counting votes 2012: a state by state look at voting technology preparedness

7/31/2019 COUNTING VOTES 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness

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COUNTING VOTES 2012: A State by State

Look at Voting Technology Preparedness

Thursday, August 8, 2012

2:00 PM EST


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Speakers

Jenny Flanagan

Director of Voting and Elections, Common Cause

Pam SmithPresident of Verified Voting Foundation

Susannah GoodmanDirector, Voting Integrity Program, Common Cause


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Voting Machines Can Fail

All machines can

fail.

What can we do to

protect the vote?


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Five Areas of Review

1. Does the state require paper ballots or records of every state?

2. Does the state have adequate contingency plans at each polling

place in the event of machine failure?

3. Does the state protect military and overseas voters by ensuringthat marked ballots are not cast online?

4. Has the state instituted a post-election audit that can determine

whether the electronically reported outcomes are correct?

5. Does the state use robust ballot reconciliation and tabulation

practices?


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Is there a paper record for every ballot cast?

November 2004, North Carolina: 4,500 votes

permanently lost.

Outcome of election undecided for months

September 2008, Washington, DC: 1,500 phantom

votes added to the final total.

Re-count occurred, problem corrected


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Which states have paper ballots/records?


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Contingency Plans

January 2008, Horry, South Carolina: Voting machines in 80% of the precincts failed

Voters could not cast ballots in their home precinct

The Columbia State reported that napkins and paper towels were being used to record

votes. The protocol is to use pre-printed paperballots, State Election Commission

spokesman Chris Whitmire said. But if those aren't available when voters are there, "In

the meantime, they should use whatever means necessary to record the voters ballot.

Bad contingencyplan


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Contingency Plan Checklist

Procedures for machine repair and replacement

Paper ballots:

At every polling place

Deployed when machines malfunction When long lines occur

Treated as regular ballots


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Rating Contingency Plans


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Prohibit Internet transmission of markedballots

Prohibit use of Internet voting systems to mark and cast

ballots

Prohibit use of e-mail transmission of marked ballots

Prohibit use of e-fax transmission of marked ballots


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Bruce McConnell told a group of election officials, academics and

advocacy groups meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., that he believes "it'spremature to deploy Internet voting in real elections at this time.

McConnell said voting systems are vulnerable and, "when you connect

them to the Internet, that vulnerability increases." He called security

around Internet voting "immature and underresourced."


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Risks of e-mail and e-fax votes

Insert social security

number here


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If I can bank online, why cant I vote online?

Banks routinely budget for millions in losses due to

cyber-fraud. How many votes should we budget to

lose?

The secret ballot by design prevents the voter from

checking if his or her vote was recorded correctly


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Ratings for states on Internet voting


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Post-election audits

Has the state instituted a post-election audit that can determine

whether the electronically reported outcomes are correct?

Mandatory comparison of a random sample of the paper ballots toelectronic totals is one of the best ways to ensure that the reported

outcomes are correct.

A well-designed audit should use statistical sampling methods tied

to the margin of victory and should be able to correct the outcome if

it is wrong.


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Audits catch machine miscounts

In a municipal election in Palm Beach County, Florida, in March

2012, a problem with election management software allotted votes

to the wrong candidate and the wrong contest.

A post-election audit caught this problem

The official results were only changed after a court-sanctioned

public hand count of the votes.


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Rating the states on post-election audits


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Ballot reconciliation procedures

These basic procedures help ensure that no ballots

are lost or added as the votes are tallied and

aggregated from the local up to the state level.


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Reconcile vote and ballot totals and address discrepancies at the polling place

Compare the total number of votes cast to the total number of voters who signed in. Explain and

address any discrepancies.

For both regular and emergency paper ballots, compare the number of voted, spoiled and unused

paper ballots with the number of ballots sent to the polling place. Explain and address any

discrepancies.

Compare digital vote tallies from voting machines to vote total tapes. Notify county and state

officials of any discrepancies. If using optical scanners, flag ballots that should be re-counted on

the central tabulator.

Ifyour precinct has an accumulator that totals memory cards for each machine, compare the total

tapes from each machine to the total tapes from this accumulator.

Seal, sign and return packages of used and unused ballots.

Deliver official, sealed information packets containing all audit information (poll books, paper trails,paper ballots, vote total tapes, provisional ballots, emergency paper ballots, unused ballots and

memory cards) to the central count location.

At the county level:

Reconcile redundancies

Review status reports from the electronic tally server to ensure that all memory cards have been

read. Compare electronic tally server totals to vote total tapes generated from each voting machine.

Account for additional ballots that might not be included in vote total tapes, such as provisional

ballots, emergency paper ballots, absentee/mail-in ballots, including military and overseas ballots,

and early voting ballots.

Reconcile the total number of voters who signed in with the total number of votes recorded in the

county.

Re-check reconciliations performed at the polling places and investigate/resolve any discrepancies.


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Rating the states


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Action Steps

12 weeks until the election

Common Cause and Verified Voting staff and state leadersare working with election officials to:

Ensure that emergency paper ballots are available atevery polling place

Ensure that robust post-election audit procedures are inplace

Ensure that procedures are in place to help catchmachine failures that cause votes to be mistakenly addedor subtracted during the tallying process.


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What you can do

Become a poll monitor

Become a poll worker

To join our poll monitor or poll worker trainingprogram, go to: www.CommonCause.org/Elections

Become a member of Common Cause and VerifiedVoting

Donate: www.CommonCause.org/EdFund/Donate
http://www.commoncause.org/Electionshttp://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.commoncause.org/Elections


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Thank You!

For more informationwww.CommonCause.org/Elections

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

To Donate:www.CommonCause.org/EdFund/Donate

www.verifiedvoting.org/donate

More [email protected]
http://www.commoncause.org/Electionshttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/http://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/Donatemailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.verifiedvoting.org/Donatehttp://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/http://www.verifiedvoting.org/http://www.commoncause.org/Elections

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