It would have been nice if these guys had spoken up years ago, when the bulk of the Republican Party and their sympathizers were labeling Democrats as “conspiracy theorists” and “sore losers” for their documented complaints of touch-screen voting systems flipping votes on screen to Republican candidates. But better late than never, we suppose.
This afternoon, Legal Counsel for the North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee sent a letter [PDF] to the NC State Board of Elections threatening legal action if their “demands” were not “immediately” met for taking a number of specific actions to mitigate reported touch-screen voting problems describes as “significantly more widespread than the NC GOP initially understood.”
The GOP attorney, John E. Branch III writes that the voting system problems should have been addressed prior to the early voting period “and, to the extend they were not, the touch screen systems should have been banned.”
The problems in contention are related to reports of the state’s ES&S iVotronic e-voting systems reportedly showing votes as flipping from Republicans to Democrats on the screen. The threat from the state GOP comes on the heels of complaints made last week in two different NC counties, Craven and New Hanover. Those reports were a switch from previous years when voters in dozens of states had reported votes flipping largely from Democratic to Republican.
Branch charges that the party has “received word” that similar problems have emerged in “Mecklenburg…Randolph…Cumberland, Wilson, Pender, Forsyth, Lenoir and other counties,” which all similarly use the oft-failed, 100% unverifiable ES&S touch-screen voting machines. The same systems are also used in more than a dozen other states…
While The BRAD BLOG has filed, quite literally, hundreds if not thousands of pages of coverage detailing ES&S failures over the years, we summarized many of the most notable and disastrous instances (along with ill-conceived “solutions” and election official denial) related to these problems, following a similar report which emerged out of Texas late last week. That story was based on cellphone video taken of an attempted Republican vote for governor seen flipping to a straight-ticket Green Party vote on an ES&S iVotronic in Dallas County.
(Also, see our “(Very) Brief History of Recent ES&S Failure” written after the same iVotronic systems in South Carolina inexplicably reported the unknown Alvin Greene as the “winner” of that state’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary last June.)
In a sharply worded response [PDF] to Branch’s letter late this afternoon, Gary O. Bartlett, Executive Director of the State Board of Elections charges the GOP letter was “apparently intended to elevate isolated occurrences with touch screen voting equipment into a crisis of confidence in the integrity of the election.” Bartlett downplayed the concerns, as elections officials usually do, describing them as “no different than ones that must be addressed in every election.”
North Carolina Election Integrity advocate Joyce McCloy, Director of NC Coalition for Verified Voting and editor of Voting News tells The BRAD BLOG that vote flipping in the state “has historically been from GOP to DEM”. She also notes the acrimony between the state Republicans and the Board of Elections, explaining that many of the county BoEs have a Democratic majority and that the state’s largest local e-voting vendor, Print Elect, who program the machines in a number of counties, is a “BIG donor to the DEM Governor”.
In a report this afternoon from WRAL, Johnnie McCLean, deputy director of the State Board of Elections, also says they’ve received only “isolated” complaints from Craven and New Hanover, but adds that some were complaints of Democrats who said their votes flipped to Republican candidates.
The standoff, McCloy tells us, is indeed likely to result in a lawsuit before the week is out, as both the state GOP as well as the BoE, offered problematic points in their charges and counter charges.
In his response to Branch, Bartlett suggests many of the GOP attorney’s allegations are unfounded: “Your letter implies that you have accumulated a list of equipment performance problems you have not chosen to share with elections officials,” he wrote. “Unless you identify concerns with specificity there is no way that they can be properly addressed. We have already addressed every concern you have brought to our attention.”
Both the Board and the GOP seem to believe the reported problems are related to “calibration” of the touch-screen systems and Bartlett notes the systems are now re-calibrated every day before polls open.
In our report on last week’s Texas incident, we detailed the danger — insanity, really — of allowing touch-screen voting systems to be recalibrated by county employees in the middle of an election. While “re-calibration” is the “solution” most often carried out by officials in response to such instances, even though it allows an excellent opportunity for voting system manipulation, removing and quarantining the failed systems would be more appropriate, according to computer science and security experts we’ve discussed the matter with.
