<x-flowed>Ohio, of course was only one of a few states to conduct primaries.
There are other stories, in and outside of OH, that I can point to, if
useful here, where we see a slew of other interesting phenomena, some
seen before and some brand-new (like Boone County, IN having to count
VVPR records or total tapes (unclear which) after the vote data
cartridges were unreadable[1] and another case from Akron, OH where a
not-so-gentleman tried to damage Diebold TSx voting machines[2] for
some reason.)
best, Joe
[1]:
http://www.journalreview.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=22267&TM=935.72
[2]:
http://www.newsnet5.com/politics/9146477/detail.html
On 5/4/06, Candice Hoke
<shoke@law.csuohio.edu> wrote:
On Tuesday, May 2, Ohio held a statewide primary election for all the
constitutional officers of the State (Governor, Attorney General, Secretary
of State, etc.), plus the federal office primaries, and many local offices
and ballot questions. For the first time, voters were allowed no-fault
absentee ballots. No results for the county have been reported yet. Here's
why--
For many Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga (Cleveland), this was the first
election in which e-voting technology was used. The smaller counties, and
those which had been using electronic voting previously, have at present
reported few problems. In Cuyahoga County, which was using punch cards as
late as November 2005, very significant and persistent problems have led to
the inability to report election results. The Board Members (2 Rs and 2
Ds) have been working assiduously with Director Michael Vu to resolve
problems that were developing last week and into this week.
A few key problems:
<>
<><>-- all absentee ballots (over 17,000) have had to be handcounted, and
they are still being counted-- predodminantly by temps. These were optical
scan ballots. The Diebold scanners were evidently delivered only 2 weeks
ago. While the scanners reportedly were able to accurately count test
ballots, as soon as real Cuyahoga County ballots were tested (on Monday),
the machines failed to read properly. Diebold claims that in the rest of
Ohio, these scanners have worked fine so the problem lies in the printing
company's errors. It is not clear who bears responsibility at this time.
<><><><> <><><>
--Hundreds of poll workers failed to report to work on Tuesday morning,
evidently worried about the new technology.<><><><><><><><><><><><>
-- Diebold TSx touchscreen DREs were used at the polling places for the
first time. Many polling places were unable to open promptly because the
machines did not boot up. It appears that one cause may lie in the county
manuals having inaccurate set up, security check, and closing down
directions. But it is not clear whether some of the problem lies with the
vendor/manufacturer.
-- the Diebold servers that were to receive the transmissions from the
roughly 45 zone stations throughout the county (after precinct memory cards
were delivered) were reportedly unable to handle the data. Director Vu
stated that Cuyahoga had to prepare over 67,000 separate ballot styles for
this election (owing to a multitude of smaller jurisdictions, the party
primaries where separate ballots had to be provided, and most crucially--
the Ohio law requiring candidates' names to be rotated in particular ways).
I am checking to see if the State law may admit other interpretations that
could reduce the number of ballot styles in the future. But the prolix
number of ballot styles required, whether this amount or even only 25% of
this number, does admit an unacceptable degree of human error into the
system. The vast number of ballot styles may have been the cause of the
server problems. The State Legislature should revisit the ballot styles
issue.
-- initially, over 200 memory cards were not returned and are believed
still remaining in the DRE units. The number reported has fluctuated
between 50 and over 200. Some memory cards have been retrieved and others
remain missing.
In early June, the nonpartisan Center for Election Integrity will be
holding a results-oriented conference to examine the statewide experience on
May 2 and to generate an action-agenda for improvements. Congresswoman
Stephanie Tubbs Jones is a confirmed panelist. We will send further
information later as speakers have been confirmed. Our Center is also
endeavoring to assist the County in resolving the current vote count
problems. I'm sending Rick the newspaper links for his report.
Candice Hoke
Director, Center for Election Integrity
Assoc. Professor of Law
Cleveland State University
2121 Euclid Ave., Cleveland OH 44115
216.687.2313 (W)
216.687.4626 (Sec'y)
216.397.8266 (H)
www.csuohio.edu/cei/
<><><>
--
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
PhD Student, UC Berkeley, School of Information
<http://josephhall.org/>
blog:
<http://josephhall.org/nqb2/>
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