Voting Expert- Florida Dist 13 biggest problem likely due to ES&S programming problems

[philb]

Declaration of Charles Stewart III on Excess Undervotes Cast in Sarasota County, Florida for the 13th Congressional District Race

Charles Stewart III
Department of Political Science
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
November 20, 2006

Summary: The level of undervoting experienced using electronic voting machines in Sarasota County for the 13th congressional district greatly exceeds the undervote rates that were estimated to have occurred in other well-established cases of voter confusion.

This suggests a substantial possibility that the exaggerated undervote rates in this case were not solely due to voter confusion, but also caused by factors related to machine malfunction.
Based on the analysis in this report, I conclude that it was very likely that the excessively high undervote rates in the 13th congressional district among votes cast in Sarasota County were caused by the use of iVotronic electronic voting machines.

Possible Explanations:
In the particular case of the vote in Sarasota County, there are two major potential
explanations for why there were so many excess undervotes.

1. One possible explanation is voter confusion. In particular, it has been argued that the ballot layout in Sarasota County naturally drew the eye away from the 13th congressional district race, through the use of colors and banners that were intended to draw the eye toward the beginning of the state contests.

2. A second potential explanation is machine malfunction. Numerous voters reported difficulties casting a vote in the 13th congressional district race or with using the “review screen,” which should have allowed them to correct an undervote that happened by accident.18
These difficulties include pressing the name of one candidate and seeing the other candidate highlighted, or pressing the screen repeatedly with no effect.
(switching was occurring or impossible to vote for Jennings)


Conclusion:
Voters can be misled by ballots that are challenging --- or by subtle design features that
draw their attention away from the task at hand --- but the excess in undervotes cast in Sarasota County in the 13th congressional district race is vastly greater than what has been documented in carefully studied instances where ballot design has been shown to influence voter behavior. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that this excess in undervotes in Sarasota County was not purely the consequence of a poorly designed ballot.
Dated: November 20, 2006 ___________________________________________

[TheMadMonk]

1. 'Machine malfunction'? Like as in 'Wardrobe Malfunction'?

[autorank]

2. This is actually "good" for Stewart from my knowledge of him.

He gushed about Georgia 2002, thought is was just fine. And someother lousy elections as well.

It could be a back fire, stem the tide of the inevitable...theft. Why Sarasota is a question one
would think any reasonable researcher would ask. Why? Oh, right, that's Jennings base.
Then the questions get very interesting but nope, not today.

Why not an option 3.

3) Machine malfunciton preprogrammed to elminate votes from Jennings base and ensure Buchanan's victory.

I really hope the Democats do something about this.

Do you know if there is an eletion contest fileld in the House on this one?

Here's a great question: Who maintained and services er..."calibrated" the Saratoga machines?

[philb]

3. From voter reports, I think different things were happening on various machines

I don't think the disappearing votes were a random calibration problem;
like a lot of other places, for a specific race on more than one machine odd are nill its random calibration problem

Its extremely clear from the audit that Jennings would have won easily in a fair count, it wouldn't have been very close.
Similar to the Bush/Gore situation in 2000

There is talk about a U.S. House contest. It would be too bad if it had to happen. It should be clear who the winner was to authorities in Florida.

The Sarasota SOE is Republican. Its a Republican area, but Sarasota is pretty well divided. This time the choice was so clear the Sarasota newspaper endorsed the Dem (strong candidate)
I think ES&S programs and services the machines. But not certain.

Stewart says the ballot design appears deliberately designed to make it easy to miss. Says that design has been used other places as well with similar results. Nice trick to happen only where one candidates home base is.

But some voters thought the design they saw was even more problematic than what Stewart decribes.

[LiberalFighter]

5. They should require someone from the opposing party to be

a member of that office.

AND programming and servicing should be done locally. ES&S and all the others should only be in the business of manufacturing the devices and providing upgrades certified by the govt.

Programming to mean inputting the names into the machines.

[autorank]

7. They should resolve it locally. The "sore loser" excuse is officially dead.

Jennings challenged and she has not been run out of town, I take it. The sky has not fallen.

If they don't fix it locally, the Democrats should refuse to seat Buchanan. Make the point
now - fair resolution or no seat. That kind of move is too much to ask for at this point
from the new leadership but I'm happy to be proved wrong, very happy.

If Stewart is actually saying bad design by intention, then we are somewhere. That guy quitting
the HAVA cheer leading crew would be great.

When Hoyer and Pelosi both made major gestures regarding electoins just before the mid terms (changing election contest rules and 'emergency paper ballots') I wondered if they knew something that's going to survace and were seeking cover. We'll see.

[BeFree]

9. That guy quitting...HAVA

Would be a gol-darned miracle!

Heck, IIRC, his school got HAVA funds.

Looks like he just couldn't totally duck the obvious: machines gone wild!

Betcha Florida, sans the machines, would be a 75% democratic state. And we have people who want to keep machines in play? Yer kidding! You got to be kidding me!

[autorank]

13. People here want machines...well, I guess you're right.

:sarcasm: But those must be the "good" machines, even thought they're from nasty vendors.

