New Mexico lawsuit update

[garybeck]

sorry for the bad formatting. the content is worth it.

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Lopategui v. Vigil-Giron lawsuit update


Our initial discovery process is revealing startling evidence of serious
voting machine problems, top-to-bottom incompetence in the
administration of elections, cover-up by election officials of major
errors they know have gone uncorrected, and the ceding by election
officials of oversight and control over our elections to unaccountable
private companies.


Examples of this evidence, gleaned from two weeks of depositions,
include:


* A voting machine vendor has admitted under oath that the design of
machines used by many New Mexicocounties probably causes the
unintended erasure of presidential votes, contrary to the voter’s
intent.
* The owner of the private New Mexico company that has been paid
commissions by Sequoia Voting Systems on sales of their AVC Edge
touchscreen voting system to New Mexico counties testified that
the system lost votes in a Bernalillo County election and that he
is suspicious of Sequoia’s claims that all of the lost data was
successfully “recreated.”
* The state and county post-election canvass processes are
incapable of detecting most types of voting machine error or fraud.
* Contracting out key parts of the canvass process to unaccountable
private contractors and subcontractors has increased vote-counting
errors and heightened security risks.
* A closer look at the “independent audit” of the 2004 general
election touted by the Secretary of State reveals that:



- It consistently under-reports as single “errors” common mistakes and
irregularities even when the “error” results in the miscounting of
hundreds of votes.

- The audit examines only a small percentage of precincts, leaving
undetected -- and uncorrected -- similar widespread and large-scale
errors in between 80% and 90% of precincts statewide.



Our next step will be a thorough examination of several types of voting
machines and central tabulators used in the 2004 election by our
academic computer security and voting machine experts. Moving forward
is contingent upon securing additional funding. Later we will need to
take more key depositions, but the machines are our primary focus now.



Thanks for your continued support. Should you have any questions, always
feel free to contact [e-mail]


Sincerely,


Holly Jacobson, Lowell Finley

& the entire Voter Action Team

[texpatriot2004]

1. Hey, so glad to hear this news about NM election thanks for

sharing it.

[MissMarple]

2. Interesting. Good things come in small packages.

I know that is true. ;)

[kster]

3. Kick..nt

[Melissa G]

4. Thanks Garybeck! nominated! n/t

[rdmccur]

5. Kick

since I live in NM

[Bill Bored]

6. Gee and their Exit Poll was SO CLOSE TOO! nt

[Febble]

7. I'm so glad this is getting some traction

See here:

http://uscountvotes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=70&Itemid=43

Ballots that contained no selection for President are referred to here as "undervotes".

Undervotes may result when a voter intentionally omits to vote for president, but when undervotes are associated with a particular kind of voting technology, it suggests that the machine is either failing to record the voter?s intention, or failing to offer the voter feedback he needs to register his selection on the machine.

We find a strong association between election day undervotes and pushbutton DRE voting machines. The average undervote in precincts where pushbutton DRE voting machines were used was 3.5%, compared to less than 1% in precincts that used scanned paper ballots.

Precincts that used DRE voting machines were significantly more likely to record undervotes than precincts that used Optical scan machines, and of the two types of DRE machines, Push button machines were more likely to record undervotes than Touch screen machines.

We also found that undervotes were more prevalent in counties with large ethnic minority populations. This may indicate that the net loss of votes was for Kerry. Given the small margin in NM, the probability that Kerry lost NM to this problem would seem to be high.

[DemReadingDU]

8. thanks for the update