Election Updates

USA Today has a story today about how Democrats are targeting several secretary of state races across the country because of the importance of this position in setting certain rules for elections. The story starts

The political battle for control of the federal government has opened up a new front: the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted.

The state post of secretary of State was a backwater until 2000, when Florida's Katherine Harris became a central figure in the presidential recount controversy. Now national Democratic groups and White House prospects, unhappy about Harris' decisions and those of Republican Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio two years ago, are pouring resources into contests for the job.

At least three Democratic political action committees are spotlighting secretary of State candidates, most of them in states where they expect the presidential vote to be close. Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio top their lists. Secretaries of State control most voting regulations and influence state purchases of voting machines. Looking ahead to 2008, Democrats say they want people they trust in those offices.

"There's a growing concern about whether votes are cast and, if so, whether they're properly counted. We have to restore people's confidence in the system," says Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a 2008 presidential prospect whose Heartland PAC is helping several secretary of State candidates.

This article raises many questions about how elections are governed (something Mike and I have written about previously) and whether elections should be governed by elected secretaries of states or by election boards.

The Washington Post offers this editorial in favor of Maryland's early voting plan.

While much of the discussion in the wake of the second Cuyahoga County report has focused on the questions about the report's audit of the voting devices (and the vendor's response to those questions), our friends at Electionline hit the nail on the head this afternoon.

A great piece in today's Electionline Weekly by Dan Seligson points to the data in the ESI-lead report on the problems the report highlighted regarding the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). It's worth quoting extensively from Seligson's piece, as it is the first media report so far that I've seen that has highlighted the fact that the report found that almost 10% of the VVPAT ballots studied were problematic:

Perhaps equally significant - and noteworthy - are the details of the considerable woes that plagued the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system through careless election administration, printer failures or both.

Buried some 93 pages into the report, which was commissioned by county leaders and produced by the San Francisco-based Election Science Institute, are details of errors that included poll workers loading thermal paper into VVPAT printers backwards, blank audit trails, "accordion-style" crumpling of ballots, long blank spaces between ballots that could have represented missing or unprinted VVPATs, torn and taped-together VVPATs and missing ballot text.

ESI researchers found that nearly 10 percent of VVPAT ballots sampled were in some way compromised, damaged or otherwise uncountable, an alarmingly high proportion for a state that requires that paper be used as the ballot of record in the event of a recount.

That led ESI to the ominous conclusion that "in the event of a recount or election contest, the risk of legal challenges is exceptionally high if no significant modifications are made to the current election system."

"The VVPAT is only as reliable as the administration of the system that produces the paper trail," said Tracy Warren, the ESI researcher who led the manual VVPAT recount.

Warren said she hoped the ESI findings would be "immensely valuable" in helping jurisdictions - and particularly Cuyahoga County - avoid future mishaps in administrating votes using VVPAT systems.

While the vendor's response so far has focused on raising questions about the analysis in the ESI report (which I'll write about later), in Seligson's piece the vendor's perspective has shifted somewhat:

Diebold spokesman David Bear said most of the problems with Cuyahoga's paper trails were caused by poll worker mistakes, with poor training as the primary culprit.

"Obviously it reflects poorly on the company and the county," Bear said. "But the main concern is that you lessen the likelihood of that occurring. The things that we can do are to lessen the likelihood of problems with design. The other issue is that you have to beef up training. We work extremely hard with jurisdictions to help them make sure their training is at as high a level as possible."

Bear said successful elections using the same equipment in other Ohio counties and outside of the state suggest "they're not too difficult. It's an issue of familiarity."

Indeed, figuring out how improve training of pollworkers, and voter education, regarding the use of VVPATs is imperative. Seligson's story notes that electionline.org's latest data indicates that nearly half (23) of states require the use of VVPATs for electronic voting.

But we also do need to figure out ways to improve the VVPAT technology, if it is going to continue to be used in association with e-voting. I'll have more to say about that as well in later essays.

On August 12, while I was vacationing, I came across a story about a judge in Maryland ruling that early voting was not constitutional in Maryland. (A better version of the story can be found in the Baltimore Sun). As the story notes:

An Anne Arundel County circuit judge ruled yesterday that the General Assembly's plan to allow voters to cast ballots in the week before Election Day is unconstitutional, a victory for the governor, who has made opposition to early voting a central issue in the fall campaign. Judge Ronald A. Silkworth ruled that the General Assembly's plan violated the clear language of the Maryland Constitution, which says that citizens may vote in their local election districts on a specific day, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Here is the actual text from the Maryland Constitution that is referred to, which is in Article 17, Section 2:

Except for a special election that may be authorized to fill a vacancy in a County Council under Article XI-A, Section 3 of the Constitution, elections by qualified voters for State and county officers shall be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday of November, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-six, and on the same day in every fourth year thereafter.

