Skulduggery and Errors | CTVotersCount.org

Where Common Sense fails: Do insider attacks require a sophisticated conspiracy?

In this post, we address where Common Sense fails. Where what seems obvious to individuals and election officials is often counter to the facts or science. Those that are unfamiliar with technology and a specific area of science often overestimate how difficult or easy specific things are to accomplish.

Note: This is the fifth post in an occasional series on Common Sense Election Integrity, summarizing, updating, and expanding on many previous posts covering election integrity, focused on Connecticut. <previous> <next>

We frequently hear versions of the following comments, often from election officials:

“It would take a very sophisticated operation to steal an election. Computer experts with access to the election system.”

“Our staff is trusted and they don’t have that level of expertise.”

“You are a conspiracy theorist, you just don’t trust election officials, and the security of our voting machines”

To some of these charges I plead guilty and with others items beg to disagree:

I do believe in the existence and possibilities of fraud by conspiracy, yet in the case of election integrity argue that compromising an election does not require the existence of a conspiracy of the sort implied by the current definition of conspiracy theory. In fact, individuals have been convicted or exposed for small to moderate size conspiracies.
I do trust most election officials. The problem is that many election officials express and request blind trust of all election officials. This despite regular instances of errors by officials, and occasional successful prosecution of various election officials for criminal violations. Unless election officials are cut from a different class than other citizens and public officials, some of the time, some of them will make errors, and others will comitt fraud, sometimes without prosecution, and sometimes undetected.
It does not require a sophisticated operation to steal an election. Fraud would not necessarily require computer experts with access to the election system.

In this post, we address where Common Sense fails. Where what seems obvious to individuals and election officials is often counter to the facts or science. Here we have to be careful trusting our own initial views and those of honest officials, we need to be open to the idea that we may not individually have all the answers -willing to listen to, if not completely trust, scientists and the facts. (We are not just talking about elections here, but many other areas which are critical to democracy and life.)

Those that are unfamiliar with technology and a specific area of science often overestimate how difficult or easy specific things are to accomplish. As we often confuse conspiracy and conspiracy theory, we often confuse the meanings of theory, between the common meaning of theory and a scientific theory. They are as different as a Pat Robertson theory of earthquakes and the germ theory of disease.

For instance, people often think technologists can do anything such as solve the nuclear waste problem, cure all cancer, make smoking safe, produce clean coal, or provide safe internet voting. These are all hard problems that have, so far, eluded teams of the best scientists. I frequently recall a friend in middle school, in the late 1950’s, who had no concerns with smoking, saying “By the time I get lung cancer in 30 or 40 years, science will have a cure”.

Once even “scientists” believed with the right recipe sea water could be turned into gold. In the dark ages of the 1950’s it was believed it would be possible to predict the weather and the economy, if only we had enough data and the right programs. Since then, with the advent of Chaos Theory, we have learned both are impossible, yet that fact has provided us the opportunity to deal with the economy and weather more rationally and realistically. Since the 30’s or 40’s we have also known that it is impossible to prove that any computer software/hardware system is accurate and safe – there is no recipe possible. (And thus it is also impossible to build a computer or communications system that is provably safe. In practice, we can see from failed attempts of government and industry that the best systems are, in fact, regularly compromised, providing practical as well as theoretical reasons to avoid trusting any computer/communications system.)

On the other side, many things are much easier than the public and many elections officials believe. Smart individuals and small groups continue to create computer viruses and hack into the best systems of the most sophisticated government agencies and industries. On the easy side, the U.S. Government believes, apparently with good reason, that a single Army Private could access and steal a huge number of confidential documents from many Federal agencies. (That he was a low level insider with lots of access, just emphasizes how vulnerable systems are to a single insider and that it would take steps in addition to a safe computer system, even if that were possible, to protect us from an insider.)

How often have we each gone to an expert with what we viewed as a tough problem, only to have it solved quickly and inexpensively? For example: Recently, my condominium unit needed a new main shut-0ff valve. The maintenance staff and I believed it would be a big job requiring service interruption to dozens in my neighborhood requiring a shut-off of a valve in the street. Enlisting the help of a general plumbing contractor, the contractor simply froze my pipe while installing a new valve.