Bartlett also writes to Branch that summary screens at the end of the voting process allow voters “an opportunity to review their ballots to make sure their votes had been properly recorded before their ballots were actually cast.”
In truth, however, there is no way to know how any touch-screen voting machine actually records a vote during an election. What is shown to voters on both the screen and the so-called “paper trail” printed out along side it (on many such systems) may not reflect the way the votes are actually recorded internally. To that end, there is no way to know that any vote has ever been recorded accurately, as per any voters intent, for any candidate or initiative on any ballot in any actual election using a touch-screen voting machine.
Moreover, Bartlett snapped at Branch that “[I]t must be noted that the current iVotronic equipment about which you profess deep concern has been nationally certified and is used in voting jurisdictions through the United States.”
The ES&S iVotronics were indeed certified at the federal level, but by contractors selected and paid for by the vendor themselves and who tested the systems in secrecy. Subsequent independent analysis, by a number of states, have found “serious” flaws in the systems.
A study released by the state of Florida in 2007 found the systems were vulnerable to viral vote-flipping attacks. The state eventually decertified the systems after 18,000 votes were lost all together during a 2006 U.S. House special election decided in favor of the Republican by just 369 votes.
In Colorado, the iVotronic was decertified after an analysis carried out by then Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican, found the system “failed because it is easily disabled by voters.” At a press conference announcing the findings he noted that “if you were to put a magnet in close proximity or inside the port…that would, in fact, disable that particular voting machine and it would have to be literally reprogrammed…to bring it back into circulation for that election.”
In Ohio in 2007, the Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, after the largest independent study of its kind, recommend the ES&S iVotronic, as well as the state’s other “nationally certified” Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems no longer be used. “To put it in every-day terms,” Brunner said when the study was released, “the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant.”
Finally, NC’s Election Integrity advocate McCloy points us to this 2008 Bard College study of data from North Carolina’s 2008 Presidential Election finding that “voters are more likely to have their vote counted accurately on a voter marked paper ballot” rather than a touch-screen system. She also notes, as other studies have found, that the so-called “paper trail” printers on DRE devices “are unreliable” and “fail to print up to 9% of the time”.
One of the “DEMANDS” listed in the GOP attorney’s letter to the State Board of Elections is for an order to be issued requiring poll workers to keep a record of complaints (which Bartlett says they already do), but to include “the identify of the voter, the time the voter voted, the specific voting machine used by the voter, and the nature of the voter’s complaint” in such incident reports.
Such a requirement, however, would likely result in the loss of privacy for that voter’s secret ballot. That’s just one more problem to add to the ever growing list of reasons why, as the GOP’s Branch correctly noted, “the touch screen systems should have been been banned.”
In addition to North Carolina, the ES&S iVotronic is used, according to VerifiedVoting.org’s database at polling places in Arkansas, Washington D.C., Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
• 10/28/10 Letter from NC GOP to NC’s State Board of Elections [PDF]
• 10/28/10 Response to NC GOP from NC’s State Board of Elections [PDF]
UPDATE 10/29/10: The North Carolina Republican Party has filed suit against the State Board of Elections “alleging that touch-screen machines are thwarting voters trying to cast ballots for GOP candidates,” according to AP’s coverage now here…]
UPDATE 10/30/10: Federal judge rules in favor of NC GOP in expedited hearing. Full details now here…
The few media reports of touchscreen vote flipping in North Carolina are always from Republican to Democrat, for some reason. Johnnie McLean, the Deputy Director of NC SBoE says that there have been reports (to SBE) of vote flipping from DEM to GOP.
This year we have media reports of touchscreens flipping votes from republican to democrat in three counties so far, Craven, Lenoir and New Hanover.
Media reports of vote flipping in 2009 and 2008 were also solely from republican to democrat. (Found at http://www.votersunite.org database of voting problems )
Hopefully we can get more data on the ongoing election to learn more about the problem.
Bottom line, this is why in 2005 we (and computer scientists) argued that NC should ditch touchscreen voting.
Someone somewhere must have decided that the flipping always going from D to R was starting to look funny, so this year they are ALL flipping from R. to D. Then in 2012, when they all flip from D to R for the presidential election, they’ll say, well it’s random, see, in 2010, Dems got all the flips, so don’t be such crybabies.
