OH: 10 percent of Cuyahoga County's Voting Machines Fail Pre-election Tests ("Powerful Forces")

[Wilms]

Those pesky "Powerful Forces" that HAVA has unleashed are at it again.

10 percent of Cuyahoga County's Voting Machines Fail Pre-election Tests

By Joan Mazzolini, The Plain Dealer

April 14, 2010

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- About 10 percent of Cuyahoga County's voting machines checked so far have failed a pre-election test, once again challenging public confidence in the election system.

With just weeks until the May 4 primary election, the system's manufacturer, Election Systems & Software Inc., has been unable to find what is causing the machines to arbitrarily power down and lock up during a test.

The problem showed up about 10 days ago when the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections began a series of routine tests on the voting machines. The machines froze during a specific test done to ensure the optical scanners were reading paper ballots correctly. At different points in that test, the machines simply started powering down, then freezing.

snip

But it is hard to tell how pervasive the problem is. Board members were told at their meeting Tuesday that some machines that first passed the test, later failed when the procedure was repeated.

Employees stopped the test after 19 of the 279 machines had problems. Those 19 were put aside, and the staff started the tests on the others all over again. By the time they had retested 200 machines, nine of those that initially passed had failed the second time around.

snip

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/04/some_cuyahoga_countys_voting_m.html

[peace13]

1. Yup and what will our Dem SOS do about it?

I was quite surprised, when I had to vote at the polls last election, that there were no paper ballots there. That is ....unless I wanted to vote provisionally! Ms. Brunner's futile attempt at cleaning up Ohio elections mystifies me and now she is running for Voinovich's seat. She must trust the machines enough to think that they can count her votes. Go figure.

[OnTheOtherHand]

3. Cuyahoga uses optical scanners, so there are paper ballots

What the scanners do with the ballots is another question.

It's also true that much of Ohio uses DREs with "voter-verifiable paper audit trails." I don't think that is especially Jennifer Brunner's fault. Your mileage may vary.

[peace13]

5. I remember her issuing a report early on in her tenure that stated ..

that electronic voting machines are easily hackable. From then on, for whatever reason, it went down hill. Standardized training of poll workers also was unattainable. I realize that she has been working with Rethugs who have held Ohio hostage for years. That being said, I hope she can trust her system to count her votes.

[xchrom]

2. Ordinarily you'd think there would be some

Critical mass with these failures and some official
would do something about it.

You'd think.

[diva77]

4. That headline reminds me of the old joke "the food here is so bad...and such small portions"

The machines represent a failure to deliver accurate, transparent elections whether or not they "fail" the pre-election tests!!:argh:

[Froward69]

6. I have the solution...

exchange all the candidates letters in the machines. that is list all the Republicans with a "D" beside their name and all the Democrats with an "R". then have the election...

think the republicans would approve of electronic voting then?

[liam_laddie]

7. Hamilton County (Cincinnati, etc.) general FYI

Went through the four-hour poll worker training last night; this is my fourth or fifth year as an election judge/poll worker. The County BoE's Poll Worker Manual (78 pgs.) is revised before every election, including Primaries, to reflect recent problems which need attention, as well as incorporating the latest SoS guidelines and decisions.

At least here, the BoE has does a comprehensive job in developing these training documents. Secretary Brunner and staff provide extensive input to the County Boards. Not sure how other counties handle worker training, but a comprehensive manual is essential.

Only one other county, Williams in the NW corner, uses the same Hart Intercivic system, eScans and eSlates, which we use. Each precinct has one optical scanner; each polling location has one eSlate (DRE) shared by all co-located precincts. The other (86) OH counties use ES&S, Premier or another brand of DRE's and/or scanners. Can we "trust" the central tabulators? Unless we can examine the source codes, I see no 100% trust as possible. Please, HCPB!

On another topic, the instructor noted that of the absentee ballot requests so far, just under 1% have asked for minor party (other than D & R) ballots. Does not bode well for a third party emerging soon. We have Dem, Rep, Independent, Green, Socialist, Constitutional and Libertarian candidates.
Note: Ohio has "early voting" with no conditions attached; anyone can vote "absentee" from thirty days before up to the day of election. Very convenient, IMO.

[Bill Bored]

8. About half of New York will be using DS200s this year, if we have to give up our lever machines.

That's not Brunner's fault either.

Of course, our election honchos/party hacks will claim that our DS200s are better than Ohio's DS200s because after all, we're New York and they're just Ohio, and we tested ours, and besides these are just GLITCHES anyway, and we got a 3% audit, and we're "relying on paper ballots", and we have a "100% recanvass" and...and...and...:argh:

In particular, the failure of New York Democratic Party (who control BOTH houses of the Legislature, the Governor's office, the Attorney General's office (who will soon be running for Governor) and half the State Board of Elections) to deal with this issue is an absolute disgrace. These hacks have done NOTHING but BLAME the other guys for what is obviously a bipartisan consensus to stand by and do nothing as our trustworthy, non-computerized, HAVA-compliant, lever voting system, goes down the crapper. Shame on them.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. Florida used DS 200 first, found problems and maybe the "fix" created

new problems.

Often that happens, right? Fix one piece of crappy source code and you create a new bug?