When it comes to election machine hacking, online voting, and conventional stealing of votes it is relatively easy in many jurisdictions to compromise the vote, especially when it only requires a single insider. Some attacks take extensive technical knowledge which many hackers possess and could help or intimidate a single insider to execute or could simply get a job in election administration. Other attacks take very little technical expertise. When officials misjudge how easy it is for attacks to be accomplished, when officials don’t understand technology, it makes it all the easier for a single trusted insider.

One company, LHS, programs all the election memory cards for Connecticut and other states. LHS’s President said that we are safe from hacked cards because he has no employees with software expertise (including himself). There are several fallacies in this:
— How would he know if a particular employee has technical expertise?
— It is not all that hard to miss-program memory cards.
— A single employee could gain outside technical help or be intimidated to do what an outsider demands.

Similarly, many election officials would claim we are safe because they do not have computer experts on their staff. Once again, how would they know how much it would take and what a person does not know?

As for outsider attacks, one example: To our knowledge, in only one instance, a Internet voting system was subjected to a open, public security test. It was compromised extensively and quickly. Even if it had not been compromised so easily or was subjected to a more extensive test it would hardly be proven safe, hardly be safe from attack by insiders.

In our view, the best we can do realistically is voter created paper ballots, counted in public by machine, a printout of results in public, followed by a secure ballot chain of custody, followed by effective independent post-election audits, and where necessary complete recounts. All transparent.

Finally, we need to emphasize the requirement for a “secure ballot chain-of-custody” or at least a reasonably secure system making it difficult for single insiders to compromise ballots. For those with blind trust in security seals we provide presentations by an expert <view> and examples of quick seal compromise by that same expert and an amateur <read>

Online Voting: Hartford Courant hacked?

Was the “online tampering” done by outside hackers? Or was it an insider? Does the Courant have the expertise to determine the cause in this instance and actually create effective controls to prevent future online voting attacks? If so, the editors should be advising the likes of the Department of Defense, banks, and Google.

We note a small correction box in today’s Hartford Courant:

CORRECTION

The results of a Buzz question on Senate Candidate Linda McMahon that ran on courant.com last week and in print Sunday were exaggerated due to apparent online tampering. Controls have been put into place to prevent improper manipulation of Buzz results.

Checking the Sunday edition we see that in answer to the question, “Can Linda McMahon win a Senate seat in 2012?” The poll said Yes 6%, No 94%. And in the four polls the total votes for the other three were 456, 1,759, and 2,588, while in the McMahon poll there were 14,348 votes.

Hopefully Connecticut’s registrars will not be forced by the legislature to provide online voting. According to Secretary of the State Merrill, one-third of registrars do not even have web access. On October 27th the state will have the opportunity to hear from experts on the risks of online voting and the other options for serving military and overseas voters.

Absentee Fraud in Bridgeport? Who could have imagined?

Who says there is little a single legislator can do to affect election integrity and confidence? Human error can change an election result or serve as a ready excuse to cover-up fraud.

A couple hours ago we quoted Denise Merrill when she said “Most of this stuff doesn’t get attention until something goes wrong“. Right on cue, an opportunity presents itself to address the current risks of absentee voting and avoid the expanded potential for fraud and disenfranchisement with no-excuse absentee voting:

Article in the Connecticut Post: MariAn Gail Brown: Absentee ballot issues cast doubt on primary <read>

Hendricks is the voter who filed an affidavit claiming state Rep. Ezequiel Santiago showed up on her doorstep last Thursday asking if she was voting by absentee ballot. When Hendricks informed him that her vote in next Tuesday’s primary would be cast by absentee ballot, Santiago made her an offer.

“He told me that he would take the ballot from me,” Hendricks says in a sworn statement, “to turn in if I hadn’t sent it already.”

Hendricks might be old but if her mind is still sharp, assuming her assessment of the situation is correct, this is an election law violation. The only people who can turn in absentee ballots are electors themselves, their legal guardian, or a caretaker such as a doctor or nurse who has an affidavit signed by the absentee voter…

“I was there that day to check to see whether the residents received their ballots or not,” Santiago says. “I also stressed to them that they shouldn’t allow anyone from any campaign (to) help them fill out their ballots for them.”

