Guest Blogged by David Safier of Blog for Arizona 
Just in time for the elections, the Pima County, Arizona, Election Integrity Committee has developed computer tools to examine election databases created by the Diebold/Premier system. The EI group is offering to examine data from any jurisdiction in the country that uses Diebold’s faulty GEMS (Global Election Management System). GEMS will tabulate about half the nation’s votes on November 4th…
Last year, the Pima County EI group won a groundbreaking legal case which gave it access to all the county’s computer-generated databases since 2002. Recently, computer programs were completed to examine the databases. They have already revealed problems and inconsistencies that warrant further examination. For example, they found that a few dozen memory cards from optical ballot scanners were uploaded twice, causing changes in vote counts. (A document by Tom Ryan gives more details about the capabilities of these tools and possible problems they have uncovered.)
The programs search for such things as unusual increases in vote tallies, changes in configuration information, and similar indicators that could point to vote flipping or other inappropriate activity. They go through the election from start to finish — from the Logic and Accuracy tests to the early voting and election day counting to the final wrap up. The results can then be displayed in a spreadsheet.
Anyone interested in more information should email ElectionIntegrity@earthlink.net.
This program isn’t a magic bullet that will prove an election has been rigged. By pinpointing specific problem areas, the results allow investigators to focus on the portions of the GEMS database where possible election fraud is most likely to have occurred.
When the Pima County EI group won access to GEMS databases dating back to 2002 in a court ruling, it was also granted access to all databases from future elections. As a result, it’s likely that Pima County will have the most carefully monitored elections in the nation.
Election Integrity groups outside of Pima County that suspect election fraud have a huge hurdle in front of them – gaining access to the GEMS databases. Hopefully, the newly available tools will encourage them to put pressure on local officials to make the data available.
The long term objective of the Pima County EI Committee is to distribute the programs widely, but currently the data examination is only being done in Tucson. The programs are still evolving in their scope and sophistication, and the analysis team in Tucson is still learning how to use the tools to maximum advantage. Years of work has given the team a familiarity with the GEMS systems that usually isn’t available elsewhere.
This PDF goes into more detail about the computer tools. The Pima County EI group can provide more information, including technical details about the GEMS databases. Please email questions to ElectionIntegrity@earthlink.net.
Let me explain why we’re not releasing the program just yet.
Basically, what we have is workable, but it’s “ugly” – in geek terms this is what I’d call “mid-to-late Alpha” code, which means the design is done, it works, but the user interface isn’t quite done, documentation ain’t finished and there’s still bugs.
Put another way, it’s in a state where WE can use it (the tech team here in Pima that designed and built the thing) but anybody else would be very hard pressed. We (the Pima team) would end up doing more tech support to help somebody else use this bad boy than it would take for us to use it ourselves.
As a bonus, if we use it on data sets collected via public records in various jurisdictions, that will help us fine-tune it into something anybody could use.
The goal is to have a fully workable, fully documented system which anybody even slightly geeky could use at least one or two minor elections prior to the 2010 Federal-level primaries. In other words, either a late “Beta” (mostly done) or preferably “release candidate” (read as “done unless we find something last-minute to tweak”) code in time for, say, local school board elections circa mid-to-late 2009, so we have real-world feedback and finished code prior to the 2010 election cycle.
Trying get this ready for the election a week from now took some rapid development work and corners involving the user interface had to be cut. Those WILL be added but for now, we’ll have to act as a clearing-house on this stuff.
Thanks,
Jim
This tool is just the tip of the cyber-iceberg, folks. The Army of Goodness is ready, prepared, and waiting to be deployed on Tuesday. Worry not. All will be well.