Mechanical Glitch Ignored In Now Contested Florida Congressional Race

[kpete]

Mechanical Glitch Ignored In Now Contested Florida Congressional Race
The Huffington Post | Melinda Henneberger | Posted March 13, 2007

WASHINGTON - Last August, Election Systems & Software sent Florida election officials a letter informing them of a glitch in their electronic voting equipment -- a problem that should be fixed before Election Day in November "to avoid any potential issues at the polls."

Instead, the problem was ignored, said Sam Hirsch, a lawyer for Democratic congressional candidate Christine Jennings, who has petitioned the court and the Congress for a new election in Katherine Harris's old district in Sarasota.

Kathy Dent, Sarasota Supervisor of Elections, confirmed in a phone interview today that the manufacturer's recommendation was disregarded, and no action taken: "No one in the State of Florida updated" the equipment after receiving the letter, she said, "and that's because it was too close to the election. It was a state decision that it was too late to make changes."

Either 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls in Jennings's stronghold in Sarasota County then decided to skip over the hotly contested congressional race -- or machines there malfunctioned, as per widespread reports from voters who said they could not get the machines to register any vote in that one race. The official tally showed Republican Vern Buchanan winning by 369 votes, and he has been provisionally seated in Congress.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melinda-henneberger/mechanical-glitch-ignored_b_43331.html

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. tried to warn last year, but no one would listen

I got that memo from a Florida Election Reform advocate in August of 2006.
It is on my website here
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ESS_Aug_2006_iVotronic_FL_memo.pdf


On September 7, 2006 I forwarded the memo to the North Carolina State Board of Elections
to see if this software bug affected the iVotronics in our state.
Their reply below:

From: Don Wright
To: [e-mail]
Sent: 9/8/2006 7:59:11 AM
Subject: RE: problem with iVotronic firmware code in versions 8.0 or greater


The ES&S iVotronic certified for use in North Carolina is the 15" screen with firmware 9.1.2.
Based on the information provided, the problem addressed in this email it is not applicable to North Carolina.
We have been informed of any problems nor have experienced any.

I sent that memo (and my concerns) to anyone I could think of,
and this year to every election reform list serve that I could,
posted it on political message boards.

I asked and asked - has this bug been fixed?

Democratic Underground November 26, 2006
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=458728&mesg_id=460389

Example: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/electionreform/message/4156 from December 10, 2006

Finally, on February 28, 2007 I posted the memo and my concerns to Professor Ed Felton's website.
Please read my post there.

I expressed concern that the software bug might not have been fixed!
I asked why didn't North Carolina have worse undervotes since we had a worse ballot design than Florida?

Joyce McCloy Says:

February 28th, 2007 at 9:12 am
ES&S sent a “software bug” memo to FLorida SOEs in August of 2006 that there was a problem with a “smoothing filter” that would possibly delay the recording of the voter’s selections. This delay would be longer than expected, and the voter might move on before the vote was recorded.

ES&S recommended putting signs in the voting booths to warn voters, and also recommended a “software patch” prior to the November election.

I do not know if all or any Florida machines ever received that patch, or if the patch was distributed, if it was put on every single voting machine.
Further, if the patch was applied, was it tested? Did it work uniformly on all machines, including those that were ADA enabled?

See that memo here: http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ESS_Aug_2006_iVotronic_FL_memo.pdf

If ballot style was the sole cause of FL 13 undervote, then we in North Carolina should have had far worse problems in our iVotronic counties.

Here is Sarasota FL 13’s ballot http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/sarasota_ballot_style.pdf

Now take a look at what appears to be a more confusing ballot style
for Mecklenburg County NC, the NC 08 ballot:
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Mecklenburg_2006_ballot.pdf
(notice the nearly hidden placement of the US congressional race?)
Meckelnburg had a 4 % undervote rate for that contest.

Here is a memo from the NC State Board of Elections explaining the differences in NC iVotronics and the FL iVotronics, as well as a ballot comparison:
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Sarasota_NC_Ballot_Comparison_06.pdf


http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1126#comment-291893