Don’t you just wonder why a state representative who is also a city employee who makes it a point to tell Hendricks, according to her affidavit, that he does “a lot of work up in Hartford for senior citizens” would then tell Connecticut Post reporter John Burgeson that he merely “stressed to them that they shouldn’t allow anyone from any campaign” to help them? If that really was Santiago’s mission, why show up there? He could have just as easily issued a letter to his constituents. It’s just hard to buy that Santiago wasn’t there to troll for absentee ballots.

Maybe only because they checked, and maybe only because of this attention it was discovered that the voter was sent two absentee ballots:

The only way Hendricks would have received two absentee ballots, Bridgeport’s town clerk says, is that she filed two absentee ballot applications. To Maya, this points out another shortcoming in the election process in Connecticut’s biggest city.

“What we need is an automated absentee ballot system. I’ve researched that. And I even found one that met our needs,” Maya says. “But there were glitches in the program that I found and we can’t use that. But we have so many absentee ballots that this system we have of doing all this by hand doesn’t work anymore.”

We are not buying that excuse.

“What we need is an automated absentee ballot system. I’ve researched that. And I even found one that met our needs,” Maya says. “But there were glitches in the program that I found and we can’t use that. But we have so many absentee ballots that this system we have of doing all this by hand doesn’t work anymore.”

A decade ago Bridgeport’s town clerk had 17 employees. In 2007, the department had nine employees. And now with retirements and layoffs, this campaign season the town clerk’s is down to six staffers, who not only process absentee ballots, but handle land records, register business trade names and issue dog licenses, among other things.

As the article says the number of absentee ballots sent for this election is 1,100. We wonder how many of those are duplicates? So far, it seems that for the one voter checked, it was a duplicate. Just last November, the citizen Bridgeport Recount showed 1,221 absentee votes for Governor, but the city’s official count was 1,181, so there is certainly plenty of precedent for inaccurate counts in Bridgeport, yet the 1,100 represents a decrease in absentee ballots sent last November. (Unless some magically appeared back then.)

Who says there is little a single legislator can do to affect election integrity and confidence? Human error can change an election result or serve as a ready excuse to cover-up fraud.

Related: Today, Secretary Merrill responds to critical editorial, articulates her position on early voting, mail-in, and no-excuse absentee voting. <read>

Update: We have looked up the existing Google election application used by many to find their polling places. Politico: Google polling app misleads voters <read> Last spring we attended a presentation by Google on the system. In reply to our question, the Google representative confirmed that the application is only as good as the data supplied by the state. Which in Connecticut’s case would need to come from our inaccurate state system as reported by the Audit Coalition. Sadly, the Legislature and the Secretary of the State’s Office chose not to require Registrars to keep the system up to date, but choose to have Registrars file yet another paper report with the Secretary of the State <see our testimony page 16>

Sec 4. (NEW) Also requires registrars to certify to the Secretary of the State a list of polling
places prior to each election. The Secretary of the State needs to have an accurate list of polling
places to be in compliance with the law and to restore the integrity of the post-election audit
random drawing.

We support this goal, but propose a more efficient 21st century solution.

We recommend instead that registrars be required to certify that the Statewide Centralized Voter
Registration System is up to date with the correct list of polling places, rather than submit a list
of polling places. In 2010 the Secretary of the State’s Office used the registration system
information to provide voters with online access to verify their registration and determine the
location of their polling place – it would seem to be more efficient to have

registrars be required to keep the online list accurate,

provide voters with certified accurate information.

Our recommendation would

avoid redundant transcription by the registrars,

reduce the paperwork and redundant data entry required for the random drawing, while increasing automation at the Secretary of the State’s Office,

and provide voters with accurate polling place information, available online.

NJ: Questionable practices – Questioning courts and watchdogs

Rigged election or three human errors – we may never know for sure.

Update: All four parts of the series are now complete in one <.pdf>

Significant that the Judge ordered a redo of the election. For the reasons stated, that may not be the best solution when the voters’ intentions are clear.

