RE: Orange County election snafus - with Hart equipment

["alkolwicz" <alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Paul,

Based on what we've been provided,

1.  It looks like Boulder County plans to screen ballots and re-vote them
during the counting process.   HOWEVER, errors introduced during this
process will not be subject to oversight or recount.

2.  It looks like they plan to accept questionable absentee ballots and
reject good ones.  HOWEVER, errors introduced during this process will not
be subject to oversight or recount.

3.  There appears to be no useable pollbook, or ballot tracking system.

4.  There appears to be no provision for poll watchers.

In summary, there appears to be no way to verify the results of any election
conducted by their process.

To me, this is not acceptable.


al


CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz 
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Walmsley [mailto:paul@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 12:04 AM
To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Orange County election snafus - with Hart equipment


According to the Los Angeles Times, there were serious problems with the
recent Orange County, California election.  Orange County used a Hart
InterCivic voting system -- and Hart is the same vendor that Boulder
County plans to purchase our next voting system from.

The observed problems appear to be with the eSlate DRE system, not the
optical-scan system that Boulder County is currently looking at,
Fortunately, to the best of my limited knowledge, Boulder County is
currently not negotiating to purchase any eSlate DREs.  But since HAVA
will effectively require some sort of computerized voting system for the
2006 election, Boulder County is probably planning to purchase some of
Hart's eSlate DREs in 2005 or 2006.

The Orange County election officials and Hart InterCivic's chairman blamed
the election problems on pollworkers.  This seems particularly
disingenuous.  This was not a case of one or two forgetful or incompetent
pollworkers.  These problems were clearly systemic, affecting at least 21
precincts -- probably many more.  Poor software design by Hart InterCivic
is the more plausible suspect.  Better pollworker training would have
probably helped, but if the voting hardware is confusing and hard to use
in the first place, even the best-trained pollworkers will make mistakes.

...

The first attached article is from 
<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=2026&u=/latimests/20040309/ts_la
times/7000orangecountyvotersweregivenbadballots&printer=1>

The second attached article is from 
<http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-me-machine4mar04,1,2302169.
story?coll=la-headlines-business-careers>


- Paul

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7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots
	
Tue Mar 9, 7:55 AM ET
	
By Ray F. Herndon and Stuart Pfeifer 
Times Staff Writers

Poll workers struggling with a new electronic voting system in last week's 
election gave thousands of Orange County voters the wrong ballots, 
according to a Times analysis of election records. In 21 precincts where 
the problem was most acute, there were more ballots cast than registered 
voters.

Wide margins in most races seem likely to spare the county the need for a 
costly revote. But the problems, which county officials have blamed on 
insufficient training for poll workers, are a strong indication of the 
pitfalls facing officials as they try to bring new election technology 
online statewide.

"The principal of democracy is every vote should count. That's why we need 
a better election system," said Henry Brady, a political science professor 
at UC Berkeley and an expert on voting systems.

At polling places where the problem was most apparent because of turnouts 
exceeding 100%, an estimated 1,500 voters cast the wrong ballots, 
according to the Times' analysis of official county election data. Tallies 
at an additional 55 polling places with turnouts more than double the 
county average of 37% suggest at least 5,500 voters had their ballots 
tabulated for the wrong precincts.

Problems occurred in races throughout the county - including five out of 
six congressional races, four of five state Senate contests, and five of 
the nine Assembly races that are decided in whole, or in part, by Orange 
County voters.

Election officials acknowledged that poll workers provided some voters 
incorrect access codes that caused them to vote in the wrong legislative 
districts but said there was no evidence yet that any result was in 
jeopardy.

"From what we have seen so far, we do not believe any of these instances 
where people voted in precincts they shouldn't have voted in would have 
affected any of the races," said Steve Rodermund, Orange County's 
registrar of voters.

David Hart, chairman of Texas-based Hart InterCivic, which manufactured 
Orange County's voting system, said it would be impossible to identify 
which voters cast ballots in the wrong precincts because of steps the 
company had taken to ensure voter secrecy. For this reason, an exact 
account of miscast ballots is impossible.

The Times arrived at its estimate of 7,000 improper ballots by comparing 
precincts with unusually high voter turnout to the average turnout at 
polling places.

Orange County election officials have traced the problem to poll workers 
who were responsible for giving each voter a four-digit code to enter into 
the voting machines.

After signing in, each voter received a ticket bearing his or her precinct 
number and party affiliation from a poll worker. The voter would take the 
ticket to a second worker, who was supposed to scroll through a computer 
screen and use the voter's precinct and political party to select an 
access code that would identify the appropriate ballot. Several workers 
who handled this stage of the process -- including some who said they 
didn't know more than one precinct had been assigned to their polling 
place -- gave voters codes for the wrong precincts, causing the wrong 
ballots to appear on their screens.

Some voters noticed the problem and were able to get workers to give them 
access codes for the proper ballots. But many voters did not. The result 
was that turnout figures in some precincts were pushed artificially -- 
even impossibly -- high, while turnout figures for neighboring precincts 
that voted at the same polling place were artificially low.

