Archive for April, 2011

When should a candidate concede a close election contest?

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

No candidate in a close contest should concede (ever!) without first taking the following steps:

  1. Obtain detailed vote tallies broken out by ballot type (mail-in votes, polling place, early, provisional,…) and by precinct for each county if possible. New Mexico is the only state currently publicly posting the detailed vote tallies necessary to reveal patterns consistent with ballot box stuffing, vote switching, and subtraction differing by ballot types that are hidden by aggregating tallies.

    In counties delivering mail-in ballots to the precincts to be fed into precinct-based machines rather than counted at the election office, there may be no convenient way to separate the mail-in ballot tallies.

  2. Reconcile the number of voters and ballots for each jurisdiction (county, parish, or township) by counting all blank and spoiled ballots and voters to account for all printed ballots (including examination of blank ballot orders and receipts from the printer, perhaps verifying with the printer directly) in at least any counties having anomalous patterns (patterns showing margin differences in the mail-in versus polling place counts or in counties showing unusually high precinct turnout rates or unusual patterns compared to prior elections or other contests), by examining all poll books and all absentee ballot envelopes mailed in by voters with their signatures to verify the number of eligible voters who cast votes.

    If an election administration official cannot produce the unused blank ballots for reconciliation, examine the absentee ballot envelopes in a forensic manner to look for possible forgeries and compare the number of absentee ballots cast with the number of absentee ballot voters and compare the names of absentee ballot voters with the candidate’s version of the voter registration rolls.

    Note: Ballot-on-demand systems make the type of reconciliation described here virtually impossible. Thus, a different set of safeguards and procedures must be developed to try to reconcile ballot-on-demand systems.

  3. Confer with a computer voting system expert and request copies of all the voting and operating system electronic log files and the reports available for the particular voting system(s), and have the expert examine those files for evidence of tampering with electronic records of vote tallies.
  4. Analyze the results of the above steps and do forensic analysis of the ballots and other records if there are unaccounted for blank ballots or vote tally patterns consistent with ballot box stuffing or ballot switching, or if ballot tampering is suspected.
  5. Manually count sufficient voter-marked paper ballots to verify the publicly posted machine tally accuracy because machine retabulations do not detect voter-marking errors or all types of machine miscount.

There is a federal right to examine voter registration records (poll books and mail-in ballot envelopes) under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, so the candidate’s attorney should have no problems obtaining access to these voter registration records necessary to evaluate the accuracy and currency of voter registration records, as well as the integrity of ballots.

By obtaining the above information (such as the number of unaccounted for blank ballots ordered from the printer that could have been used for ballot box stuffing or substitution for voters’ ballots) the candidate might be able to justify a forensic examination of ballots and a manual recount rather than mere machine retabulation that does not detect ballot box stuffing, ballot substitution, voter-marking errors, or many types of machine miscount.

Caution: These procedures may not detect ballot tampering, such as deliberately spoiling votes cast for opposing candidates by over-voting cast ballots, and will not detect all types of vote switching by electronic ballot (digital recording electronic) voting machines. Digital recording electronic machines should not be used to cast anonymous ballots because at least four types of DRE vote switching schemes are undetectable by any post-election auditing method.

Unfortunately, today virtually all US jurisdictions use the discredited principle of security by obscurity giving inside administrators and their assignees opportunity to tamper with, pad, or substitute ballots or miscount votes. To be able to detect all types of post-election insider ballot or vote tampering would require publicly verifiable oversight over ballot security, which is virtually nonexistent, to my knowledge, in most states today. Post-election forensic analysis of ballots could be a substitute for publicly verifiable ballot security.

What state or federal laws would help to ensure honest elections?

State or federal laws would help to ensure honest, accurate election results by requiring jurisdictions to:

  1. use voter-marked paper ballots for all able-bodied voters;
  2. prior to the election, allow candidates and political parties to compare the printed ballots for all precincts with electronic ballot definition files to be used to electronically assign votes to candidates based on ballot positions;
  3. publicly post all polling place results at the polls during poll closing and publicly post detailed vote tallies (election results) broken out by precinct and by ballot type (polling place, absentee, early, provisional) on the state election web site (very small precincts can be combined if desire to protect voter anonymity);
  4. publicly post and allow public comment on, oversight of, and participation in ballot security procedures before, during, and after elections, including during transportation;
  5. preserve and secure all cast, unused and spoiled ballots, computer and voting system electronic log files, voting machine memory devices, mail-in ballot envelopes, poll books, and so forth that are necessary to reconcile and audit elections;
  6. allow public access to all electoral records necessary to evaluate the accuracy of election outcomes;
  7. conduct routine post-election independent manual counts to check the accuracy of the publicly reported electronic vote tallies of at least sufficient tallies to detect, with 99% probability, the minimum amount of miscount that could cause an incorrect election outcome, assuming any miscount is well-hidden in the fewest number of tallies necessary to cause an incorrect outcome, given the initially publicly reported tallies; and
  8. preserve a copy of the voter registration rolls as they existed when polls closed on Election Day, prior to continuing to do updates.

Please pass along this information to any candidate in a close contest who is declared the loser according to initially reported results.

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Nate Silver, in NY Times Blog, Claims Vote-Counting Error In Wisconsin Points to Incompetence, Not Conspiracy

Friday, April 8th, 2011

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) provides a public right to access electoral records necessary to evaluate the integrity of voter registration rolls, but U.S. citizens have no federal right to examine electoral records necessary to evaluate the integrity of vote tallies.