However, Article 1, Second 3 of the Maryland Constitution reads:

The General Assembly of Maryland shall have power to provide by suitable enactment for voting by qualified voters of the State of Maryland who are absent at the time of any election in which they are entitled to vote and for voting by other qualified voters who are unable to vote personally and for the manner in which and the time and place at which such absent voters may vote, and for the canvass and return of their votes.

Interestingly, Article 17, Section 9 provides what would seem to be a tie-breaker, stating:

In the event of any inconsistency between the provisions of this Article and any of the other provisions of the Constitution, the provisions of this Article shall prevail, and all other provisions shall be repealed or abrogated to the extent of such inconsistency.

Now the bizarreness of Article 17, Section 2 is monumental for obvious reasons, such as we don't have quadrennial elections, we have biennial ones! Moreover, read literally--or to use the language the judge did, the plain text reading--Article 17, Section 2 should also ban all absentee voting, because those individuals are not voting a ballot on election day any more than an early voter is voting on election day. (And note, Article 17, Section 9 would invalidate the Article 1 allowance of absentee voting, read literally).

This ruling has been appealed. It will be interesting how it turns out.

Another study was released this afternoon, also examining the recent primary in Cuyahoga County. This study was conducted by Election Science Institute, and is titled "DRE Analysis for May 2006 Primary, Cuyahoga County, Ohio." This report, coming in at a at well over 200 pages, adds more detailed data and analysis to what is one of the most closely studied elections in recent history. Thad and I assisted in components of the analysis of this report, as did VTP colleagues Jonathan Katz and Rod Kiewiet.

Despite the title of the report, it actually examines the complete election administration practice in Cuyahoga's recent primary, and issues a number of important findings (quoted directly from the executive summary):

After three months of exhaustive research, empirical evidence supports the key definitive finding: the machines’ four sources of vote totals – VVPAT individual ballots, VVPAT summary, election archive, and memory cards – did not agree with one another.

The vast majority of voters surveyed were pleased with their experience with the new system, liked touch screen voting and had confidence that their votes would be recorded correctly.

Improved training, both practical and procedural, is likely to minimize incidents experienced on Election Day.

Incident reports were widespread but concentrated, with 9% of precincts reporting 10 or more incidents. The most commonly reported incidents were voter registration issues (30.1%), election administration issues (22.6%), problems related to voting machines (16.2%) and issues involving booth workers (9.1%).

New strategies for voting machine allocation are needed to minimize voter wait time and distribute it equally across all locations.

VVPAT’s were missing, missing information and the tally of the individual ballots did not always match the VVPAT summary printed at the end of Election Day.

Discrepancies were found across vote counts stored on different mediums across the election system.

The current election system, if left unchanged, contains significant threats to inventory control of mission critical election assets, error-free vote tabulation, and tabulation transparency. One likely result is diminished public confidence in a close election.

As in the previous report that was done regarding this election, there is much worth detailed examination in both studies. Hopefully other election jurisdictions will undertake such detailed audits of their election administration practices in the future.

This report is picking up some attention in the press this evening; for example there is a summary story in the Washington Post as well as other media sources.

I think Mike Alvarez blogged about this article, covered here in the Arizona Republic, that shows where you vote may influence how you vote.

A set of links on the Maryland decision:

MSNBC

CBS News

ABC News

For those of you who wonder why people like Mike and I--and John Fortier and Norm Ornstein at AEI--care so much about disaster management and being prepared for terrorism and the like, check out this link. It has video of the aftermath of a ceiling collapse that ruined the voting equipment in a New Mexico County. As the story states:

A building where Bernalillo County voting machines are kept couldn't withstand the rain. The building's roof started to leak last night soaking insulation until it fell through the ceiling tiles. Water poured down onto computers. Absentee ballots from the primary election, which have already been counted, were ruined. The county clerk’s office is now scrambling to find a new facility and test voting machines. “We have some voting machines that got wet,” County Clerk Mary Herrera said. “We're going to have to test them to make sure that they're functioning efficiently to use for the election.” The next election--the Albuquerque Public Schools bond election--is scheduled for Sept. 19. The general election for state and local offices is Nov. 7.