*************

Rigged election or three human errors – we may never know for sure. Freedom To Tinker: NJ election cover-up <read>

The Court: The 2011 New Jersey Primary Election was held on June 7, 2011. In District 3 of Fairfield Township, Cumberland County, four individuals ran for two open seats on the Democratic Executive Committee. Following the election, the County Clerk certified the results as Vivian Henry, 34 votes; Mark Henry, 33 votes; Ernest Zirkle, 9 votes; and Cynthia Zirkle, 10 votes…
[Administrator of the Cumberland County Board of Elections] Ms. Hernandez claimed that she has programmed the voting machines in Cumberland County since June of 2008, to avoid the cost of the County of hiring a programmer. She further claimed that she mistakenly placed the position for Vivian and Mark Henry onto the position of Cynthia and Ernest Zirkle, and vice versa. This information was then put into the voting machine cartridge and sent to the warehouse for testing. The voting machine technicians inserted the cartridge into the voting machine and began the necessary testing. Ms. Hernandez then claims that the voting machine technicians did not catch her error in the programming…

On August 17, 2011, an expert retained by the Plaintiffs, Dr. Andrew W. Appel, made an inspection of the voting machine and the laptop, pursuant to the Order following the July 11 hearing. In conducting this inspection, Mr. Appel found certain concerns with the security procedures which the Administrator had put in place.

He also discovered that his ability to examine the Administrator’s WinEDS laptop was seriously compromised by what appeared to be an action that someone performed on the computer on August 16, 2011, which erased a number of files which Dr. Appel wanted to examine…

In response to the August 22, 2011 Order to Show Cause, the Attorney General filed a Certification of Jason W. Cossaboon, Sr., a Computer System Analyst employed by Cumberland County. Mr. Cossaboon, in his Certification, states that on August 16, 2011, he was asked by the Administrator to determine the date the hardening process was applied to the laptop used to program the voting machines. [editor’s note: I’ll explain “hardening” in the sequel article]

He apparently was not able to find a log file for the laptop to indicate the date the hardening was done. However, he states that while working on the laptop, he noticed the computer was running very slowly. As a result, he deleted certain “temporary files.” He also, for some reason, deleted the event view logs…

I do not know and may never know exactly why this election was defective. I have suspicions that something happened here that was improper and I even question whether something happened here that may have been criminal. And I strongly encourage the Attorney General to turn this over to the Attorney General Division of Criminal Justice, so that appropriate criminal investigators can conduct a full and complete investigation of this matter, to assure that criminality did not take place.

Although the Board of Elections and the Administrator maintain that human error was all that was involved here, for me to believe that I have to believe that three independent errors, human errors, occurred here, and that somewhat stretches my belief of common sense and reality, but it’s possible.

Accordingly, I am ordering a new election to be conducted on September 27, 2011.

To be continued. This is part one of four blog posts promised.

Absentee votes in Florida, voters not required to participate

A three part series highlights ongoing, organized, absentee vote fraud in Florida. The [low] highlight is the video and story in the first part, of a disabled former county worker who tried her darnedest to vote but in the end was denied.

Could Mrs. Thompson have forgotten that she received and returned the ballot? She said no numerous times. As a former County worker, she was sharp as a tack mentally. We compared the ballot envelope signature to a fresh signature sample done by Judith at Elections as well as to the signature on her State identification card. The signature on the absentee ballot envelope when compared with Mrs. Thompson’s valid signature wasn’t even close. There were three of us looking at the signatures. The envelope signature was very tight compared to her looser hand and the capital letters were written differently. I asked Elections how they verify absentee ballot signature, they said:

The signatures are verified electronically. If the signature on the certificate requires further review, then the certificate is reviewed manually. – Michelle G. McClain, Assistant Deputy Supervisor, Voter Services

It is interesting to note that when Miami Dade County Clerk Harvey Ruvin reviewed petition signatures he did them ALL manually and had a handwriting expert on hand. Maybe the Elections Department’s program is not working as it allowed Mrs. Thompson to be disenfranchised by a forged signature. I got a few different stories about how signatures are verified at the Election’s Department. I even called the software company that supplies Elections and they were very defensive. I asked them about statistics on accuracy, They never called back. Joe Centorino at the State’s Attorney’s office (now head of County’s Ethics), at my urging, instituted an investigation into Mrs. Thompson’s lost vote. He said it was difficult proving these cases. His biggest complaint was that there is no penalty for people from campaigns picking up absentee ballots from voters even though it is illegal. He needs to have a penalty to impose on the illegal activity in order to make arrests….

