Texas Voters Urged to Avoid Straight-Party Option, After Vote-Flip Complaints

[Snazzy]

Source: Wired

Texas Voters Urged to Avoid Straight-Party Option, After Vote-Flip Complaints

By Kim Zetter October 29, 2008 | 3:21:43

A number of voters in several Texas counties have been complaining that voting machines they used to cast early votes flipped their votes from Democratic choices to Republican ones.

Voters have reported that when they tried to vote a straight-party Democratic ticket, the machine flipped their choices to Republican candidates instead. In some cases, voters reported a problem only with the presidential race; in other cases voters reported the entire ballot being marked Republican by the machine.

The counties where the problems were reported use different kinds of voting machines from three of the top voting machine companies -- Election Systems & Software, Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) and Hart InterCivic.

A Hart InterCivic spokesman said that at least one of the scenarios that a voter described isn't possible on the company's machines. A spokesman for ES&S said very few voters had complained and as far as he knew poll workers were never able to replicate the situation they described. The same ES&S machines are at the center of stories in West Virginia and Tennessee where voters also reported the machines flipping their votes, though the scenario in those states was slightly different since voters there weren't trying to vote a straight-party ticket when the problem occurred.

....

Read more: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/straight-party.html

[endarkenment]

1. Isn't it odd that the flip is always D to R?

What are the chances that this is random or accidental?

[EFerrari]

2. It's not random if it happens every effin' time, is it?

:kick:

[endarkenment]

4. It was a rhetorical question

kind of like "shouldn't the librul media be investigating this?"

[EFerrari]

5. Nature hates a vacuum.

:)

[Leftist Agitator]

9. Abhors... The phrase is "Nature abhors a vacuum".

Just so you know.

[EFerrari]

11. Right you are!

[amdezurik]

15. must be "Gawd's Will" don't cha know!

[Catherine Vincent]

3. That's what I want to know.

It always flips for the R's. I wouldn't be surprised if the powers that be created a bug in the machine to switch to the R's when a certain number of democratic straight party buttons get punched.

[rgbecker]

7. To flip 10 percent, all you would need is to flip every tenth voter.

To flip 5 percent (the spread between McCain and Obama in most swing states) just flip every 20th voter. Yikes!

[Zorra]

6. Dem attorneys: Be sure to substantiate complaints before you investigate.

Republican operatives in Texas will be trying to spread you thin by crying wolf.

Not saying that there are not problems - but simple Rovian logic dictates that republicans will do this.

[slackmaster]

10. A video, with sound, of the alleged software misbehavior would be invaluable

Doesn't anyone have one yet?

Or a programmer who has grown a conscience or gotten pissed off at his or her bosses, and jumped ship?

[Snazzy]

13. have you seen this one yet?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/vote-flipping-by-tristero-its-not-urban.html

This is a WVA official demonstrating (attempting to, rather) what happens if the machine is calibrated wrong.

I saw this for the first time yesterday and was flabbergasted. Amazing vid. Poll worker shows us the fix. He says he has a miscalibrated machine and here's what happens: Vote for McCain, no prob. Vote for Obama, any number of things can happen. Straight ticket dem votes for McCain. Select Obama and you get 5th candidate. Try again and get the write in screen. Press McCain, no problem. Just a mess. Then the guy recalibrates and a vote for GOP ticket goes to Nader. It's all screwed up, but that last part is very interesting because it shows it's the software, not the touch screen, driving the crazy selections.

edit to add: but yeah caught in act on live voting would be key. Cell phone cameras go.

[slackmaster]

14. Yes, I have seen that one

I've also seen a few videos of people who used to consult for Diebold discussing things like a cavalier attitude about security and potential gaping vulnerabilities in their software.

He says he has a miscalibrated machine and here's what happens: Vote for McCain, no prob. Vote for Obama, any number of things can happen. Straight ticket dem votes for McCain. Select Obama and you get 5th candidate. Try again and get the write in screen. Press McCain, no problem. Just a mess.

Yes, and for such a problem to always favor the Republican side would require that candidates always get placed in the same order wherever the machines are used. In every ballot system I have ever been familiar with, there is at least some effort to minimize order effects by randomizing them in some way.

For example, here in the city of San Diego, the ballot order for city council candidates in the primary election was determined by drawing lots. In the general, order is randomized so that Candidate A in a two-party race gets the top spot in about half of the ballots.

If that kind of system is NOT being done with the voting machines AND there really is a systematic pro-GOP bias; besides the obvious failure to follow standard due diligence with respect to positional bias, it points to a large conspiracy of people who know about the trickery. But that would be rather obvious and prone to disclosure. OTOH if the software is intelligent enough to know in advance the name of the candidate(s) to which the bias is to be given irrespective of the order names appear on the screen, that would be much more difficult to ferret out. But it should still be pretty straightforward for someone to come up with a real "caught in the act" video.