That must mean that the machines do have a mind of their own. Even thought Diebold and ESS are
very right wing, their optical scan machines are "good." Get it...thought so;)

[LiberalFighter]

4. If an honest machine was designed for voting...

It would list the offices where a vote was not cast.
It could list all candidates that a person cast their vote.
It could list candidates by party affiliation group that a person cast their vote.
(Under Democrat - show all votes. Under Republican - show all votes. If a person normally votes straight ticket and there were votes where they normally don't vote it would stand out.)

It would ask "Are you sure you don't want to vote for anyone in these offices or referendums?"
With the responses in order...
Take me back to recheck
Yes, I am finish

[philb]

6. I think there is such a machine available, with open source code

But they aren't being purchased.
I think those purchasing them are getting exactly what they want.
Something that can be easily manipulated and hard to catch.

[Contrite]

8. It was intentional misdesign AND machine malfunction, both.

Why not use both gambits?

"Confuse" the voter with a poor ballot design, so you can blame the undervotes on that. Meanwhile, make it hard for those who DO find the race and try to vote for the Democrat to a.) cast that vote and b.) verify that it has been cast.

Clearly, the race in the 13th was too important to the GOP to risk losing it and they "doubled down" their efforts to make sure, using two "tried and true" methods of voter suppression--the "butterfly ballot" defense as well as the "machine malfunction"/"operator error" excuses.

[philb]

10. The 20 precincts with over 20% UVs on election day & 48 precincts in early voting likely had more

problems than a ballot design apparently used to reduce voting in Dist 13 race in Jennings home area. Those are likely the precincts where there were also "disappearing votes" that could not be corrected in some cases. As Stewart notes, a confusing ballot alone is not likely to produce undervotes that high.

8 precincts had over 25% UV on election day and 13 precincts in Early voting
but the Early voting counts were dispersed to the precincts from a fewer number of
early voting sites- the largest undervotes occurred in early voting.

Were warnings about problems with the Dist 13 race the reason for the slightly better results on election day vs early voting.
If so, apparently most poll workers didn't do enough to get the voters attention-
for the problems that the voters could have resolved by more diligence.


12 more precincts had over 20% undervotes on election day
and 35 more precincts have over 20% undervotes in early voting

only 22% of precincts had less than 10% UVs on election day
and 6% of precincts in early voting

So its clear that there were few precincts where the race was
counted in a reasonable manner. SOE & ES&S clearly botched the election- either
negligently or intentionally
And its clear from the data and audit results that the majoriy who turned out to vote in this race favored Jennings.

I think Buchanan should concede- that result should be inevitable.

Its a virtual certainty that the cause of the disappeared votes can be determined if
there is a desire to do so by officials. To this point, they seem to be resisting the steps needed to reach the obvious conclusions however.

[philb]

11. List of precincts with over 25% UVs- all were in Jennings majority precincts

Election day precincts with over 25% undervotes
0031,0090,0105,0117,0118,0120,0153

Early voting precincts with over 25% undervotes
0028,0031,0038,0042,0045,0048,0063,0075,0090,0105,0117,0118,0119,0153

the early votes were distributed to the precincts from a fewer number of early voting sites.

Additional precincts with over 20% undervotes on election day were:
0028,0030,0033,0044,0045,0074,0085,0088,0104,0121,0130,0142,0143

Additional precincts with over 20% undervotes in early voting were:
0001,0007,0009,0024,0027,0030,0033,0034,0039,0040,0044,0054,0055,0064,0066,0067,0071,0074,
0081,0083,0086,0088,0092,0093,0097,0103,0107,0114,0120,0129,0125,0138,0140,0142,0150

[philb]

12. Another technical expert says that not enough information has been allowed to experts to resolve the

cause of the undervotes

Dan S Wallach states that to resolve the question as to why voters were reporting "disappearing votes" and undervotes were extremely high in some precincts,

experts need to look at the "event logs" and "ballot image logs". This has not been allowed to date apparently. he says the logs need to be provided in digital form.

He also says that an effective audit would require digital copies of the ballot style style files for all nine ballot styles used in Sarasota County; and
every flat file that is loaded onto the iVotronic as part of the "ballot programming process", both in early voting and on election day(if different).

He said that at a minimum for an effective audit, you would need at least the machines which experienced the highest undervote rates during the election, along with their carrying cases, power adapters, and other related apparatus.

He also said that two supervisor PEBs, along with nince regular PEBs(configured like the 9 ballot styles), plaus a standard ES&S Communicatons Pack with related equipment would be needed.

And also access to the ES&S source code.
He said that he's worked with proprietary source code in audits before and any issue regarding that issue can be dealt with by signing non-disclosure agreements.

[Contrite]

14. Who is advising the lawyers on Jennings' side?

Is there anyone like Dan Wallach giving them this kind of input? What is the status of the lawsuit at this time?

[philb]

15. I believe that Jennings has asked for the advise of Stewart and Wallach

which is how they came to do an analysis of the results and audit

I'm not sure about the details, other than their advise was asked for.