We had spent some time at the Miami–Dade County Department of Elections looking at returned absentee ballot envelopes and ballots from the preceding election. What we reviewed were the now empty ballot-filled envelopes which have the voter’s address information and signature. The actual ballots do not have any identifying numbers, names or marks on them. We viewed those separately. We were not allowed to touch or copy the envelopes or ballots. They were held up in front of our faces.

What we saw during our time at Elections amazed us. It actually prepared us for Ms. Thompson’s experience. What we learned through interviews before Ms. Thompson’s trek to Elections was not surprising.

During our time at Elections, we saw ballots that were filled in strangely.

Among the oddities were numerous ballots that had only 2 candidates (the same two) filled in out of the scads of candidates in the November election. There were ballots with pencil circles around the “correct” bubble with dark ink colored in them. It may not sound like much, but when you are sitting there looking at page after page, you soon realize that some things you see are not quite right.

When it came to the ballot certification envelopes, our review offered up many questions and we oftentimes received answers from the department about the absentee process that didn’t make sense.

On the envelopes we noted some strange things like unusual numbers of voters in a certain area missing required printed signatures at the envelope top while other areas had all of the required printing on them. There were envelopes with signatures in the wrong place allowing the envelopes to be opened or closed; there were different hand writing styles on the top, bottom and front of the envelope; there were envelopes with NO signature (they were counted, now I want you to try that at a poll) and other things that just seemed weird.

In some cases we asked to compare the envelope signatures with the one on file and we were denied the opportunity. We asked questions about the envelope review process. The response really didn’t calm our discomfort with what we saw. After this visit, I am still not convinced that the envelopes are truly looked at in a comprehensive matter – having found one vote counted with NO signature…

Miami Herald’s Columnist Fred Grimm said:

“In 1993, after the Hialeah city election was tainted by illicit commerce in absentee votes, a Miami Herald editorial warned, “Florida’s absentee ballot guidelines are among the nation’s most lenient. Indeed, the laws encourage ‘ballot brokers’ who exchange blocs of absentee ballots for money. The Legislature needs to adopt tighter regulations for obtaining absentee ballots. The Florida Senate wisely voted down a bill this year that would have made the code even looser.”

That bit of wisdom did not hold. In 2004, the Legislature relaxed absentee ballot rules. And ballot brokers are still deciding elections. (The Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections mailed out 126,372 absentee ballots for Tuesday’s county mayoral election.) If the rules were any looser, my dog Jasper could vote absentee.”…

A View from an Insider:

There are cases where they would be “using” the absentee ballots mailed to the typical Cuban seniors — those who are handicapped by their physical problems, and many who are not. These people don’t speak English; most live either in nursing homes or in private nursing homes [family homes that take up to 8 seniors], so the people who are the managers at these places are in control of the votes/people.

These seniors don’t know how to vote, so they trust their “handlers” to do this for them. Let’s say that there’s a private home that houses 8 seniors; the person who manages the place will sell their ballots to the people who are gathering votes for the candidates. This manager can collect anywhere from $50 to $100 per ballot. It all depends on how badly the campaigns need the vote and, most all, how much money is available for negotiating.

Why on earth do you think that the costs of running a political campaign in Miami-Dade get higher with every new election? Do you really believe that they need the money for radio and TV?

In the case of the dining rooms [“comedores”], I understand that it is more of a communal process. As the ballots arrive, the “handlers” sit with the seniors and they tell them that they are going to help complete the voting process, so it is easier for them. These seniors have no idea how to vote, and even the presence of a ballot scares them to death.

