OpEdNews » Election 2008: Spotlight on Minnesota

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Tag(s): Election 2008; Election Audit; Election Coverage; Election Investigations; Election Litigation; Election Observation; Election Recounts Protests; Election Reform Activism; Election Systems And Software; Elections_Campaigns; (more...) Electronic Voting; Faulty Voting Machines; Minnesota; Optical Scan Voting Machines; People Franken Al; Senate; Voting Integrity; Voting Laws Federal HAVA; Voting Technology; Voting-machine Errors (less...)
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November 13, 2008 at 18:01:41

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Promoted to Headline (H2) on 11/13/08:
Election 2008: Spotlight on Minnesota

by Joan Brunwasser Page 1 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Mark Halvorson is the director and co-founder of Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota (CEIMN). In 2004, he traveled to Ohio to observe the recount. CEIMN was founded in the wake of what happened there, its goal to ensure that votes are counted accurately. They seek “to [restore] the integrity of our electoral system through the implementation of:

* Voter verified paper ballots as the legal ballot of record for all elections.

* Accurate recording, counting, and reporting of all votes cast.

* Random hand recounts that are part of routine audits.

* Consistent enforcement of election procedures to ensure that everyone who wants to vote can do so without difficulty and to prevent all forms of vote fraud.

* Public oversight (eg., of voting machine software source code) and non-partisan administration of the election system.” (CEIMN website)

Halvorson is a big fan of mandatory manual audits*.

Audits are critical for protecting the integrity of the election process by providing an independent check on the accuracy of the election outcomes. Minnesota, widely considered a model for election administration, will have the opportunity during the audit and the recount, to demonstrate how accurate, transparent and fair elections should be conducted.

The national spotlight is on Minnesota right now because of the closeness of the Coleman/Franken Senate race. At this point, a little over 200 votes separate the two candidates. If Franken prevails, he could bring the Democrats a bit closer to a filibuster-proof Senate, so a lot is at stake. A statewide recount was automatically triggered by the close contest.

While we await that recount that begins November 19, a post-election audit is being conducted at this very moment. Minnesota is one of only 16 states that mandate this, and it was first used in place in 2006. The state is comprised of 4,123 precincts and 87 counties. 200 public-minded, democracy-loving, citizen volunteers are among those observing roughly 5% of the ballots from a minimum of 202 precincts across the state.

The audit takes about ten days. Each of the 2.9 million ballots cast in last week’s election will be examined and tallied by hand. Since Minnesota state law mandates paper ballots, touch-screen machines play no role here. The audit looks at three races only: President, US Senate, and US Representative. If the audit shows a discrepancy from the machine tallies of Election Day of over .05%, more precincts will be audited.

Halvorson explains how it works:

There are three escalation stages in the audit law. If a discrepancy occurs in just one precinct, greater than 0.5% compared to the election day tally, then three more precincts are audited. If a discrepancy is found in just one of these then a county-wide count will occur, and if a discrepancy in one precinct occurs in the county-wide count, then it will require a race-wide count.

Parenthetically, he adds “In 2006, no counties were required to escalate due to the accuracy of the machines.”

On the other hand, I would point out that even a small discrepancy can make a huge difference when spread across the state. It all adds up. Bob Sternberg wrote in Tuesday’s Star Tribune: “If that discrepancy rate [.00056, in 2006] occurred statewide in the current Senate race, it could potentially change more than 1,600 votes -- eight times the margin that currently separates Franken and Coleman.”

When I asked Halvorson about this, he replied that because we can’t know whom the discrepancies will favor, and because there are actually three candidates as well as several write-ins, for the time being, this race is literally too close to call.

This manual audit will wrap up tomorrow, with its official report expected some time next week. We can ascertain the accuracy of all of the different vendors’ optical scanners used across the state. Halvorson points out: “This oversight in the law [also] gives us a rare opportunity to compare the audit alongside a recount.” Just how rare are Minnesota recounts? Almost as rare as hens’ teeth. Except for a judicial race several months ago, the last Minnesota recount was back in 1962 when it took 139 days to determine the winner of the governor’s race.

Halvorson is quietly confident they are up to the task. He proudly points to Minnesota’s history of solid election administration: paper ballots as the official ballot of record, an enlightened Secretary of State, key legislators like Bill Hilty – author of the manual audit law, same day registration, a recount law, and even a partial discretionary recount law.

