Report: Overwhelmed elections board poorly prepared for primary

[Algorem]

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15090898.htm

CONNIE MABIN
Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Cuyahoga County's "nightmare election" with delayed results, absent poll workers and other problems can be blamed partly on an overconfident, overwhelmed elections board and a voting machine maker's questionable marketing, according to an outside review.

Besides outlining what went wrong with the May 2 primary in Ohio's most populous county, the 394-page report lays out a series of recommendations for improvements ranging from more public input to better planning.

Among other problems with the county's first election using Diebold Inc.'s touch-screen and optical-scan voting systems, some poll workers didn't show up or were not sufficiently trained in electronic voting. Vote counts were delayed six days when roughly 18,000 absentee ballots had to be hand-counted because of incorrect ballots designed by the board and could not be scanned.

The review by a board-appointed panel comprised of a judge, a law professor and the director of the state lottery commission found that most of the problems were predicted as early as January by a contractor working for Diebold, but the board did not heed the warnings...

ON THE NET

Cuyahoga County elections board: http://www.boe.cuyahogacounty.us

Review panel: http://www.cuyahogavoting.org




Recommendations of panel that reviewed Cuyahoga elections

Associated Press

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15090905.htm

An independent panel reviewing Cuyahoga County's botched May 2 primary made several recommendations for reform. The panel, led by Cleveland Municipal Judge Ronald Adrine, included Thomas Hayes, a former elections board director who is director of the Ohio Lottery Commission, and Candice Hoke, a Cleveland State University law professor who recently stepped down as director of the CSU Center for Election Integrity.

Among other changes, the panel said the county elections board should:

_Improve training of poll workers by having the state's colleges and universities create a poll worker training program with a core curriculum approved by the Secretary of State; until then, the board should improve the quality of its training.

_Evaluate poll workers after training to measure competence...


Training lax, warnings went ignored, panel says

Friday, July 21, 2006
Joan Mazzolini
Plain Dealer Reporter

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1153470675195450.xml&coll=2

The election fiasco in Cuyahoga County was the result of widespread dysfunction in the county's election offices, where officials ignored specific warnings of the looming calamity, according to a report released today that blames election chief Michael Vu and deputy chief Gwen Dillingham.

In the 394-page report, a three-member panel concludes its investigation of the flawed May 2 primary with descriptions of breakdown after breakdown at every level of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The problems included poorly trained poll workers, too few workers, the rehiring of poll workers with histories of poor performance, a lack of crucial supplies, error-filled and ambiguous manuals for poll workers, a careless or reckless disregard for security of the voting machines, and the refusal to accept help from outsiders with expertise.

The dysfunction was made worse by a rushed changeover from punch-card voting to electronic machines.

"Director Vu and Dillingham effectively ordered workers to do the impossible, or nearly impossible, with inadequate resources," the report says. "This is an across-the-board failure to plan and manage the first countywide endeavor in electronic voting." ...

Why the vote count was doomed from start

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1153470671195450.xml&coll=2

Cuyahoga County's May 2 election was a disaster by just about any measure. An army of temp workers labored for a week to hand-count absentee ballots before voters learned any results. An investigation into the many problems concludes today with the release of 394 pages of findings. What went wrong?

Friday, July 21, 2006

Elections workers were so reckless in their handling of voting machines that three months later, they still can't find a dozen memory cards on which votes were recorded.

Elections workers were prohibited from telling Elections Board members about looming problems, and the board repeatedly broke the state's "sunshine law" with closed-door discussions about the public's business.

TRAINING: Many poll workers found their training so abysmal that they did not show up for work May 2. Elections officials ignored pre-election surveys that 80 percent of the workers thought the training was deficient...

http://www.cleveland.com/election/

TOP STORY
Training lax, warnings went ignored, panel says
The election fiasco in Cuyahoga County was the result of widespread dysfunction in county's election offices
• Related: Why vote count was doomed

• More: Fraud | Warnings | Investigation

• Forum: Talk about it

[rodeodance]

1. the public need to hold them accountable (but will they/)

......The review by a board-appointed panel comprised of a judge, a law professor and the director of the state lottery commission found that most of the problems were predicted as early as January by a contractor working for Diebold, but the board did not heed the warnings...

[Kolesar]

2. Note that this reports shifts blame from Blackwell+Diebold to the Cuy BOE

...that would be the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. This story is all over the local media.

[blm]

5. They NEED overwhelmed election boards to get away with the thievery.

And this is where the elections are lost. The DNC needs to get good people on these boards and TRAIN them to counter every trick at the local level.

[Kolesar]

8. Yes. That is fundamental grassroots political training.

[Algorem]

10. and BOE wants to make Vu do the fall guy act

(Can't they at least fire a couple of board chairman/Ohio Republican Chairman Robert Bennett's chins?)

(AND BLACKWELL GETS THE FINAL DECISION!!!-"Blackwell's office must await copies of the board action before saying how Blackwell might get involved and said 2-2 votes are not automatically a matter for Blackwell to decide, Lee said. If Blackwell decides against getting involved, Vu would keep his job on the tie vote.")



Vote tied on whether to fire election chief after botched primary

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/15090898.htm

THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press

CLEVELAND - The Cuyahoga County Elections Board voted 2-2 along party lines Friday on whether to fire its embattled chief because of a botched May primary that was plagued by voting machine problems, absent poll workers and other issues.

The two Democrats on the appointed board voted to ax Democrat Michael Vu and the two Republicans supported him after a 395-page report detailing the "nightmare election" in Ohio's largest county was released publicly.

The tie means Vu's fate is in the hands of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor...

[zalinda]

3. Okay, why doesn't election boards

use seniors in high school? This would make sense. There are plenty of them, and they can get a day off from school to do it. It teaches them civic responsibility, are quick to learn and this activity can be put on their college applications. All you would need are a few "grown-ups" to supervise them.

zalinda

[Toots]

4. It takes six days to hand count 18,000 ballots?

The Canadians would laugh their asses off at that one. They do their entire country in 24 hours and it is all hand counted. Americans are just getting more stupid by the minute...

[redqueen]

6. I just learned about the Canadian voter list system yesterday.

they put our sorry asses to shame

pathetic, America! $#@&ing PATHETIC!

[Kolesar]

9. Just because a country is bigger, it does not make hand counting "harder"

I did not know that about Canada.

You know, paper ballots are economical. We could trash all the DRE EVMs and the scanners and tabulators and *still* hold an election. The only advantage of EVMs is the workers get to go home earlier.

[redqueen]

7. the board met in secret?

let me guess... no one will be held accountable...