In the cases of the hundreds of Cuban clinics in Miami-Dade – that are no more than Medicare mills – the owners, or managers, ask the seniors if they want to “negotiate” their ballots, and they offer them money. Naturally, a Medicare mill is there to help the senior make money, one way or the other. And then the seniors request their ballots by phone, and even if they would need a medical excuse, stating that they “can’t go to the polls,” remember who’s helping them to do the transaction, THEIR CLINIC…

Here is a last word from the Miami Herald:

“Still, interviews with at least a half-dozen people involved in Greater Miami elections paint a picture of a flourishing cottage industry in which ballot brokers promise to deliver blocks of absentee votes for a price. To be sure, many strategies for targeting absentee voters are legal, but the practice becomes dubious when voters are pressured with insistent phone calls and home visits. And the efforts can cross the line into fraud, when ballots that are collected under the guise of helping a voter are altered or destroyed.”

How much safer/riskier is Connecticut? We are not so sure. People here have been prosecuted. We are certain, that our President and the make-up of our Congress is dependent on errors and fraud in Florida and in every other state.

Ballot Skulduggery in Wisconsin? Or Inadvertent Errors?

Absentee voting runs the risks of errors and fraud beyond in-person voting. The latest example from Wisconsin: Is it fraud or is it error? For certain it is big money causing disenfranchisement and risking democracy.

Is the Koch-backed conservative group Americans For Prosperity up to no good in the Wisconsin state Senate recalls?

As Politico reports, mailers have now turned up from Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin, addressed to voters in two of the Republican-held recall districts, where the elections will be held on August 9. The mailers ask recipients to fill out an absentee ballot application, and send it in — by August 11, after Election Day for the majority of these races.

“These are people who are our 1’s [solid Democrats] in the voterfile who we already knew,” a Democratic source told Politico. “They ain’t AFP members, that’s for damn sure.”

The response from AFP and the Koch

“This just went out to our members,” Seaholm said. “I’m sure the liberals will try to make a mountain out of a molehill in an attempt to distract voters’ attention from the issues.”

But what of the self-identified Democratic voters who received them?

Seaholm noted that some critics of his group sign up for AFP material so they can keep tabs on the organization, which backs GOP candidates and causes and was co-founded by billionaire activists David and Charles Koch. He said he couldn’t be sure if that is what happened here.

“No (mailing) list is perfect,” Seaholm said.

What do you think?

Exit Polling Nixed in Middle of Wisconsin Election

Government Accountability Board halts citizen election accountability. Despite prior approval, volunteer citizens group barred from doing what Corporations have been doing for years.

From BradBlog: Wisconsin ‘Government Accountability Board’ Shuts Down Recall Election Exit Polling – Says nonpartisan polling ‘electioneering’ because candidates’ names appear on exit poll ‘ballot’ <read>

According to a press release (see below) issued yesterday by EDA, despite local volunteer pollsters being equipped with copies of GAB regulations and a letter from the head of GAB outlining permission for exit polling, the rules were apparently changed during the day and pollsters forbidden to hand out the exit polling ‘ballot’ voters were asked to complete anonymously.

EDA National Chairperson Sally Castleman told The BRAD BLOG, “The numerous red flags that came to light in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election this spring alerted many Wisconsinites to the need for citizen oversight in their elections. With official vote counts being conducted secretly inside computers, exit polling is one of the very, very few mechanisms left to the public for assessing the legitimacy of official outcomes.” Castleman added, “We need to see this level of public participation all over the nation in order to halt the privatization of our elections.”

From the press release:

Despite having the GAB Regulations (§§5.35 (5), 7.37 (2) ) in hand plus a letter from Kevin Kennedy, head of the GAB, both clearly allowing exit polling, the GAB today through GAB member David Buerger, has said that the group is “electioneering” because candidates names appear on the polling “ballot.” He further dictated that no voter would be allowed to touch an exit poll ballot, that pollsters can only verbally ask the voters their responses. This despite the fact that Edison-Mitofsky, the polling company commissioned by the Media Consortium to conduct Exit Polling nationally over the last many years, uses written polling ballots that the voters fill in themselves.

The polls were being run by concerned Wisconsin citizens volunteering under the guidance of Election Defense Alliance and Protect California Ballots, two non-partisan organizations with the mission of restoring transparency to our elections. Both organizations have run non-partisan exit polls many times in the past in close to a dozen states. Neither group has ever been harassed in such a way before.

