E-Voting News and Analysis, from the Experts

(I am just going to update this post as I hear of more problems as they are reported in the press…)

These are courtesy of VotersUnite!:

• Columbus, OH – An error while a Danaher / Guardian ELECTronic 1242 was plugged into a laptop to download results gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes.: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/evoting/2004-11-06-ohio-evote-trouble_x.htm
• Carteret Co., NC – More early voters voted on Unilect Inc.’s Patriot voting system than the system could handle resulting in the loss of more than 4,500 votes.: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/2004-11-04-votes-lost_x.htm
• Broward Co., FL – ES&S software on their machines only reads 32,000 votes at a precinct then it starts counting backwards (see this update): http://www.news4jax.com/politics/3890292/detail.html
• Guilford Co., NC - ES&S equipment “could report only about 32,600 early and absentee results". This seems very similar to the case above, (see this update) save that Guilford Co. uses optical scan for it absentee voting and may use the older Votronic system for early voting (although it would make a more consistent story if they used optical scan for all absentee and early voting).: http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1852104p-8179802c.html
• Wichita Co., TX – Nearly 6,900 of 26,000 total early votes had ‘undervote’ for President. Human error to blame. County has software problems that need ES&S to fix before they can run ballots: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/trn/local_news/article/0,1891,TRN_5784_3303816,00.html
• Lancaster Co., SC – Unilect Patriot voting machines were used and failed. Printouts of votes had to be taken from the machines memories and hand-counted: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10094349.htm
• Mecklenburg Co., NC – More votes registered than voters: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/politics/10094165.htm
  
• Volusia Co., FL – Diebold optical-scan machines had another failure with 6 machines having memory card failures. “Ion Sancho, the elections supervisor in Leon County, said officials with Diebold told him that the new, higher-capacity memory cards tend to have more glitches than older cards.”: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/elections/orl-asecvolusiaglitches04110404nov04,1,3289659.story?coll=orl-news-headlines
• Craven Co., NC - Software glitch forces a recount which changes the outcome in one race.: http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&Section=Local
• San Francisco, CA - A glitch in the new tabulation software made by ES&S to handle IRV/RCV voting (more here) stopped the counting and forced a recount of 81,000 ballots.: http://www.internetweek.com/allStories/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=52200321
• Sarpy County, NE - 3000 “phantom votes” show up after an audit reveals that some tabulation equipment counted votes twice. (I’m not sure if this is optical scan or some other system… they used optical scan in 2002): http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/1161971.html
• Willacy County, TX - Human error in reading results reports causes presidential votes for John Kerry to be counted twice and subsequently misreported to the Texas Secretary of State.: http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/10123432.htm?1c
• 10 Counties in North Carolina - Fidlar & Chambers optical-scan equipment database error counts straight-party Democratic votes as Libertarian.: http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/194113-4600-102.html
• Utah County, UT - 33,000 straight-party ballots are not counted due to a programming error in punchcard counting equipment.: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595105309,00.html
• LaPorte County, IN - A bug in ES&S’ software causes each precinct to be reported as only having (exactly) 300 voters each; all reports add up to 22,000 voters in a county that has more than 79,000 registered voters.: http://www.heraldargus.com/content/story.php?storyid=5304
• Gastonia, NC - Equipment failed to count 12,000 early votes due to an “interrupted download” error and failed to count 1,200 votes due to human error at one poll site.: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10192340.htm?1c UPDATE: Over half of Gaston’s polling places recorded too few or too many votes when compared to the number of registered voters who signed the registration poll books.: http://newsobserver.com/news/ncwire_news/story/1839095p-8157912c.html
• Brown and Carroll Cos., IN - In Brown County, 63 optical-scan ballots were cast without a single vote; this figure is much higher than in past elections but the vote is already certified so nothing can be done. In Carrol County, ES&S software failed to conform to a strange Indiana election law (whereby a single vote for a candidate of another party on a straight-party ballot renders all votes but the deviant vote void) and all ballots had to be recounted for a county council race.: http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041116/NEWS01/411160333/1008
• Sandusky Co., OH - Some ballots counted twice due to human error, likely putting count ballots next to uncounted ballots.: http://www.thenews-messenger.com/news/stories/20041116/localnews/1601347.html UPDATE: “Tuckerman explained that a computer disk containing votes was accidentally backed up into the voting machines twice by an election worker, causing it to look like there was an overcount.” from: http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/news/stories/20041125/localnews/1649165.html .
• Pinellas Co., FL - A ballot box containing 268 ballots was misplaced. The county has to formally request to change their official totals.: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/16/Tampabay/Pinellas_ballot_box_s.shtml
• Escambia Co., FL - “A problem with the way [optical-scan] tabulation machines [fed] information into the computer system” caused the total number of voters that cast votes to be inflated.: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/16/State/Escambia_voters_had_a.shtml
• Gray’s Harbor Co., WA - Counting went smoothly, but some computer disks were downloaded twice after the counting, inflating the reported results and forcing a recount.: http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D86D7FA80.html
• Pulaski Co., AR - Results entered by hand by the county clerk differ from results transmitted electronically to the Secretary of State. Human error suspected or an remarkably unusual amount of provisional ballots.http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg&section=National&storyid=99872
• Elko County, NV - 271 votes from three PCMCIA cards from Sequoia AVC Edge machines were not found until recently (10 December 2004). Election officials found the discrepancy when comparing the number of voters and the number of votes cast. http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/12/08/news/local/news1.txt
• Cuyahoga County, OH - (Note: this is not an e-voting problem, but a ballot usability problem.) When punchcard ballots for one precinct were mistakenly inserted into voting equipment for another precinct in a split-precinct polling place, the mandatory per-precinct rotation of the names on the ballot caused voters to mistakenly cast around 942 votes for third-party presidential candidates. http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1102674912293811.xml