"This is a procedures problem more than anything else. It's not a problem 
with a new kind of voting system," said Brady, the UC Berkeley voting 
systems expert. "Every system is prone to thisâ?¦. Poll workers are 
typically amateurs -- well-meaning and hard-working, but amateurs --  and 
they mess up unless the system is absolutely foolproof. And this one 
wasn't foolproof."

In Anaheim, one Orange County poll worker said he was so confused by the 
precinct numbers that he told voters issued the wrong ballot to simply 
write in candidates' names if they didn't see them on the ballot. It was a 
frustrating experience for Shirley Green, an Anaheim Republican who said a 
ballot for the wrong precinct appeared on her voting machine.

"I said, 'There's no sense in writing in someone in the 67th that's 
running on the 68th.' â?¦ I was very upset about it. It's not fair to the 
people that are running, and it's not fair to the people that are voting."

To successfully challenge the outcome of an election, losing candidates 
would have to prove in court that the problem was so widespread it 
probably changed the outcome of the election, said Fred Woocher, a Santa 
Monica election law attorney.

That doesn't appear to be the case in Orange County, where the only close 
race -- the Democratic primary for the 69th Assembly seat -- did not 
appear to be affected enough to change the result, according to the Times' 
analysis.

In the next few weeks, Orange County election officials will work on 
certifying the results from the March 2 election. They will look for 
evidence of questionable ballots. Unless officials find evidence that an 
outcome was changed because voters cast ballots in the wrong precincts, 
the results will be certified, Rodermund said.

Rodermund said that despite the problems, he is satisfied with the 
performance of Orange County's new electronic voting system.

He said that with 22,000 combinations of local, state and federal races 
for each of the parties, the election was one of the most complicated in 
the state.

Orange County election worker Darrell Nolta, who volunteered at a 
Westminster polling place, discovered after voting already had begun that, 
despite being told there was only one precinct for their polling place, 
they actually had two.

"Every voter should be given the correct ballot, and in some cases, this 
didn't happen, and I'm very angry about it," Nolta said. "This was an 
avoidable problem."

Rodermund said he and his staff are already looking for solutions. One 
idea is to reduce the number of polling places where voters could vote on 
different ballots, he said.

Elections system analyst Kim Alexander said Orange County's experience is 
alarming.

"We shouldn't end every election praying for wide margins," said 
Alexander, whose organization, California Voter Foundation, encouraged 
voters in the days before the March 2 election to vote by absentee ballot 
rather than use the new electronic systems used by 17 California counties.

"Certainly this kind of problem that's occurred in Orange County doesn't 
do anything to contribute to greater confidence in electronic voting 
systems."

*

Times staff writers Kimi Yoshino and Jean O. Pasco contributed to this 
report.



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


 	
March 4, 2004 	

CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS
O.C. Snafus Are Blamed on Workers
Lack of training is cited as a reason some voters got the wrong ballots. 
Registrar says he thought he had everything covered.

By Stuart Pfeifer, Times Staff Writer

The chairman of the company that designed Orange County's $26-million 
electronic voting system vowed Wednesday to work with election officials 
to try to prevent the missteps that caused many voters to cast the wrong 
ballots Tuesday.

Orange County's registrar of voters said he will never know exactly how 
many people voted improperly -- many were given ballots with candidates 
from the wrong political parties or wrong districts -- but said he 
planned to investigate what went wrong and to estimate the number of 
flawed ballots.

"I'm very concerned that it happened....    thought we took measures to 
ensure it wouldn't happen, and I was wrong," said Registrar of Voters 
Steve Rodermund.

"I have to tighten up on the training of the inspectors to make sure it 
doesn't happen again. On the flip side, I don't think the mistakes or the 
issues out there affected any of the contests."

Most Orange County contests were decided by wide margins, and no candidate 
had expressed interest in challenging the outcome because of Tuesday's 
snafus.

Orange County was one of several in California to experience electronic 
voting problems.

San Bernardino County's computer system bogged down for several hours 
while tabulating votes, prompting the slowest ballot count of any of the 
state's 58 counties.

In San Diego County, some of the ballot machines didn't function properly 
election morning, delaying the opening of many polling places for more 
than an hour.

But in Orange County, the problem wasn't about inconvenience but rather an 
unknown number of voters who cast ballots in races in which they were not 
eligible to vote.

The problem was traced to poll workers, who were responsible for entering 
a voter's political party and precinct number into a computer, and then 
issuing the voter a printed code number to enter into voting machines to 
get the proper ballot.

Poll workers were supposed to scroll through several combinations of 
parties and precincts until they found the match from several choices. 
Some workers chose combinations that included the proper precinct but the 
wrong political party â?? or the proper political party but the wrong 
precinct.

Voters then entered access codes, and the wrong ballots appeared on the 
screens, Rodermund said. Some voters noticed the mistakes, and poll 
workers were able to correct them. Others voted and later notified the 
registrar of voters about the mistakes.

Orange County election officials placed at least one trained inspector at 
each of its more than 1,100 polling places. Each inspector had attended 
five hours of training and passed a test to display fluency with the new 
voting system, Rodermund said.