“This is reasoning beyond specious”, said Jonathan Simon, Director of Election Defense Alliance. “Exit polling in this country has been going on for decades. To call it ‘electioneering’ simply because candidates names appear on the poll ballot, when all names appear without any advocacy involved, is absurd. This is concealment in OUR elections. Public participation is being forbidden!”

And from the press release, related charges we have not seen elsewhere which require more detail for verification:

Despite the fact that the law says a photo ID is requested but not required for this election, reports have been received from Glendale that voters are not being allowed to vote without photo ID.

In another related story, robo-calls, reportedly coming from Virginia, are being made to Democrats throughout the primary districts today telling them not to vote today because an absentee ballot is in the mail.

Update: Here is another story on those robo calls: <read>

The phone calls, which were traced to a telemarketing company in Virginia, carried the following message from Wisconsin Right to Life executive director Barbara Lyons:

Hello, this is Barbara Lyons from Wisconsin Right to Life. I’m calling today to let you know that you will be receiving an absentee ballot application for the upcoming recall elections in the mail in the next few days. These recall elections are very important and voting absentee will ensure that your vote is counted and that we can maintain a pro-family, pro-life state Senate. We hope that we can count on you to complete that application and send it back to us within seven days. Thank you for your support. Wisconsin Right to Life can be reached by calling 877–855-5007.

…“Wisconsin Right to Life condemns bloggers who are falsely and viciously reporting that Wisconsin Right to Life is making calls telling people not to vote today. That is completely untrue,” Lyons said . “Wisconsin Right to Life has not ever and is not now making phone calls to suppress votes.”

Round-Up: O Me O My O – Errors in Jersey and Fraud in Ohio

We frequently highlight stories of election error and fraud nationwide. We do this as a service to provide references to counter the frequent statements from election officials and legislators claiming no record of such errors and fraud.

Editor’s Note: We frequently highlight stories of election error and fraud nationwide. We do this as a service to provide references to counter the frequent statements from election officials and legislators claiming no record of such errors and fraud.

O Me O My O – How They Add Votes In Ohio

Secretary of State turns investigation over to prosecutors: Elections chief suspects voter fraud – Secretary of State seeks criminal investigation <read>

Looks like certain fraud and perhaps a strong case for prosecution:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted wants the attorney general and the Lawrence County Prosecutor to determine if a group of Democrats attempted voter fraud in the 2010 general election.

If so, it could mean prison time and a fine for anyone convicted of these crimes.

On Tuesday Husted turned over to Mike DeWine and J.B. Collier the findings of his investigation into the applications of 119 Lawrence County absentee ballots for further review and possible prosecution…

At issue are applications for absentee ballots that were sent to two post office boxes — 42 were sent to a box in the name of Ironton resident Charles Maynard and 77 were sent to a box in the name of Russell Bennett of Chesapeake during the fall of 2010.

“Of the 77 absentee ballot applications marked to be sent to Russ Bennett’s P.O. Box, 68 reportedly were hand-delivered to the Lawrence County Board of Elections office by a man named Butch Singer,” according to the letter sent to Mike DeWine and J.B. Collier.

In October a board of elections employee noticed that the handwriting in the “Send Ballot To” portion of the applications differed from that in the section with the voter’s name. The board then contacted 10 voters to see where they wanted their ballot sent.

“All 10 voters replied that they wanted their ballots mailed to them at their home address, suggesting that the ‘Send Ballot To’ portion of the absentee ballot application was completed after the voters filled in their application form,” Husted’s letter states.

Incidents like this demonstrate the reality of absentee/mail voting risks and why we would limit such voting to those genuinely unable to vote in person.

Humans and Machines Err In Garden State

In New Jersey, a voting machine is misprogrammed, then apparently a faulty or lax pre-election test fails to recognize the error. Finally, the surprise result causes an investigation: “Human error” found in Fairfield election results <read>

A supposed malfunction of the problematic and much-debated Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machines is being chalked up to human error.

Results from Primary Election day last month puzzled two candidates who expected the exact opposite. Less than a month later, there’s a line in the sand being drawn between a second election and inspection of the voting machine itself.

