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7/31/2019 COUNTING VOTES 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness
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COUNTING VOTES 2012: A State by State
Look at Voting Technology Preparedness
Thursday, August 8, 2012
2:00 PM EST
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Speakers
Jenny Flanagan
Director of Voting and Elections, Common Cause
Pam SmithPresident of Verified Voting Foundation
Susannah GoodmanDirector, Voting Integrity Program, Common Cause
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Voting Machines Can Fail
All machines can
fail.
What can we do to
protect the vote?
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Five Areas of Review
1. Does the state require paper ballots or records of every state?
2. Does the state have adequate contingency plans at each polling
place in the event of machine failure?
3. Does the state protect military and overseas voters by ensuringthat marked ballots are not cast online?
4. Has the state instituted a post-election audit that can determine
whether the electronically reported outcomes are correct?
5. Does the state use robust ballot reconciliation and tabulation
practices?
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Is there a paper record for every ballot cast?
November 2004, North Carolina: 4,500 votes
permanently lost.
Outcome of election undecided for months
September 2008, Washington, DC: 1,500 phantom
votes added to the final total.
Re-count occurred, problem corrected
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Which states have paper ballots/records?
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Contingency Plans
January 2008, Horry, South Carolina: Voting machines in 80% of the precincts failed
Voters could not cast ballots in their home precinct
The Columbia State reported that napkins and paper towels were being used to record
votes. The protocol is to use pre-printed paperballots, State Election Commission
spokesman Chris Whitmire said. But if those aren't available when voters are there, "In
the meantime, they should use whatever means necessary to record the voters ballot.
Bad contingencyplan
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Contingency Plan Checklist
Procedures for machine repair and replacement
Paper ballots:
At every polling place
Deployed when machines malfunction When long lines occur
Treated as regular ballots
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Rating Contingency Plans
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Prohibit Internet transmission of markedballots
Prohibit use of Internet voting systems to mark and cast
ballots
Prohibit use of e-mail transmission of marked ballots
Prohibit use of e-fax transmission of marked ballots
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Bruce McConnell told a group of election officials, academics and
advocacy groups meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., that he believes "it'spremature to deploy Internet voting in real elections at this time.
McConnell said voting systems are vulnerable and, "when you connect
them to the Internet, that vulnerability increases." He called security
around Internet voting "immature and underresourced."
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Risks of e-mail and e-fax votes
Insert social security
number here
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If I can bank online, why cant I vote online?
Banks routinely budget for millions in losses due to
cyber-fraud. How many votes should we budget to
lose?
The secret ballot by design prevents the voter from
checking if his or her vote was recorded correctly
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Ratings for states on Internet voting
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Post-election audits
Has the state instituted a post-election audit that can determine
whether the electronically reported outcomes are correct?
Mandatory comparison of a random sample of the paper ballots toelectronic totals is one of the best ways to ensure that the reported
outcomes are correct.
A well-designed audit should use statistical sampling methods tied
to the margin of victory and should be able to correct the outcome if
it is wrong.
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Audits catch machine miscounts
In a municipal election in Palm Beach County, Florida, in March
2012, a problem with election management software allotted votes
to the wrong candidate and the wrong contest.
A post-election audit caught this problem
The official results were only changed after a court-sanctioned
public hand count of the votes.
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Rating the states on post-election audits
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Ballot reconciliation procedures
These basic procedures help ensure that no ballots
are lost or added as the votes are tallied and
aggregated from the local up to the state level.
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Reconcile vote and ballot totals and address discrepancies at the polling place
Compare the total number of votes cast to the total number of voters who signed in. Explain and
address any discrepancies.
For both regular and emergency paper ballots, compare the number of voted, spoiled and unused
paper ballots with the number of ballots sent to the polling place. Explain and address any
discrepancies.
Compare digital vote tallies from voting machines to vote total tapes. Notify county and state
officials of any discrepancies. If using optical scanners, flag ballots that should be re-counted on
the central tabulator.
Ifyour precinct has an accumulator that totals memory cards for each machine, compare the total
tapes from each machine to the total tapes from this accumulator.
Seal, sign and return packages of used and unused ballots.
Deliver official, sealed information packets containing all audit information (poll books, paper trails,paper ballots, vote total tapes, provisional ballots, emergency paper ballots, unused ballots and
memory cards) to the central count location.
At the county level:
Reconcile redundancies
Review status reports from the electronic tally server to ensure that all memory cards have been
read. Compare electronic tally server totals to vote total tapes generated from each voting machine.
Account for additional ballots that might not be included in vote total tapes, such as provisional
ballots, emergency paper ballots, absentee/mail-in ballots, including military and overseas ballots,
and early voting ballots.
Reconcile the total number of voters who signed in with the total number of votes recorded in the
county.
Re-check reconciliations performed at the polling places and investigate/resolve any discrepancies.
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Rating the states
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Action Steps
12 weeks until the election
Common Cause and Verified Voting staff and state leadersare working with election officials to:
Ensure that emergency paper ballots are available atevery polling place
Ensure that robust post-election audit procedures are inplace
Ensure that procedures are in place to help catchmachine failures that cause votes to be mistakenly addedor subtracted during the tallying process.
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What you can do
Become a poll monitor
Become a poll worker
To join our poll monitor or poll worker trainingprogram, go to: www.CommonCause.org/Elections
Become a member of Common Cause and VerifiedVoting
Donate: www.CommonCause.org/EdFund/Donate
http://www.commoncause.org/Electionshttp://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.commoncause.org/Elections7/31/2019 COUNTING VOTES 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness
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Thank You!
For more informationwww.CommonCause.org/Elections
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/
To Donate:www.CommonCause.org/EdFund/Donate
www.verifiedvoting.org/donate
More questions?ccwebinar@commoncause.org
http://www.commoncause.org/Electionshttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/http://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/Donatemailto:ccwebinar@commoncause.orgmailto:ccwebinar@commoncause.orghttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/Donatehttp://www.commoncause.org/EdFund/Donatehttp://www.verifiedvoting.org/http://www.verifiedvoting.org/http://www.commoncause.org/Elections