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Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.

CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation for electronic vote fraud. Within eighteen months, the project had distributed over 3200 copies across the country and beyond. CER now concentrates on group showings, OpEd pieces, articles, reviews, interviews, discussion sessions, networking, conferences, anything that promotes awareness of this critical problem. Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005.

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8 comments

I practiced law in Florida. In 2006, I represented Max Linn, the Reform Party candidate for Governor of Florida, in successful lawsuits brought against the media to require his inclusion in the Gubernatorial debates. I also represented John Russell, Clint Curtis, Frank Gonzalez, and others in contesting the official results of the 2006 elections in Florida state court and before the U.S. House of Representatives.

I earned my BA in business administration with a major in finance ...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Mark AdamsI practiced law in Florida. In 2006, I represented Max Linn, the Reform Party candidate for Governor of Florida, in successful lawsuits brought against the media to require his inclusion in the Gubernatorial debates. I also represented John Russell, Clint Curtis, Frank Gonzalez, and others in contesting the official results of the 2006 elections in Florida state court and before the U.S. House of Representatives.

I earned my BA in business administration with a major in finance ...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Random Audits, Random Manual Recounts &

Secret vote counting. As someone who has personally gathered several hundred affidavits from voters and who has talked with thousands about this issue, I want to relay the sentiments that I hear most often.

First, most people are not aware that our votes are being counted in secret because the media and even many of the "election reform" organizations do not address that issue. Second, when you explain that no one can tell whether any computer counted accurately without checking and that no one is checking, the voters are amazed.

They ask, "why don’t our leaders check to make sure that the computers counted accurately?" Many also mention that all that would need to be done is to randomly check a few precincts to make sure that the computers counted accurately. Most ask why the workers at the precinct don't do it on election night, and they are stunned when they learn that the workers are told that they can't do that. Some even say why don’t we go back to just counting them by hand like we used to do.

The people cannot believe that with all of the problems with computers and voting that nothing has been put in place to check to make sure that the votes are counted accurately. They ask why, "why has nothing been done to make sure that the computers are counting our votes accurately on election day?" I reply with, "what do you think the reason is?" Some come right out and say, "they want to steal the election," but most cannot even imagine that or are too afraid of being attacked as unpatriotic or something if they say it out loud.

In case you don’t understand that computers count votes in secret, see Project Vote Count’s FAQ and yes, Virginia, not only is secret vote counting inherently dangerous, it’s unconstitutional, but no one in power gives a damn! They just want to stay in power by whatever means. If you want to see what the United States Supreme Court has said about our right to make sure that our votes are counted, see Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?!

If you’re not sure that our elections have been rigged, but you’re still wondering why so many members of Congress risked the wrath of the voters and passed the banker bailout while tossing millions of Americans out in to the street, see Have American Elections Really Been Stolen? Part 1 in the "Democracy" in America Series – The Proof It was a Top Scoop on Scoop. See it at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00428.htm

If you think that "our" government still follows the rule of law or that it wouldn’t cover up election fraud, see Would Congressional Democrats Cover Up Neo-Con Election Fraud? Part 2 in the "Democracy" in America Series – No Way, Right?!?! This article was also a Top Scoop on Scoop. See it at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0811/S00030.htm

Let me ask you a couple of questions. Why won't our governors make sure that our votes are counted accurately? Why do we put up with that? Why are the people kept in the dark on this, and why is anyone supporting any "election reform" organization that is not asking these questions? If you want to know which ones I'm talking about, read my articles, and do something to bring about real change, stop supporting the flacks for the powers that be.

by Mark Adams (19 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 275 comments) on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 9:47:21 PM

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Joan BrunwasserJoan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...

to see more of bio, click on member name

good questions

you raise many good questions, mark.

thank you.

by Joan Brunwasser (172 articles, 3597 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 675 comments) on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 10:00:31 PM

"People who think they're too smart to get involved in politics are destined to be governed by people stupider than they are."

"Democracy is not a spectator sport."
Gordon Peterson"People who think they're too smart to get involved in politics are destined to be governed by people stupider than they are."

"Democracy is not a spectator sport."

Voting integrity

We've recently been carrying on a discussion about producing robust, reliable, trustworthy elections. For a whole variety of reasons, I don't consider that hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots are the best way to do that. To read our discussion, which is too long to post here as a comment, let me suggest that you join the Yahoogroup BushLied and/or DallasDemocrats and look at the mesage archives there.

