County Auditor “Screw the loonies who think hackers will steal your votes"

[dzika]

EVIDENCE OF ELECTION IRREGULARITIES IN
SNOHOMISH COUNTY, WASHINGTON

GENERAL ELECTION, 2004

By Paul R. Lehto, J.D., Attorney at Law
[e-mail]

Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, Ph.D.
[e-mail]


January 6 2005

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Counties such as Snohomish County Washington that run parallel voting technologies on Election day over the same precincts and the same races are useful for isolating any effect voting technology may have on patterns of voting.

• Because of the parallel voting technologies present and because of a historically close gubernatorial race between Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi that was subject to an unprecedented hand recount (as well as good recordkeeping and reporting of paper and touch screen voting results on a precinct
by precinct basis) Snohomish County was an excellent place to study the 2004 election.

• Touch screen systems, controversial for their proprietary counting software that can not be verified, claim as a positive “product feature” the reduction or elimination of undervotes, or persons not voting for any candidate in a race.

• Evidence from New Mexico suggests that undervoting, at least in heavily minority districts, was very high, an average of four times higher than national averages with undervoting for President exceeding 9% in many minority precincts.

• This strongly suggests that either electronic machines do not actually reduce undervoting substantially, or else something is wrong with the machines in New Mexico, or both.

• Undervoting rates in Snohomish County were quite low, but numerous persons reported that touch screens would appear pre-voted, or else would select the Republican box when the Democratic candidate’s box was pressed either with a finger or the stylus provided. Problems of switched voting or machines freezing up appeared in over 50 polling locations out of approximately 148 total.

• Statistical analysis shows high correlations between reported voting irregularities and high Republican voting results.

• Statistical analysis of machines that recently had their CPUs repaired shows a propensity for Republican voting that is present but weak on the individual level but strong at the polling location where the machines were placed.

• Sequoia touch screens are required to have their power cords daisy chained, forming a de facto network that third parties can use to tap into the machines or have the machines communicate among each other.

• Snohomish county had the highest election day increase in vote for Republican governor candidate Dino Rossi relative to absentee voters, while other nearby counties had either smaller increases or election day actually favored the Democrat Christine Gregoire.

• Election day voting in Snohomish County is not like paper voting for Republicans and Democrats which forms a bell curve with noise, but instead forms a smooth twin peak curve, suggesting different mechanisms acted on the electronic vote relative to the paper vote.
The chances that 2/3 of the vote would show a Democratic lead of 97044 to 95228 votes, while the remaining 1/3 of the vote on touch screens would show a Republican lead of almost 5% (50,400 Republican to 42,145 Democratic) as a result of voters randomly choosing whether to vote by paper ballot or by touch screen is one in 1,000 trillion! A true impossibility.

• Simple mechanisms exist for multiple voting or hacking the Sequoia touch screen machines by single individuals, and they are further identified in the paper.

• Machines with repair histories within two weeks of the election or exhibiting problems on election day with observed vote switching, prevoted ballots, or freezing up performed better than the average Republican gain in the governor’s race on election day (of just under 5%) in 46 out of 58 polling locations, and did better than the absentee results for the same precincts in 56 out of 58 polling
locations. In the remaining two instances, electronic results were roughly equal to absentee results.

• The average of the 58 polling places reporting vote switching, freeze-ups, or repairs within two weeks of the election was 11.58% more favorable to Republican Dino Rossi than absentee voters did, and averaged 10.8% more votes than Gregoire on election day, while Rossi’s overall spread among all electronic voters at all polling locations was under 5%.

• Given the coincidence of observed vote switching behavior doing this very thing with actual precinct results reporting enhanced Republican outcomes relative to absentee paper ballots, the probability is that Democratic votes and/or undervotes are being assigned improperly to Republican candidates and contrary to at least
some voters’ intent, and forensic analysis of the machines along with their impoundment is necessary to rule this out.

• Even though evidence of fraud exists here, the parallel voting technologies and recordkeeping are unusually good in Washington state, making investigation somewhat easier.

• Citizens should not have the burden of proving fraud, it is our government that has the burden of proving the election was transparent, fair and clean from the perspective even of the loser, because the continued vitality of democratic government depends upon the election loser’s acceptance that the loss occurred
through a fair and democratic process.

• The security of our elections should be an important part of protecting democracy and our country, yet no one has an incentive to identify risks and problems with our elections so that they can be corrected.

• Sequoia machines similar to those in Snohomish County, Washington were used in all of Nevada, almost all of New Mexico, and four counties in Florida.

• Although free and independent testing is badly needed, the authors of this paper have been told in writing that they will be allowed no testing of the Sequoia machines without Sequoia’s express permission.

link to entire report (PDF)
http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,67466025,5879,f/

EDIT: late-night attention grabbing title

[dzika]

1. A quote from the report..

“Investigative” Tribnet reporter David Seago’s 8/18/04 email suggesting language to the Snohomish County auditor for an editorial about security issues on touch screen voting systems, reflecting a nonchalant attitude about election security:

“How about: “Screw the loonies who think hackers will steal your votes. Our system works good.”

[Dancing_Dave]

2. Where CAN we impound these easily rigged machines?

Maybe the state of California, where Diabold was successfully sued for selling unreliable machines?

Wherever Democrats still have some power, their first priority should be to seize the machines and do investigations that can be used by activists in swing states and so on. Democrats who don't do this anywhere, are simply setting themselves up to be all swept away by electronic fraud in the next elections.

Once it is really laid out in black and white how this fraud works, even a considerable number of Republican citizens will oppose it.

[No Exit]

3. Very informative!!! Thank you!! n/t