doubts Linger in California

[demodonkey]

Senator Bowen, :yourock:

------------------------

http://www.thereporter.com/letters/ci_3360152

State quiet on voting machines
Reporter Editor:

Before anyone breaths easier that the state won't be decertifying voting machines used in Solano County and 10 other counties ("Solano's voting machines OK," The Reporter, Dec. 30), don't voters have a right to know whether the machine's problems truly have been fixed?

Anyone who believes they are entitled to have their vote counted accurately should be concerned about the revelation that some Election Systems & Software machines didn't proper record people's votes in the November 2005 election. Despite being aware of the issue since mid-November, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has yet to publicly disclose the problems with the machines or, more importantly, how ES&S plans to fix the problems and why voters should have confidence in those proposed solutions.

You do not build people's confidence in voting systems by refusing to talk about the problems with the machines in public and for the Secretary of State to continue to withhold this information is as outrageous as it is unacceptable. The decisions about the types of voting equipment Californians are going to use to elect their representatives and approve or defeat proposed initiatives need to be made in public, in the open, right here in California.

The Help American Vote Act was designed to make it easier for people to cast their ballots and improve the accuracy of the vote count. If the Secretary of State simply makes it easier to vote without ensuring every voter's vote will be accurately counted, California will have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and pulled the rug out from under our democracy in the process.

Debra Bowen, Redondo Beach

The author, a Democrat, is the chairwoman of the state Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee - Editor.

[philb]

1. ES&S gets booted out of Florida's biggest county

Voters Unite Summary of Miami-Dade touchscreen problems
http://www.votersunite.org/info/miamidadelight.asp

1) The problems started in April 2002 immediately after Miami-Dade County officials deployed their new ES&S iVotronic paperless electronic voting systems. An ES&S employee made a last minute change to the ballot definition file, changing the order of the candidates, and the results showed wins for the wrong candidates.
2) Then in the September 2002 election, an average of 8.2% of the votes were lost in 31 problem precincts. In some precincts the loss was as high as 21.5%.
3) In May of 2004, the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition obtained of a memo from the elections office, revealing that there was a bug in the audit software — a bug ES&S had known about for a year and hadn't fixed.
4) In the August 2004 Primary, many problems plagued the system. Audio ballots malfunctioned; machines worked in some electrical outlets and not in others; low-battery conditions triggered the audit bug. The county received 14,253 complaint forms filled out by voters.
5) A study of the 2004 General Election, released in May 2005 revealed thousands of discrepancies between the vote totals and the number of voters. Both phantom votes and excessive undervote rates abounded.
6) The March 2005 special election suffered from a programming error that lost over 1200 ballots, called into question five previous elections, and cost Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan her job.
7) Finally, after three years of disenfranchised voters and questionable results, the new Supervisor of Elections, Lester Sola, is recommending getting rid of the iVotronic machines and using optical scanners — NOT because of malfunctions that affected the democratic process, but because the elections have been costing about five times as much, twice the budget.


May 28. Elections chief urges Miami-Dade to ditch touch-screen machines. Miami-Dade County's elections chief has strongly recommended that its ATM-style voting machines be ditched for optical scan ones that use paper ballots, another black mark for the devices that were billed as a way to avoid a repeat of the 2000 presidential election fiasco. Story Archive
May 28. Miami-Dade's elections chief urges new system. After repeated embarrassing glitches at the polls, elections officials in Miami-Dade County have recommended scrapping the county's $24.5 million electronic voting system in favor of paper ballots with optical scanners. Story Archive
May 28. Voting system change in Dade likely. Miami-Dade is poised to be the first place in the nation to ditch the iVotronics paperless voting machines for paper-based balloting after the county's top election supervisor on Friday issued a memo ''strongly recommending'' the change.
If the county scraps the iVotronics, getting the new machines would take more than a year. County officials have been careful not to imply that the machines are faulty. The touch-screens are state certified and will continue to be used in upcoming elections while the issue is debated. Story Archive
May 29. Paperless, touch-screen voting costs soar. Miami-Dade's controversial paperless voting machines cost taxpayers about $6.6 million to operate during November's presidential election - about twice what officials budgeted. Story Archive

[philb]

2. Touch screen switching/corruption in 2002 and 2004 elections part of the

problem why ES&S machines no longer will be used in Dade County

Major corruption/vote swing due to touch screen manipulation and other corrupt practices in Florida in 2004
http://www.flcv.com/fla04EAS.html
http://www.flcv.com/EIRSfla.html
http://www.flcv.com/fraudpat.html

[philb]

3. similar in California in 2004 but to lesser extent

since it depends on who controls the election process
http://www.flcv.com/californ.html

[philb]

4. Most states had similar election manipulation in 2004

http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html
http://www.flcv.com/summary.html

[Stevepol]

5. K&R!!

[kster]

6. K&R.nt

[nicknameless]

7. Debra Bowen is the greatest asset of the CA State Legislature --

and the brightest hope for fans of clean elections here.

So sorry to hear about your woes with ES&S, demodonkey. Hopefully more damning information will come out soon.

Recommended

[bleever]

8. K&R.