In particular, I still consider it ESSENTIAL that individual copies of the results
tapes from each polling location be signed by the poll workers and
handed by the election judge for that location to separate
representatives of both major parties when the judge drops off the
results after closing their poll.

This allows a parallel, independent tallying of the election day (at
least) vote, county-by-county and (subsequently) for the entire state.
This helps catch any discrepancies in the totalling of the votes at the
central vote counting station. Any discrepancy identified should be
explained to the satisfaction of, and with the concurrence of, both
major parties.

Regardless of the technology used (or not used) at the polling place, there MUST be an independent, parallel tally by EACH major party of the vote so that NO tampering with the vote at the central vote counting station (at either the county or state level) can go on undetected. Note in particular that that's the sort of tampering which apparently shifted Ohio to Bush's side in 2004, giving him the election, so this is hardly an academic point.

I think it's also good to note that this MAJOR improvement in election integrity can typically be done with no new equipment, and just a minor change in election day procedures. So the cost is minor indeed.

by Gordon Peterson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 10:51:29 PM

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Joan BrunwasserJoan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...

to see more of bio, click on member name

thanks for your post, gordon

maybe you could give me and our readers a clue about your last statement, about tweaking the system to improve it with little or no cost. in these days of deficit budgets, this would be good to know.

by Joan Brunwasser (172 articles, 3597 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 675 comments) on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 8:40:27 AM

I am a retired physicist and a progressive. I loathe GWB and the neocons. It is time to impeach him and purge the pseudo government of all neocons. Their ideas are treasonous.
Jerry LobdillI am a retired physicist and a progressive. I loathe GWB and the neocons. It is time to impeach him and purge the pseudo government of all neocons. Their ideas are treasonous.

Election Auditing

Thanks for this, Joan.

I have done research in election auditing and published some papers on the NIST website. I did not have time or particular interest in following the choices made by the various states in regard to auditing and election systems. So I'm not familiar with the details of the MN requirements. From what you report above I have some comments.

1. I am not a proponent of cascading audits based on ad hoc rules that trigger additional auditing. This kind of rule does not deliver a specified level of confidence that an election has not been compromised. In fact, such rules do not even provide a method of calculating what the level of confidence is for a particular election situation. This rule does not follow the Best Practices reference in your report above, which recommends a risk-limiting audit such as those which I and Howard Stanislevic designed.

2. A margin of 200 votes out of 2.9 million votes requires a lot of auditing to achieve a high confidence, say 95% or 99%, that the announced winner actually won.

3. While the paper ballot rule is wonderful and necessary, counting ballots by optical scan is subject to the same risk of wholesale election fraud that DREs have, except that when paper ballots exist a full and honest recount is possible.

4. The biggest risk this system seems to possess is the risk mentioned in the previous item.

It appears that MN is way ahead of some states whose authorities seemingly ignored all the work scientits and statisticians have done on this problem.

My state, Texas, is hopeless.

It'll be interesting to see how the Franken race turns out.

by Jerry Lobdill (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 23 comments) on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 5:27:36 AM

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Joan BrunwasserJoan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation...

to see more of bio, click on member name

thank you, jerry

for your hard work on this subject.

you say Texas is a mess. sadly, it's not alone.

by Joan Brunwasser (172 articles, 3597 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 675 comments) on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 8:38:45 AM

Michael Cavlan , RN, was an Official Green Party Observer for the 2004 Ohio Re-Count.
He was the Green Party Candidate for US Senate 2006 and is a Candidate US Senate
2008 Seeking Green Party Endorsement in Minnesota. See www.michaelcavlan.org
Michael CavlanMichael Cavlan , RN, was an Official Green Party Observer for the 2004 Ohio Re-Count.
He was the Green Party Candidate for US Senate 2006 and is a Candidate US Senate
2008 Seeking Green Party Endorsement in Minnesota. See www.michaelcavlan.org

Repeat from previous posts.

Same post with some minor changes.

This story is the most amusing thing I have ever heard. Especially coming from a a group in Minnesota, CASE Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections.

