Just after last November's election, I wrote an LTE to our local newspaper regarding verification of the accuracy of ballot counts on op-scan machines such as those in use in Flagler County, Florida. It was published, I got a response from our Supervisor of Elections, and was contacted a worker for a losing candidate to find out whether I know something their campaign should know. The Supervisor of Elections assured me that she shares my concern about the accuracy and transparency of ballot counts and election results. Nothing further came of it until a couple of weeks ago.
-- more on the other side --
After reports that the California op-scan machines had been easily hacked, an issue appeared in articles in a number of Florida newspapers. Here is a link to the Miami Herald's article:
http://www.miamiherald.com:80/...
Astounding!!! The Florida Secretary of State, our new Katherine Harris, 'fessed up that op-scan machines can be hacked. Who would have believed it? Feigning dismay, the SOS decided to do something! He made an angry speech. Then, only a few days later, he announced that all is well. It can't happen now because Florida made Diebold insert some new secret code that will catch cheaters. Want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?
After seeing this story, I decided to again write to our local elections chief here in Flagler County. I sent the link to the Miami Herald article and again stated that the only way to deter cheating on op-scan machines is to do a random hand count of all ballots in at least 10% of the precincts. Any discrepancies would automatically trigger a full hand recount.
Here is her reply to my email:
Sam - Thanks for your email.
I totally agree that all elections must be completely transparent. In this past legislative session, HB 537 was passed with an audit requirement similar to your suggestion.
It states (effective 7-1-08), that immediately following the certification of each election, the county canvassing board (or local board responsible for certifying the election) shall conduct a manual audit of the voting systems used in randomly selected precincts. The audit must be completed and the results made public within 7 days following certification by the canvassing board. The audit shall consist of a public manual tally of votes cast in one randomly selected race.
The tally sheet must include election-day, absentee, early voting, provisional and overseas ballots in at least 1% but no more than 2% of the precincts chosen.
There is a proposed federal bill that requires a higher percentage of precincts to be audited.
Thank you again for your input.
Peggy Border"
Unbelievable!!! But now we know what the Florida Republicans are up to and we can expect replication if they get away with it.
I wrote back to Ms. Borders:
Thanks for responding to my e-mail. It would have been good [had] something meaningful been done, but, frankly, this looks like a way to enable chicanery. You quote: "The audit shall consist of a public manual tally of votes cast in one randomly selected race."
If not less than 1% nor more than 2% of the precincts are randomly audited and there are 20 or so races on the ballot, the likelihood is very, very high that a race that has been tampered with will go undiscovered. This looks more like window dressing than a serious attempt to discover tampering, especially since it would tie your hands by prohibiting you from doing a more thorough audit.
Suppose, for example, that the "randomly selected race" in Flagler County is the East Flagler Mosquito District contest. The likelihood of that race being fixed is probably near zero. If a Gubenatorial race is also on the ballot, it is a no-brainer that it would be far more likely to attract tampering.
Oh, well, so much for trying to guarantee fair elections without any possible fraud in the tally. The provisions you cite seem to me to protect those who would tamper with vote counts, not discover tampering.
That is not the end of the story. On August 1, 2007, after the issue appeared in papers around the State, our local, very progressive, family run newspaper, the Daytona Beach News Journal, http://www.news-journalonline.com , wrote an editorial (no longer in the free archive) titled: "If you vote, will it count? Can't tell without paper." That editorial also noted that without an audit of voting machines, it would not be possible to have confidence that the election results reported are accurate.
Again, I submitted an LTE:
Op-scan ballot accuracy
Re "If you vote, will it count? Can't tell without paper," editorial, Aug. 1:
The News-Journal agrees with me that the only way op-scan balloting can be trusted is if random audits are done. The editorial states, "Random audits that compare hand counts of optical-scan ballots to computer results would help ensure that tabulators aren't tampered with."
However, these audits are a deterrent only if they are done for every election, are truly random, and if the machines are randomly selected after voting has been concluded.
But suppose an audit shows one of the randomly selected machines' results are inaccurate? The failure of even one machine's electronic count to match the hand count would cast doubt over all the machines. It should trigger an automatic hand count of all ballots.
The LTE was published yesterday but it does not appear to me that people have caught on to what is going on here. There is clearly a problem for the GOP. Their cheating methods on electronically counted ballot devises have been exposed. They are getting a lot of heat, so they had to do something about it.
As usual, they did something that would guarantee that they can keep doing what they have been doing and make it not only unlikely they will be caught, but to make it ILLEGAL to do anything meaningful to catch them.
Think about it. An Elections Supervisor believes that vote count tampering may have happened in her/his county. The Florida Law, concocted by the Republican legislature, FORBIDS any manual count that does not conform to the provision that it be only one randomly selected race that is counted by hand, that it be on 1% but not more than 2% of the machines used.
That means that the Elections Supervisor can be prosecuted if she/he counts any other races by hand or counts 2.1% of the machines by hand. The Florida GOP made it illegal to verify vote counts by hand!!!
But the Florida SOS has spoken. The machines cannot be tampered with, he said. Trust me.