"Every issue we had was related to a person not following the directions," 
Rodermund said. "Those that didn't get it, this will be their last 
election."

Rodermund said he would review such data as voter turnout in an effort to 
estimate the number of ballots cast improperly. It's possible, for 
instance, that some precincts will show that more people voted than were 
registered because ballots from that precinct were used by voters from 
outside that precinct.

A Times review of some election data found several precincts with 
unusually high turnout, such as one in Mission Viejo where more than 99% 
of voters cast ballots. That contrasts with 39% who cast ballots 
countywide.

David E. Hart, chairman of Hart InterCivic, the Texas-based company that 
manufactured Orange County's voting system, said he intended to work with 
Rodermund to reduce the possibility for human error in future elections.

"There's nothing wrong with the equipment," Hart said. "I'm happy with the 
way the equipment performed. I'm disappointed we had some user issues. It 
did everything it was advertised to do. We just need to make sure that the 
poll workers have proper information and are adequately trained to do the 
job."

One poll worker who acknowledged making mistakes placed the blame on 
inadequate training. Marcial Garboa, who supervised workers at a polling 
place on Gilbert Street in Anaheim, said he didn't realize until lunchtime 
that there were multiple precincts at his polling place. He said he dealt 
with complaints from voters by telling them to write in the names of their 
candidates if they didn't see them on their ballots.

Garboa said that there were more than 50 poll workers at his training 
class and that he didn't get access to the new voting machines being used 
by instructors. The training time "was too short. This was the first time 
using the machines," he said.

One Orange County voter said he was not surprised to hear about the 
problems. Brett R. Barbre, a Yorba Linda resident and president of the 
board of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, said he tried to 
vote at one of the county's early voting booths in February but was given 
the wrong access code four times, causing a ballot from another district 
to appear on his screen.

"Only because I'm a political guy, and I know my precinct inside and out 
â?? that's the only way I was able to ascertain I was not given the 
correct precinct," Barbre said.

Officials say they cannot determine who voted incorrectly because poll 
workers who provided access codes don't know voters' names.

After hearing about problems in other counties, Los Angeles County 
Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said the county's decision not to buy a 
$120-million touch-screen voting system was the right one. "Before Los 
Angeles County invests in that kind of nascent technology, we want to have 
a comfort level that is higher than it is now," she said.

Instead, the most populous county in the nation spent $3 million to take 
an interim step â?? transitioning from the old punch-card voting system to 
a new approach that involves marking the same type of ballot with a dot of 
ink.

Some candidates in Orange County said they were disheartened to learn that 
some voters did not vote in the proper district. But many sounded like Ken 
Maddox, an assemblyman who lost the Republican primary in the 35th state 
Senate district to Assemblyman John Campbell by nearly 30,000 votes. 
Maddox said it did not make sense to challenge the outcome of the 
election.

"The amount of money it would cost, given the vote spread, doesn't pencil 
out," Maddox said.

He said he hopes Orange County election officials learn from their 
mistakes.

"There was no mechanism in place to make sure the correct data was input 
into the computers. You were completely relying on somebody that said, 
'Yeah, I'll sit in a garage all day and help with the election,' " Maddox 
said.

One of the tightest races in Orange County was in the 69th Assembly 
District Democratic primary, in which attorney Tom Umberg held a 327-vote 
lead over Santa Ana City Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez, with some absentee 
and provisional ballots left to be counted.

Alvarez said Wednesday she was not aware of any glitches with the 
electronic voting in the district and would wait until all ballots were 
counted before deciding whether to ask for a recount or investigation of 
possible voting irregularity.

"The election is not over yet. I don't know how many absentee or 
provisional ballots remain to be counted in the districtâ?¦. I'm feeling 
pretty comfortable right now with my position," said Alvarez, who is also 
an Orange County deputy district attorney. "My plan is to go back to work 
and wait for the final results."

San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Scott Konopasek said the 
three-hour delay in tallying votes there was because officials were 
completing the final details of the installation of the electronic voting 
system just hours before the election. When election returns began to 
trickle in, he said, officials had yet to download security and location 
data from 1,700 of the county's 4,000 new touch-screen computers into the 
main tallying machine.

Election officials tried to input the data for all 1,700 machines at the 
same time Tuesday, causing a computer logjam. But Konopasek defended his 
staff, saying workers were racing up to the last minute to get the system 
up and operating in time for the election.

San Bernardino County purchased the system from Sequoia Voting Systems of 
Oakland in July for $13.8 million. Konopasek said the county received and 
tested the components in December and used some of the touch-screen 
machines for a small election in January.

Bad weather was also to blame for some of the delays. Sheriff's deputies 
usually fly voting cartridges from four outlying regions to the registrar 
recorders office, but the heavy rain Tuesday night grounded the sheriff's 
helicopters.

San Diego County election officials are declaring the first use of 
electronic voting a success despite the problems there.

"It's unfortunate, but it's fixable," said Dianne Jacob, chairwoman of the 
county Board of Supervisors.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Hugo Martin, Ray 
Herndon, Jean-Paul Renaud, Tony Perry, Jeffrey L. Rabin and H.G. Reza.