I was an election observer in Ohio 2004. I ran for the US Senate in 2006, primarily on the issue of Election Fraud, Impeacement and Immediate Withdrawl from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since I was raised in northern Ireland, my campaign platform on how to obtain peace and justice was quite credible and comprehensive. I also stood for Single Payer as a Registered Nurse. I even made it crystal clear that it was my spirituality that drove my political beliefs. I was virtually abandoned by the "progressive" community including CASE. You see, I am not a Democrat and in fact I held the Democratic Party accountable for their complicity for the state we are in. Especially on the issue of election fraud.I should mention that I was a member of the MNA, the Minnesota Nurses Union and they never even mentioned my name to their membership.

I then attempted to run again in 2008. The "progressive" community would not even help me get on the ballot and in fact Al Franken's DFL primary opponent, the "Peace" candidate Jack Nelson Pallmyer refused to even sign a petition to allow me ballot status.

So instead, I ran as an official write in candidate. One of the members of my campaign challenged Al Franken on his position on Election Fraud and Impeachment.

Mr Franken responded that "I won't talk about that because then people will not vote for me." In other words, his getting votes was more important than people being disenfranchised. He also refused to support Impeachment.

I recieved, I believe about 2,000 write in votes. I cherish the position of being a spoiler. Rewarding the Democratic Party and in fact the two party system for cowardice and complicity in a whole range of critical issues will NEVER change them. It simply reinforces their cowardice and complicity.

To Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, this is the Karmaic Principle at it's finest. Not just for Al Franken, not just for the pro-war, corporate friendly DFL but for the broader progressive community itself, including CASE.

I ran for US Senate, both times not to win but to educate and inform the people about the risks our democracy are facing. Based upon my experiences in Ohio 2004. Since we have been experiencing a blackout from the media and from the Democratic party leadership, I viewed this as virtually the only way to break past this blackout. So did Cynthia McKinney for that matter.

As a parting thought, here is the last paragarph from my live Indy media report from Ohio, 2004. It was relevant then and is just as relevant today.

Since coming home, more has become evident. Apart from the almost
complete silence in the "mainstream" corporate media, apparently we are now
hearing that even thought there are now serious concerns that the
entire democratic process for the future is at risk, the reason that the
Kerry campaign will not speak out is because of their fear that they will
be portrayed as "whiney losers". The media has stated that they are not
reporting it due to Kerry remaining silent and Kerry remains silent
because of his fear of the reactions in the media to him speaking out. It
is a self perpetuating cycle of political cowardice by both the
leadership of the Democratic Party and of the media.

Our democracy is at risk and we deserve better than this. We should not
accept these "chickens coming home to roost". It is now our job to
reclaim our right to vote and become involved in the democratic process.
The Democratic Party and the Corporate Media might be afraid but we,
like many in Ohio are not afraid. We are angry and will not stand idly by,
while our democracy starts to slip away from us. We will claim it
back, despite the cowardice of the so called leadership, or lack there-of,
of the Democratic Party along with the complicity of the corporate media.

I am not bitter before you go there.

However, I sure the hell am outraged. After all, if you are not outraged you are not paying attention. I seen that on a bumper sticker somewhere.

Progressives need to stop participating in their own disenfranchisment. It is our own inability to stand for what we believe in that continues that disenfranchisment.

Hi, I'm Michael Cavlan And I Approve Of This Message

by Michael Cavlan (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 329 comments) on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 3:39:57 PM

See more about me at my home page: http://neal.mcburnett.org/
Neal McBurnettSee more about me at my home page: http://neal.mcburnett.org/

Other good audits in Boulder CO and 5 counties in California

First, congratulations to Mark for his leadership on good audits in MN! And thank you for a fine posting on the audits in MN.

I've worked with Mark on developing the Best Practices and agree with the point about the need for risk-limiting audits. That is what we're doing in Boulder CO this election, thanks to visionary clerk Hillary Hall. I've written the open source ElectionAudits software which assists people in following the Best Practices, in terms of in reporting, publishing, and selecting what to audit. We're using it in Boulder and it will do more as it evolves if more folks participate :)

We're auditing a number of races at both the state and local level. It is hard to get a lot of statistical confidence for local races, but we're giving it a good shot.

See the software at

http://neal.mcburnett.org/electionaudits/

and the current detailed auditable election results and selection of batches to audit at

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/boulder-audit-08-11/

The web site also refers to the work of Philip Stark to help 5 counties in California do some audits with especially good treatment of escalation issues and rigorous confidence levels.

by Neal McBurnett (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 1:24:19 AM

8 comments

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