“On Election Day, the votes cast for Candidates Vivian and Mark Henry registered for Candidates Cynthia and Ernest Zirkle, respectively,” read a statement addressed to all affected by the Democratic County Committee election in Fairfield.

According to documents provided to The News, Cumberland County Board of Elections Director Lizbeth Hernandez takes responsibility and regrets a pre-election programming error.

Attached to a legal petition filed by the Zirkles were 28 affidavits from voters swearing they supported the two candidates.

Those 28 votes of the 43 total cast on June 7 make up the majority.

How frequently do such errors occur? We have no way of knowing. The good news is that in this instance the error was discovered and will be corrected. Yet, it is rare that so few voters are involved and that such strong evidence can be developed so that an investigation is initiated. Since New Jersey has paperless touch screen voting machines a re-vote will be required.

There is a tendency to dismiss these errors as “only” “human errors”, just as we dismiss transportation accidents as pilot, controller, or engineer errors. However, whatever role inadequate human capabilities or inadequate systems play in the equation, these are voting integrity issues that can be significantly reduced with better procedures, training, and systems, along with corrective measures like paper ballots and post-election audits.

Here in Connecticut we have paper ballots so that if such a problem were discovered we would not need a re-vote, just a recanvass or a recount. Yet we have little no reason to celebrate. We have many referendums or special elections in single towns with all memory cards programmed identically. In many cases there is no obvious reason to believe, let alone realistically prove, which candidate or decision “should” have won – too close an election or too many voters to realistically get enough affidavits. And referendums and special elections are exempt from post-election audits such as they are.

Voter fraud? Or thinly disguised agenda?

Where there is smoke we expect fire. Where there are extraordinary claims we need at least reasonable evidence.

From New Mexico, officials claim voter fraud, but withhold evidence: In voter fraud case, officials err on the side of secrecy <read>

My efforts to obtain the evidence behind Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s claim that she has found instances of foreign nationals illegally voting have been shot down again, this time by the Taxation and Revenue Department

Two months ago I asserted that Secretary of State Dianna Duran failed the open government test because she put a number of hurdles – some of them illegal – in front of my efforts to obtain the “evidence” she claims to have found of foreign nationals illegally voting in elections.

Where there is smoke we expect fire. Where there are extraordinary claims we need at least reasonable evidence.

Flip-Flopping has its place, but not in voting

Reading and listening to the media we are led to believe that flip-flopping is the worst possible political sin. Wrong. Much of the time we spend writing, voice-mailing, or speaking with legislators is working to convince them to understand a more complete picture; to change their positions on issues.

Brad Friedman covers the case of a voting machine flip-flopping in Los Vegas and the history of flip-flopping and completely missing votes: Las Vegas Mayoral Candidate Sees Own Vote Flipped to Opponent on Touch-screen Voting Machine <read>

It took two tries, but Carolyn Goodman, candidate for Mayor of Las Vegas, and wife of current Mayor Oscar Goodman, was finally able to vote for herself today on Nevada’s illegally-certified, 100% unverifiable Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen voting machines. At least she thinks she did. Whether her vote will actually be counted for her is something that nobody can ever know…

The failure that Goodman had, and noticed, is just the latest in a string of celebs and candidates who have had similar problems with 100% unverifiable voting machines — as still used by some 20 to 30% of voters in the U.S. — either flipping their vote, or not allowing them to vote at all…
[Randy] Wooten was running for mayor in the rural Poinsett County town with a population of just 80 people that year, when he learned, after the close of polls on Election Night, that he had received a grand total of ZERO votes, as reported by the county’s ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting systems.

As AP noted at the time Wooten said, “I had at least eight or nine people who said they voted for me, so something is wrong with this picture.” Among those people who Wooten believed had voted for him: himself and his wife.

In Praise Of Flip-Flopping

In 2005, Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, publicly tested and was about to choose unverifiable touch screen (DRE) voting machines similar to those in Los Vegas – then she looked at the evidence, considered additional information from vocal advocates, and flip-flopped. That is why we have voter verifiable paper ballots and optical scanners in Connecticut, with a side benefit of saving about half the cost of DREs.