RE: Arapahoe County Election Judges Needed

["alkolwicz" <alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Scott

You might find this interesting.

Al Kolwicz

DRAFT # 2

Arapahoe County Clerk Recall Election -- February 24, 2004.
Public Test of the Absentee Ballot System

I was invited by candidate Travis Nicks to observe the February 18th test of
the absentee ballot system.  I arrived at about 8:20 a.m. for the 9:00 a.m.
test in hopes of studying the written procedures.  I was greeted by the
election official, Karen Goldman.  The information below was provided by Ms.
Goldman and Sequoia representatives John Holmwood? and ___________.

1.	There are no written procedures for this election other than those
contained in the Colorado statutes.
2.	Procedures for poll watching at the central site have not as yet
been discussed.
3.	Poll watchers will not be permitted access to the absentee ballot
poll book.
4.	The Canvass Board has not as yet been appointed.
5.	The Duplication Board has not as yet been appointed.
6.	There will precinct voting in 373 precincts using paperless DRE's.  
7.	There will be no early voting, but there will be something called
"Walk-in Absentee" voting.  
8.	There will be absentee voting.
9.	The only portion of the absentee ballot system that will be examined
during this test is the counting machine itself.  The procedures for
authorizing and tracking ballots, qualifying returned ballots, pre-screening
the votes on the ballots, and the duplication board will not be examined.
10.	Recount procedures will not be examined.
11.	During the election, two Sequoia 400C counting machines will be used
to count the absentee votes.  The machines are controlled by WINETP 1.02B
application software running on Windows 95.  We were assured that the
machine contains no network cards or modems or any way to communicate with
another computer other than by floppy disk.
12.	Counting results will be moved by floppy disk from the Sequoia 400C
machines to another Sequoia machine that consolidates counts from the
absentee counting machines and from memory cards created by paperless DRE
machines.  This consolidation machine is controlled by WINEDS 2.6, and we
did not see it.
13.	These machines have not been used since the 2000 election.
14.	Nobody present knew the current certification status of these
machines.  Sequoia said that they were basically certified in 1991.
15.	There is no specification for the accuracy of the 400C, but it is
required to meet the FEC specification.  Counting accuracy of this equipment
is dependent on sensitivity and alignment settings made by the operator.
16.	Ms. Goldman described the absentee ballot packet.  A stick-on label
containing the absentee voter's information is positioned on the return
verification envelope so that it can be seen through the "window" on the
envelope used to mail the packet to the voter.  The label contains the
voter's ID, name, address, and a bar code.
17.	Twenty five test ballots were provided so that we can test the
system. 
18.	We were told, but not in any detail, after each absentee ballot is
removed from the envelope, it will be examined by election officials to
ascertain whether the counting equipment will be able to count the votes
correctly.  We were given no detailed explanation for this process, or
reference to Statute where this is permitted.  Nor were we told how this
will be done without violating voter's constitutional right to a secret
ballot.
19.	Apparently ballots that fail this inspection will be duplicated by
officials to decide for the voter what the voter intended.
20.	We learned the following about the 400C:
a.	Votes in a batch are summarized by batch.  
b.	There is no record of the votes on individual ballots.
c.	The sequence of the ballots within a batch is not maintained during
the counting process.
d.	A batch can be erased by the operator.
e.	There does not appear to be a way to relate batches of paper and
batches as recorded on the computer.
f.	There does not appear to be a way to determine which machine was
used to count a batch.
g.	There was no explanation of how it will be ensured that a batch is
counted and counted only once.
h.	Batch integrity is not maintained.  Ballots that are rejected by the
counting machine are removed from the batch.
i.	There is no individual record of batches counted by day.
j.	When the results are moved by floppy disk to the summarization
machine one total summarizes all votes for all batches for all days.  There
is no breakout.
21.	An Arapahoe County ex-employee will operate the machine.
22.	If the counting machine fails, we were told that the operator makes
backups during the day that can be used to recover.  There was no
explanation of this process or how it can be ensured that the correct
batches are synchronized.
23.	Ballots are fed into the hopper - usually in a batch of 25.  Ballots
that are assumed by the machine to be correctly processed are routed to a
"counted paper box".  The sequence is not maintained.  Ballots that appear
to the machine to have a write-in vote are directed to a second paper box,
directly below the center of the machine.  Ballots that are assumed by the
machine to require manual intervention are directed to a vertical stacker.
These would include over and under votes.
24.	Ballots that go into the vertical stacker of the write-in box are
separated from the batch and sent to the duplication board.  The ballots
that were directed to the "counted paper box" are returned to the ballot
box.
25.	It is not clear how a jam is processed.
26.	We were assured that every ballot that goes to the "counted box" was
counted and that no ballot that was sent to the vertical stacker or the
write-in box were counted.
27.	We were not permitted to see what happens to the absentee ballot
before they arrived at the counting machine.  We were told that a wand is
used to scan the barcode from the ballot.  
28.	The process described to us for qualifying the ballots did not
include (1) checking that a required voter identification document was
present and valid, (2) verifying that the ballot was not a forgery by
ensuring that the correct ballot stub is returned, (3) ensuring that the
eligible voter voted the ballot by checking the signature.  
29.	We were told that signatures will not be verified.  We were told
that this is not required.
30.	There was no explanation of a ballot tracking system.
31.	We were not permitted to see what happens in the resolution board
32.	We were not permitted to see what happens in the duplication board.
33.	We were told that there are no ballot box access control records to
identify who, when and why the ballot box was opened and closed.
34.	We conducted our test - we'll append a report of our test experience
to this report.
35.	We asked for representation on the Canvass Board, the Duplication
Board and the Review/Resolution Board.
36.	We asked to test the DRE machine and were denied this request.
37.	We asked to see a DRE machine and were denied this request.
38.	We were told that the test decks prepared today will not be used
before and after the counting of absentee ballots.  Instead, a set of test
ballots prepared by election officials will be used.
39.	We only tested on of the two counting machines.
40.	We were denied our request to have copies of each test ballot that
we created.
41.	We were told that the only way that we would be able to see our test
ballots again was with a court order.


Al Kolwicz
CAMBER 
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx