Avoid the straight party option when voting in November!

The difficulty in removing the wrong presidential choice, however, created another means of generating an under-vote. To override the automatic Bush vote or the voter’s wrong choice on the Sequoia push-button electronic voting machines, voters had to push the button for Bush (or the wrong candidate) again (a toggle mechanism) to erase the vote. Voters reported that they had to push the Bush button from two to ten times to remove that incorrect choice before they could vote for their preferred candidate.

Furthermore, after removing the vote for the wrong candidate and voting for their correct one, some voters reported that when they got to the review screen at the end of the ballot, they found no vote for president had registered. Voters reported the need to scroll back up the ballot one or two more times to vote again for their presidential choice. Even when the review screen actually showed their correct vote, citizens voiced concern that their vote would not actually register. They worried about the voters who were unable to find and correct this problem of no-vote or a wrong vote for president.

        The programmed mechanisms in the straight party option probably contributed to the high under-vote rate on Election Day. These programmed mechanisms for the straight party option include a vote shifting formula in the scanners used to count ballots for absentee and early voting (see below); and with the DREs on Election Day:  no-vote-for-president for all but the Republican party; a difficult to change incorrect presidential vote; an inadvertent canceling of straight party votes when voting outside that party, or undetected or uncorrected Bush default.  The under-vote total alone, 1117, amounts to 19% of Kerry’s loss by 5988 in New Mexico.  In New Mexico, the Election Day statewide presidential under-vote was 17,095.

Down-Ticket Discrepancies in Early Voting and Absentee

        One might assume that the "straight-party" discrepancies only occurred on the Election Day electronic DRE voting machines.  Not so! Evidence shows votes for President for persons voting "straight-party" in third parties, such as the Green Party, both in the Absentee and the Early Voting choices were not recorded. For example, the straight party choice for the Green party showed 2 votes, but no votes registered for David Cobb.  There were, however, minimal under-votes recorded; this implies another candidate received the "shifted" vote.  Sequoia scanners with proprietary software counted both the Absentee and the Early Voting paper ballots.  Since the three Democratic members of the State Election Board prevented the official hand recount, citizens have no way to know how much vote shifting occurred.

Roster Signatures, Total Votes Cast, Votes for President:  Hidden Provisional Ballots

        The website of the NM Secretary of State lists the total number of roster signatures for each voting occasion by precinct. A comparison of the total number of signatures with the total votes counted shows, for all voting occasions in Santa Fe, 1523 more roster signatures than total ballots cast.  That is a large number of voters who signed the roster books, but for some reason, did not have their ballot counted.  That number, 1523, is 27% higher than the tallied under-vote of 1117.  The website also shows 205 phantom votes, (more votes cast than roster signatures) in the three voting occasions:  95 in absentee voting and 110 in early voting.  Researchers Warren Stewart and Ellen Theisen explained that election officials subtracted phantom votes from the under-vote in their certified vote tallies instead of listing the phantom votes in a separate category on the certified totals.

        The total number of more-signatures-than-votes-cast may be the uncounted provisional ballots:  2% of the total ballots cast in Santa Fe County.  Rather than post the counted and uncounted provisional ballots as a separate category, Warren Stewart reports, the Secretary of State adds the total provisional ballots counted to the election night totals.  Combine the 1523 uncounted ballots to the under-vote of 1117 and get 2640.  This 2640 is 4% of the total Santa Fe County vote and it may represent the extent of voter disenfranchisement in this County.  If the uncounted provisional ballots were primarily from newly registered Democrats whose voter registration forms remained unprocessed or destroyed, then much of the 2640 votes (under-vote + uncounted provisional ballots) amounts to 44% of Kerry’s 5,988 vote loss.

Summary

        When voters use the "straight-party" option during an election, they run the risk of losing their vote.  The effects observed in New Mexico have also been seen in many other states that offer the "straight-party" option.  Whether intentional or unintentional, the use of proprietary software prevents citizens from observing the actual vote counting; thus, citizens do not know if their votes are counted as cast.  Scanners that count paper ballots use proprietary software and are just as susceptible to large inaccuracies as the touch screen machines.  Citizens must vote on paper ballots but unless citizens also hand count these ballots no one can verify the accuracy of the total vote count with or without the "straight-party" option.  Since fifteen states in November 2008 continue to offer the "straight-party" voting option and almost no option to hand count paper ballots yet exists, after reading this evidence, voters should avoid using the "straight-party" option.

States that still have straight party voting include:  New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Texas, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Michigan.  (New Hampshire and Missouri no  longer have this option.)

Articles about New Mexico:

Stewart, Warren.  2005.  “Did We Bounce An Election?”  www.votersunite.org and click here

Theisen, Ellen and Warren Stewart.  2004.  “Summary Report on New Mexico State Elections Data.”  www.USCountVotes.org

Liddle, Elizabeth, and Josh Mittledorf.  2005.  “Analysis of Undervotes in New Mexico’s 2004 Presidential Ballots.” www.USCountVotes.org

Plotner, Robert Glenn.  2005.  “A Guide to irregularities in the 2004 New Mexico General Election.”    www.USCountVotes.org

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