LOL
Strange, I don’t recall these same people throwing a fit at the last three elections.
Now it’s a problem?
Really?
At least they get to learn the words to a college fight song.
Stupid fucking bastards.
Did you know that the South Carolina Election Commission has refused to release the certification report on our own iVotronic machines?
They tell us the machines have been tested but refuse to release the report detailing the type of testing done.
Not very reassuring is it?
My first choice would be to abolish these machines altogether, as they have done in Denmark, Ireland, and Germany. If we must have them, then voters ought to have the right to “waive” their secret ballot rights in order to verify that their vote was counted directly. The paper receipt should have an ID number that the voter can use to trace that individual vote through all levels of tallying. On these machines, who the vote is going to is a “secret” that even the voter does not know…
Too funny!!! It is about time that the moronic clowns in control of the Republicon Party realized that election theft can go either way.
Those who control the secret vote counting computers must be really happy with the way the Democrooks have helped them rape, pollute, pillage, and steal the homes of millions of Americans through fraud, commonly referred to as problems with paperwork.
I wonder what the man behind the curtain has ready to get passed next year to go along with all of those other great job creating tax hikes and insurance mandates, don’t you?
Voting should be done on the Saturday after Nov. 2nd. and paper ballots only ,hand counted and each “ballot” should be stored as if it was a $100 bill until the results are confirmed and agreed on.And the Monday morning following the would see the results announced. Its not as if waiting a couple of days changes anything except “accountability”.
My theory is that there is an error with a hacker’s vote-flipping programming resulting in flips for the Democrats instead of Republicans, or this is part of a larger effort to question election results in advance of voting day. If the GOP doesn’t get whet they want, we now know the Supreme Court is eager to step in and insert Republican candidates into office. For one day it seemed MSM used the word “election fraud,” but have reverted back to mis-calling election tampering “voter fraud.”
Paul in #9,
“…we now know the Supreme Court is eager to step in and insert Republican candidates into office…”
The US Supreme Court does not have the power to “insert” or seat a President, a Senator, or a Congressman.
Brad, from the article:
“It would have been nice if these guys had spoken up years ago, when the bulk of the Republican Party and their sympathizers were labeling Democrats as “conspiracy theorists” and “sore losers” for their documented complaints of touch-screen voting systems flipping votes on screen to Republican candidates.”
The Democrats had their chance to outlaw these machines WITHOUT any interference from the Republicans (veto-proof majority), and they failed to do so.
#10 “The US Supreme Court does not have the power to “insert” or seat a President”
Helloooo, where were you in 2000 (Florida) when the guy with the most “Supreme Court” votes won?
Anti-Dre aka gwn in #12,
“Helloooo, where were you in 2000 (Florida) when the guy with the most “Supreme Court” votes won?”
Please cite the part of the ruling that took away the roll of Congress in this process. I can’t seem to find it in my copy.
The conservative judges STOPPED the recount before the deadline for a challenge by Congress.
Let Google be your friend.
Anti-DRE aka gwn in #14.
“The conservative judges STOPPED the recount before the deadline for a challenge by Congress.”
My calander shows that Jan. 6, 2001 came AFTER Dec. 12, 2000, not before.
The order from Bush v. Gore to stop a standardless partial (60K of more than 6 million) recount (a meaningless recount) of the ballots was issued on Dec. 12, 2000.
On Jan. 6, 2001, a challenge (under 3 U.S.C. section 15) to Bush’s Florida Electors failed because there was not any support from the Democratic controlled US Senate.
From ABC News:
“Nevertheless, Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., says he and a handful of allies in the Congressional Black Caucus and House of Representatives plan to press a challenge to Bush’s 25 Florida electors, although he needs a senator to join his contest before any action can be debated.”
“I don’t, at this point, feel that a senator is going to come forward,†Hastings said on Friday, “though I wish the Florida senators would, and other senators as well.â€
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=120277&page=1
Again, please cite the part of the ruling that took away the role of Congress in this process. I still can’t seem to find it in my copy.
