New Hampshire E-Voting Mess

[nicknameless]

http://www.cvspectator.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=8&ArticleID=387

Attorney General seizes Grafton ballots; results all in question after many counted twice

GRAFTON — The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office came to Grafton Wednesday and seized the 369 ballots cast during voting Tuesday and the machine used to count them, after an unknown number of ballots were counted multiple times, according to Town Clerk Mary McDow.

The president of the company that makes the voting machines said operator error, not mechanical problems, put the results of all the town’s elections and warrant articles in question.

But Town Moderator Bonnie Haubrich said readings from the machine never indicated there was a problem.

<snip>

“There’s not much I can tell you except that the counts are way off. They all could be switched for all we know,” McDow said. “I had no knowledge of this (Tuesday) night. It’s all the moderator that deals with the machine.”

<snip>

Haubrich said she did read the machine’s printouts, but they didn’t indicate that the machine had counted those ballots. It wasn’t until after the results were recorded and reported to the media that she realized the tallies didn’t match up with the number of ballots cast.

I’m concerned about an attorney general, who claims that there’s nothing wrong with the vote count, but confiscates the ballots. :(

[GuvWurld]

1. Poster Child For Voter Confidence Resolution

"They all could be switched for all we know" = "No basis for confidence in the results reported."

The Voter Confidence Resolution.

[kster]

2. K&R..........nt

[Kurovski]

3. K&R

Is there a cross-post of this in the New Hampshire State forum?

[nicknameless]

5. I'll cross post it now. n/t

[FogerRox]

4. knr

[eridani]

6. Operator error = 100% bullshit

It's design error. Part of the design process is (or ought to be) enough real world testing to determine the most likely errors in practice, and then change the design to make those errors either not possible or easy to recover from.

[Wilms]

7. But...but...but...

That could wind up causing ballot definition audits, election audits, public disclosure, open software, my, oh my.