(*See end of this article for hints on how to use the two EAC Inspector Gadget obstructo-matic secret decoder rings needed to make sense of this file)
That file contains the raw data submitted by each secretary of state, with details right down to the number of absentee ballots in the wrong envelope and the reasons voters were taken off lists. What it DOESN'T contain, however, is the number of votes counted in Kentucky in the 2006 General Election. When you search the minimal information presented in news reports back then, you see a glimmer of a hint that Kentucky had a statewide voting computer meltdown in 2006.
Kentucky submitted thousands of data points for the EAC 2006 survey for every one of its 120 counties but omitted -- you guessed it -- the votes. Results have been posted on Web sites, but I find myself wondering, given the all-too-real 2006 meltdown of the voting tally system in 96 counties, whether people in the Kentucky Secretary of State's office may have been reluctant to sign a federally required report committing to those very problematic results.
THE BULLITT COUNTY MISMATCH WENT STATEWIDE
Bullitt County, Kentucky citizen Kathy Greenwell could have told you that was going to happen. Her husband ran for sheriff in November 2006, and while she obtained copies to match up the voting machine results tapes with the announced results she discovered they didn't match. None of them.
HERE'S HOW THE KENTUCKY VOTING MACHINES ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK
Voters cast their votes into paperless touchscreens at the polling place. At the end of Election Day, each voting machine spits out a results tape. Then, the cartridges from each voting machine are fed into a cartridge reader. It reads all the cartridges and transfers the data into a tallying program that adds them all up. And that's when Kathy Greenwell got her dander up in 2006, because the information coming out of the tally system didn't match the results on the poll tapes for any race.
As the evening progressed, the mismatches began to hop around like frogs on electronic lily pads. In addition to wildly fluctuating results, a bunch of questionable individuals started wandering in and out of the back room, many of whom were related to the Tinnell family, which had three members of the family on the ballot (Donnie Tinnell: Sheriff; Sherman Tinnell: Mayor; Melanie Roberts: Judge Executive). All the Tinnell people won, but none of the results ever did match up.
Kathy Greenwell keeps demanding answers, but never has gotten any. At one point Bullitt County Clerk Kevin Mooney gave her a new results tape which, he claimed, made things match up. Unfortunately, this new tape only balanced the mismatch out for Kathy's husband Dave Greenwell's sheriff's race. All the other races are still out of whack.
Bullitt County -- and the other 96 counties in Kentucky serviced by a voting machine services firm called HARP ENTERPRISES -- claimed that the incorrect vote totals were due to a "fusion problem" when the computer tried to add up the totals from the old Shoup/Danaher 1242 voting machines combined with the new Hart eSlate machines.
WHAT YOU DIDN'T READ IN THE NEWS ABOUT THIS:
1. Pennsylvania also has locations that use both these machines, and their fusion program works. Or at least so we are told -- Philadelphia County got the bright idea to charge the public to look at results there, restricting viewing to those who purchase a password, and we don't know if anyone did the same thing Kathy Greenwell did, matching up each tape to the published results you have to purchase.
Nevertheless, we have no evidence that Pennsylvania's system, same machines as Kentucky, is unable to match its own results up.
2. Kentucky then "solved" the problem by deciding to stop printing the reports so no one can check to see if they match.
Yes, that's what I said. Kentucky decided to use ONLY the poll tape results, hand entering them into a computer in the back room, and never put the cartridges into the reader, never generate that second report. With only one-half of the check and balance, you can neither check nor balance the poll tapes against the cartridge reader.
Oh, come now! I can’t address Kentucky, but as for Oregon, all your deep, dark supposings add up to just one thing: no voting system ever devised has been foolproof. The critical distinction here is between error-proof and corruption-proof. Sure, signatures don’t always match – but how would you forge signatures – by running around stealing uncompleted ballots from mailboxes? Sure, the post office sometimes screws up, but how could it screw up in favor of one candidate or issue – by comparing unmailed ballots with voter party registrations and “losing” the opposition’s?” Sure, any computerized (or old-fashioned electro-mechanical) tallying system can be manipulated, but Oregon ballots are paper and very easy to check visually (unlike even blank cards with holes punched in them). Could they be stolen by evil librarians (who preside over official drop boxes) and government workers? Well, theoretically – but then, whose can’t? The bottom line is that well-managed mail-in voting is no more susceptible to errors than any and it’s less vulnerable to corruption than many alternatives. If you like deep, dark, designs, I'd suggest resuming speculation about Roswell, NM.
by
Jim Stinson (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 64 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 4:10:06 PM
We know -- absolutely, positively KNOW, that you don't mail out 2,500,000 items and have zero return undeliverable. We know -- absolutely, positively KNOW, that if 1,400,000 people mail something in, you are likely to have more than 50 arrive late, if for no other reason than the post office flubbed a few or (gasp!) one or two or a few dozen Oregonians may have mailed their ballot from out of state.
So the bookkeeping is wrong, Jim, and this year, in 2008, WE WILL NOT ACCEPT THE OOPS EXCUSE on election accounting figures. If your bank sends you a bank statement that lists 23 checks on it but you know that you wrote 29 checks, will you shrug and say "no one's perfect!"
No.
As to your contention that there would never be signature fraud, I'm wondering if you've done very much research on absentee ballot fraud. It has quite a history, and one of the places you find it, incidentally, is Kentucky. Now, you may want to contend that all people in Oregon are honest whereas all people in Kentucky are not, but I'm not sure I'd buy that. And gosh, what if someone from Kentucky moved to Oregon?
The protective systems are there for a reason. If they are not followed, elections are not protected.
My job is election protection. Dunno what yours is -- ridiculing election protection efforts? Does it pay well?
by
Bev Harris (78 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 21 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 5:51:29 PM
Okay, but you might put more effort into addressing my actual objections and less to making snide remarks about my motives. I've worked for myself for 30 years; and though that's a poor way to make money, it does leave you beholden to no one.
by
Jim Stinson (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 64 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 8:32:32 PM
3 comments
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