Mark da Shark said @11:
As I have pointed out (and taken them on) on these pages and everywhere else for years. So, what’s your point? That everything must be turned into a battle of partisan idiocy? Is your world that small, dark and shame filled?
Brad in #16,
Just as you claim that you don’t have time to read every comment, I don’t have time to read every one of your articles. Why do you assume that everyone hangs on your every word?
I made the specifc comment in response to your specific article.
Please people, some of both Dems and Repubs want to and do steal elections and both sincere Dems and Repubs have blown the whistle on election theft, how insecure these machines are.
To me election integrity is primarily a populist issue important to regular folks on both sides of the aisle. The party machinery and powerful insiders have consistently ignored and played down our concerns about election intergrity. The national Democrat party machinery has been no more eager to get rid of these machines than extablishment Republicans.
If, say, you are powerful insider and a crook at a bank, if you catch some other crook sealing at the bank to, you don’t expose them because you would be found out…instead you make a deal with the other crook, or you just tolerate each other or you compete to steal better than the other guy while still keeping it under the radar.
Don’t ever assume our elections would only be stolen so one party’s general philosphy could win over another. There are so many reasons annd ways someone might want to steal an election. Maybe they want to get a Dem in that has an image as a champion to the people, but the one stealing the election knows they can control this Dem to help their special, elite interests. Might it nto be better in some situations to get a popular Dem to say that some anti-the-people legislation is great for the people and vote for it, then allow the election of an anti-extablishment Tea Partier that may not follow the game plan all the time?
And certain corporations,certain business sectors, monied families, social/religious groups, foreign companies, foreign states, mafias/org crime groups may have all sort of interests in getting various Dems and Repubs elected, things that regular folks have no clue about. Their interests may be served by getting a ccertain Dem elected as AG in one state and getting a Repub elected for the local house seat, adn getting a Dem elected president, it depends on the candicates, overall situations. We can’t know all the motivations and angles that those stealing elections might have. All we can know is they don’t represent the interests or will of the people and with electronic voting machines, vote by mail and other insecure systems, they can manipulate elections at will.
There are so many types of shady people that want to and do steal elections,trying to put consistent partisan frame on it is way too limiting.
We must make our elections secure from all possible threats. Just as a bank has to worry about robbers from the outside coming in, employee theft, embezellment, CEO cooking the books or trading against them, outside hackers getting into the systems, etc, we have to guard against all types and stripes of election theft.
Forget the partisan crap and be glad, someone, anyone his calling attention to these completely unreliable and unredeemable machines.
just because the votes are flipping from rep to dem does not mean the dems are the ones controling the “predetermined” outcome……all it means is there were not enough dem votes in that area to support the “programmed” outcome
the following are links to blackboxvoting.org showing graffs of patterns in a recent “counting” of absentee ballots
http://www.bbvdocs.org/CA/marin/VoteFlow1.png
http://www.bbvdocs.org/CA/marin/VoteFlow2.png
http://www.bbvdocs.org/CA/marin/VoteFlow3.png
http://www.bbvdocs.org/CA/marin/VoteFlow4.png
you can actually see the patterns folks
The suit means that the vodting machines will be flipping votes to the Republicans. This is Rove 101. “rig the election” and “blame the other side for the crime”.
Rove does this all of the time to keep their non questioning base loaded with the right propaganda.
I expect the suit to be dropped after the election.
The Republicons and the Tea Partiers will be sooo sad when they don’t win back control of Congress.
But they shouldn’t worry too much. After all, almost everyone in Congress works for the same masters and they will continue to help them take everything from everyone until finally enough people get a clue and take action to stop them.
Perhaps that will be in 2012 since some Republicons are finally starting to wake up.
But then again, a bunch of them think that Sarah Palin is the ideological successor to Ron Paul as leader of the Tea Party movement, so the ruling elite doesn’t have to worry too much.
Still, maybe the elite should take a look at Mexico to see what happens when they steal everything from everyone. Then, the robber barons become the targets and the victims.
As a former state chairman of the Constitution Party of NC, I know first hand how corrupt the Board of Elections is….thye routinely violate the laws governing 3rd parties and write in candidates….and yes, the GOP is highly hypocritical..more BS false paradigm fighting between what really is a 1-party system