[Snazzy]

16. but presidential?

We are fighting the alphabet no? McCain then Obama at least in W VA vid. Can't be R or GOP then D, so must be last name.

My theory of republican malfeasance isn't so much a massive coordinated conspiracy so much as death by countless papercuts. The machine may award votes to many people (and the expense of the rightful candidate, say Obama), but it rarely takes them from McCain. It may sometimes give them to McCain. That's the paper cut. Throw in many other manipulations not on the voting machine (purges, intimidation, democrats vote on Nov. 5, lost ballots, counting irregularities, anybody who is made to vote provisional, etc.) and you got yourself a rigged election.

I get where you are headed and agree we need facts. Just personally far less concerned about down ticket.

I wonder, being someone who knows a little about computers and sometimes hire people who know a lot--is that machine in the vid screwing up after the magic calibration session because it using that party ticket vote to simulate a voter pressing the rest of the buttons on the screen? I.e., instead of calling to those boxes which are whatever party/candidate and making them checked, the software goes to the touch screen subroutine and says place a check 50 pixels down or whatever. This would be a truly boneheaded way to do this of course but wtf: a straight R party ticket vote cast AFTER recalibrating checks Nader all of a sudden.

Like I learned in psych. school, you get to see how the engine works when you blow it out and get to look in the resulting cracks.

(edit clarity)

[slackmaster]

17. If the arrangement of names on ballots is not randomized, that is a very serious deficiency

We are fighting the alphabet no? McCain then Obama at least in W VA vid. Can't be R or GOP then D, so must be last name.

Sure, but Barack would come before John. ;-) As a Psych person I am sure you are well aware of the primacy effect and the recency effect.

...is that machine in the vid screwing up after the magic calibration session because it using that ticket vote to simulate pressing the rest of the buttons on the screen? I.e. instead of calling to those boxes which are whatever party/candidate and making them checked, the software goes to the touch screen subroutine and says place a check 50 pixels down or whatever....

I watched the video twice and frankly I can't say what is really going on there. Obviously a serious hardware malfunction or software design flaw at best.

Like I learned in psych. school, you get to see how the engine works when you blow it out and get to look in the resulting cracks.

My BA is in Psychology, and that is a very good analogy for what we are looking at here. I am a Systems Administrator now, and have been working with computer systems without interruption for about 25 years. To me, there are two bare minimum requirements for an acceptable electronic voting system (over and above the obvious physical security and chain-of-custody issues that apply to all voting systems):

1. Open, auditable source code, and

2. A hard-copy audit trail, e.g. captive paper roll, that the voter can visually check and becomes the backup if there is any question about the electronic output. That should also be checked manually for at least a sample of the machines even if they appear to have worked correctly.

[Snazzy]

18. Neither of which we have

An under reported story is this (ah wired has it now):

Lab that Tests and Certifies Voting Machines Suspended
By Kim Zetter October 29, 2008 | 11:05:00

An independent lab that tests and certifies voting machines is being suspended by the federal Election Assistance Commission from testing voting systems for failing to conform to procedures and requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The Colorado-based SysTest Labs is an independent lab that has been accredited for testing voting systems for federal certification. But according to the EAC, which assumed oversight responsibility for the testing and certification process only in 2006, SysTest failed to create and validate test methods, maintain proper documentation of its testing and employ properly trained or qualified personnel.

The lab was first suspended by NIST, which is charged with auditing labs on the EAC's behalf through its National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program. SysTest has three days to respond to the EAC, though even if it is suspended it can get its accreditation restored if it later proves it can meet the NIST standards.

...

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/lab-that-tests.html

I don't know off hand where they tested. Testing behind closed doors too I believe. The machine in the vid was stamping out something on paper. I don't know if that is something that is live for voters or just because the elections official was doing a demo (no machines here yet). And if there is a caged roll as you say, have voters been educated to inspect that? I don't think so.

The machine is exercising its own version of primacy and recency and that's not so good. Open the pod bay doors, Hal. Hal?

[Ms. Toad]

8. The important immediate message

is don't vote straight party - and I would extend that recommendation beyond Texas. Don't trust anyone or anything to mark your ballot according to the proper party.

Playing with attorneys after the fact is too late for this election - guard your vote as best you can now. Mark each candidate or race individually. If you are using a touch screen machine, verify that what shows up on the screen is what you intended to mark - at every opportunity you have to verify it.

[lovuian]

12. I didn't check the straight vote ticket just for this reason

and we don't get reciepts either