Does Wisconsin Count Votes Correctly?

http://www.fairelectionswi.com/Counting.htm

Despite the lack of any supporting evidence for vote count accuracy, American Politics scholars, whose published opinion poll work often assumes the accuracy of election results, often claim US election results are accurate, even in close contests where small percentages of manipulation could alter the outcome.

Vote-Counting Error In Wisconsin Points to Incompetence, Not Conspiracy
By NATE SILVER
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/vote-counting-error-in-wisconsin-points-to-incompetence-not-conspiracy/?nl=us&emc=politicsemailemb2#preview

—————

According to my cursory analysis of the Wisconsin election results data by county found here: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/115529044.html Nate Silver’s analysis’ assumes, without any supporting evidence, the following about elections in Wisconsin counties:

1. November 2008 elections were fair and accurate

2. November 2010 elections were fair and accurate

3. February 2011 elections were fair and accurate

In other words, the election officials and technicians who count U.S. votes with trade secret software and without public oversight, are infallible and honest in both prior elections and in other Wisconsin counties

4. there tends to be higher average voter turnout per precinct in counties tending to vote Republican (more ballots cast per precinct)

5. there tends to be higher Republican vote share in counties which use trade secret software to count ballots than in counties manually counting ballots (My cursory analysis shows the Democratic candidate won in the manually-counted counties and Republican won in the machine counted counties. However, I did not have time to phone counties that I was unsure of which category they fall into based upon the current data at Verified Voting. I hope someone will compile a validated list of the vote tallies counted by each method in each county – the candidates could do this.)

I do not believe that Nate Silver has provided any evidence in support any of these claims which are logically required for him to claim the findings he makes from his analysis.

Unfortunately, publicly verifiable evidence of election outcome accuracy is unavailable in most US states today because election officials and their assignees have successfully asserted a special legal right to secretly count votes, denying the public the right to verify or participate in ballot security or tally procedures under the discredited concept of “security by obscurity”. Most U.S. counties or townships do not make their records for reconciling the number of printed ballots with the total number of voters casting ballots available publicly for all types of ballots, including mail-in and provisional ballots.

Although Wisconsin requires post-election manual audits, its audits are conducted by the same persons who initially count and process ballots; and the manual audit sample size is grossly insufficient to verify the accuracy of close contests like this one. In Wisconsin, a recount does not involve a 100% manual count of all ballots, but rather allows the same persons who conducted the initial count to re-count the ballots using the same machines again. The public is usually not able to verify that ballots are not tampered with, substituted, stuffed, and so forth because election officials adhere to the principle of keeping ballots secure from public by keeping security procedures secret and unverifiable by the public. The security-by-obscurity principle makes it easy for insiders within any system to undetectably produce errors, deliberately or by mistake.

In addition, only one state in the U.S. New Mexico, publicly reports its vote tallies broken out by ballot type. In all other U.S. states, vote padding for one candidate in one type of ballot and undercounting votes in another type of ballot for an opposing candidate are hidden by adding the two results together. As long as the amount of vote stuffing for one candidate is less than the number of undervotes for another, the evidence of both problems is hidden in the aggregated tallies.

Other countries would do well not to follow the lead of the U.S. in using trade secret electronic vote-counting devices allowing fraudulent vote manipulation to become virtually undetectable.

This election is high stakes and close enough to merit a full manual recount of ballots in all Wisconsin counties that are immediately secured by a court, regardless of which party is reported to win.

The losing candidate should ask for a detailed list of tallies from each county, broken out by ballot type and counting method and examine all precinct poll book records and absentee ballot envelopes voter signatures, counting to try to evaluate whether the number of voters voting equals the number of ballots cast, and to detect any anomalies in the poll book records. The candidate should also manually count and examine ballots forensically in order to try to detect possible ballot box stuffing, tampering, or substitution which may have occurred before, during, or after the election. Ideally, someone familiar with post-election auditing and forensic analysis of election records should assist the candidate.

Statement by Ramona Kitzinger, member of Waukesha Board of Canvassers since 2004
Monday, April 11, 2011
http://www.orchidforchange.com/parties/waukeshadems.com/ht/display/ArticleDetails/i/1343504

Waukesha County reported highly unusual 97% voter turnout in the 2004 election. The number of voters casting ballots in the current election could be verified against the number of votes in a forensic analysis:

http://www.waukeshacounty.gov/uploadedFiles/Media/List_Documents/County_Clerk/2004_Official_Election_Results/Summary_Report_Nov2_2004.lst

Comments by Bev Harris are apt:
Bev Harris 9:29pm Apr 15

Kathy Nickolaus is ruled out in terms of tampering with ballot counts from Brookfield for last week’s election. The City of Brookfield posted its results on Election Night, and the belated results sent by Kathy Nickolaus are identical to those posted on Election Night. Regardless of whatever illegal, uncertified, murky little data system Nickolaus uses, she was not in a position to alter the Brookfield count. Now the Brookfield City Clerk — that’s another matter. Like all other town and city clerks in Wisc. she and insiders who work for her WERE in a position to have their way with the election. But that swings both ways. Milwaukee is notorious for election tampering and it swings Dem. So for those wanting recounts, be careful what you ask for.

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