May 27, 2004: New Questions Arise about ES&S Integrity - "audit" loses 162 ballots

["Pete Klammer" <pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.nylawyer.com/news/04/05/052704i.html 

News Watch 
New Questions Arise About Touch-Screen Voting Machines


New York Lawyer
May 27, 2004 

By Matthew Haggman
Miami Daily Business Review 

For the second time in two weeks, an internal memo from a Miami-Dade County
election official in Florida has exposed a new round of auditing flaws that
have plagued the iVotronic touch-screen voting machines used in Miami-Dade
and Broward counties. 

The memo also indicates that the problem had been brought to the attention
of Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Constance A. Kaplan two months earlier
than she had said she first had learned of it. Its disclosure has prompted
charges that Kaplan violated state open records laws by failing to disclose
the memo sooner. 

The latest memo, dated Oct. 10, 2003, and addressed to Kaplan, said a review
of the Oct. 7, 2003, mayoral and City Council primary election in Homestead,
Fla., found that the iVotronic system's audit log failed to account for 162
ballots cast. 

All of the votes, however, were accurately tabulated, according to the
machines' manufacturer, Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb. 

According to the latest memo, the system's audit log did not recognize five
of the touch-screen machines used in the Homestead election. 

Link to: The full story http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1085514658592

--
Pete Klammer, P.E. / ACM(1970), IEEE, ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE), NACSE(NSNE)
   3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
 (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
 Idealism may not win every contest, but that's not what I choose it for!