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The “ballot fold” problem,
below, demonstrates yet again that the HART system is totally unreliable and
must be immediately discarded – BEFORE it is used to count votes for the
November election. The county’s planned solution is unacceptable.
There is no guarantee that all ballots with creases will somehow be detected by
the ineffective and untrustworthy equipment and resolved as intended. And the county’s solution exposes
the voter’s vote to accidental or intentional change by workers. The
county must not use this system to decide an election in which county officials
are attempting to extend their own terms of office and increase their own
budgets. Surely the
results would be challenged in court. Al
From: AlKolwicz
[mailto:alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx] http://www.longmontfyi.com/region-story.asp?ID=4040 Publish
Date: 10/8/2005 County
voting faces more woes By
Brad Turner BOULDER — Despite assurances that Boulder County’s
$1.4 million ballot-counting system would operate smoothly in the upcoming
election, the equipment will not be trusted to properly read ballots where a
fold passes through a ballot item, elections officials said Friday. Election
workers discovered the glitch Thursday while running 429 ballots through Hart “Depending
on how the ballot is folded, if the fold crosses an option box, it’s
possible the machine could misread it,” he said. “I don’t
think it’ll affect many votes.” Folds running
through ballot items caused the scanners to misread seven of the 429 test
ballots incorrectly, he said. For
example, in ballot issues where a fold ran through a ‘yes’ option
box but a voter filled in the ‘no’ box, Hart software interpreted
the ballot as an overvote. In the actual election, the ballot would then be
reviewed and corrected by an election judge, Liss said. However,
if a voter declined to vote on a ballot issue but a fold ran through the
‘yes’ box, Hart equipment would likely record a ‘yes’
vote, he said. To fix
the problem, election volunteers on Nov. 1 will flatten folded ballots and
individually resolve ballots with creases passing through a check-off box, he
said. Voters who fold their ballots irregularly will also have their submissions
individually resolved, he said. While
nearly all of roughly 192,000 ballots printed for Election Day were
manufactured and folded by Hart — at a cost of between $159,800 and
$183,600, depending on how many ballots are needed — individual ballots
are folded at slightly different locations on each sheet of paper, Liss said. “They
all go through the same folding machine, but it’s not totally precise in
folding each one,” he said Folded
ballots were probably not a problem in previous elections tallied by Hart
equipment, which officials purchased in 2004, he said. A Hart
representative could not be reached for comment Friday. During
the 2004 presidential election, Hart equipment rejected 13,000 of the 90,000
ballots cast because some ballots, supplied by Denver printing contractor
EagleDirect, contained tiny variations in the location of each check-off box,
officials said. As a result, officials had to hand-count thousands of misread
ballots and the election tally dragged on for 68 hours. However,
County Clerk Linda Salas later stood by her decision to purchase the Hart
tallying equipment in early 2004, and stuck with plans to use the system Nov.
1, arguing the system is well-suited to mail-ballot contests. Voting
activist Joe Pezzillo, who fought the county’s purchase of the Hart
equipment and supported scrapping it after last year’s rocky election,
said he is disappointed that a system that is supposedly ideal for mail-ballot
elections cannot read ballots that are folded and mailed. “This
is what it’s good at. This is the kind of functionality we get when
it’s working at its best,” he cracked. “This is the type of
foible people encounter when they don’t know how to analyze a voting
system for purchase.” Elections
officials tested the Hart equipment this week with sample ballots with the
intent of weeding out potential glitches like the ones that caused problems
last November, County spokeswoman Patricia Demchak stressed Friday. The
folding problem emerged during the test runs, she said. Brad
Turner can be reached at 720-494-5420, or by e-mail at bturner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |