Election Updates

Here is an image of a sample ballot from the Venezeuelan presidential election.

Other material from the upcoming election can be found at the eluniversal.com website. The English version of the website is at the following link, though it does not have as much content as the main site.

The election on Sunday in Venezuela is promising to be controversial.

There is an article in the Washington Post this morning, noting that one of the international observing missions (from the Organization of American States) is facing criticism in Venezuela:

Therein lies one of the inherent institutional weaknesses of the OAS and its connection to electoral processes in the Americas. That the secretary-general has a vested interest in getting along with the candidates that get elected is only natural. But the fact that he can exercise such power over the electoral observation missions, to the point of being able to abruptly alter them by recalling a chief of mission, calls into question the independence of those missions from political maneuverings within the OAS.

Such criticism is especially true in Venezuela. The OAS' current mission there is largely believed to reflect pressures from President Hugo Chavez to stay on the sidelines. In a trip to Caracas in October, where he negotiated the conditions for the OAS electoral mission, Insulza insisted that the OAS had no intention to allow its mission "to become a protagonist," pledging instead to cooperate with Venezuela's National Electoral Council. That is the same body the OAS acknowledged less than a year ago was highly distrusted by the Venezuelan opposition.

To ensure a low profile, the OAS made the mission late and weak. It arrived in Venezuela only last week, less than three weeks before the vote. In Nicaragua, where another controversial election was held this year, the OAS spent six months. Also, the head of mission in Venezuela, a former Uruguayan ambassador to the OAS, is considered compromised both by his closeness to Venezuelan diplomats and by his lower profile -- heads of OAS missions to Nicaragua, Ecuador and Peru were all former foreign ministers.

This comes on the heels of stories that have noted criticisms of the electronic voting system used in Venezuela, and the possibility that if the Chavez opposition loses, they might contest the election results based on complaints about the voting system (from Forbes):

The negative tone of the campaign has been reflected in more recent opposition claims that the electronic voting system will be manipulated, and that corruption of the software will ensure victory for Chavez. Technical teams from the European Union, the Organization of American States and the Carter Center have rejected this argument, which defines the National Election Council as a Chavista institution. Claims of potential fraud have raised concerns that the opposition candidate will pull out of the election or that radical opposition elements will channel frustration with a potential Chavez victory through recourse to mass post-election protests.

This is despite a number of safeguards that have been put in place in Venezuela (from the International Herald Tribune and the Associated Press):

Venezuelans will get paper receipts that verify their choices were properly recorded, and must deposit them into boxes before leaving the polls. After Sunday's vote, election officials monitored by representatives of each candidate will count millions of the paper receipts for comparison to the electronic totals.

Last month, they performed random hardware and software checks of 1 percent of the machines. Officials also will keep them disconnected from the network during the actual voting as an additional safeguard against tampering.

Digital thumbprint devices aimed at preventing the casting of multiple ballots will be used by about 40 percent of the voters in the most populous states and along Venezuela's borders, but in response to fears that thumbprints could be linked to voters' choices, the National Electoral Council says it has tweaked the software so that no record is kept of the sequence in which thumbprints are recorded.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the weekend ...

See my post on bytes and ballots, referencing a story in WirelessWeek.com.

The Herald Tribune has archived the many court filings by the Jennings campaign, on November 20, on their website devoted to the "Sarasota anomaly." I've downloaded three of the primary filings, and have archived them on our website:

• The Jennings complaint.
  
• The declaration of Charles Stewart III.
  
• The declaration of Dan S. Wallach.
  

Here are the key conclusions from Stewart's declaration, quoted directly from his report (pages 2-3), which gives a good summary of the points of contention in the case:

1. Sarasota County undervote rates for the 13th congressional district race were substantially higher than the undervote rates observed in the other counties that comprise the district. Various comparisons of the undervote rates that were produced in different counties, on different machines, and under different modes of voting (i.e., absentee voting, early voting, and Election Day voting) lead clearly to the conclusion that these differences were caused by the use of the iVotronic electronic voting machine in Sarasota County. The fact that undervote rates in Sarasota County were so much higher than in the rest of the district allows us to rule out the possibility that Sarasota County’s undervote rates were caused by factors such as voter revulsion to a negative campaign or dissatisfaction with both candidates.
2. The undervote rate in the 13th district was anomalous when compared to other countywide races that were contested in Sarasota County. The undervote rate for early voting in the 13th district race was greater than for any other item on the countywide ballot. The undervote rate for Election Day voting exceeded that for most of the items on the countywide ballot. In stark contrast, the undervote rate for absentee voting was among the lowest for all countywide races.
3. The number of excess undervotes caused by the use of the iVotronic machines in Sarasota County was between 13,209 and 14,739 votes. This estimate was based on a study of the patterns among the undervotes cast on other countywide races in Sarasota County.
4. The size of the excess undervote in Sarasota County, coupled with the amount of support received by Jennings among ballots actually counted in Sarasota County, make it likely that had the electronic machines not malfunctioned, Jennings would have won the election by at least 739 votes, and possibly by as many as 825 votes. This analysis is based on two methods, one that takes Sarasota County as a single unit, and another that simulates the allocation of the excess undervote to Jennings and Buchanan on a precinct-by- precinct basis.
5. The level of undervoting experienced using electronic voting machines in Sarasota County for the 13th congressional district greatly exceeds the undervote rates that were estimated to have occurred in other well-established cases of voter confusion. This suggests a substantial possibility that the exaggerated undervote rates in Sarasota County were not solely due to voter confusion, but also caused by factors related to machine malfunction.

Electionline has released a report on Election 2006, recounting the various problems encountered earlier this month in the midterm elections. Douglas Chapin, electionline.org director, was interviewed this morning on Day to Day (if you prefer to get a great summary of the electionline.org Election 2006 report by audio, click here!).

I've compiled a brief slideshow that presents some photos from our election observation efforts in Santa Fe and Bernalillo Counties (New Mexico), earlier this month. I've also provided some narration for the slide show. The county election offiicals in both Santa Fe and Bernalillo Counties were very helpful, and gave us a wonderful opportunity to observe their election administration practices in great detail. We learned a lot in our short visit, and we are preparing a report that should be available in the near future that details a number of recommendations to further improve the election administration process in New Mexico.

Update (12:20pm, November 29): I've also uploaded the slideshow to YouTube. If you click on the play button below and don't get the video, come back later (YouTube is currently processing the video, and it is unclear how quickly it will be available).

I just received this report, "November 2006 General Election Paper Voting Trail Exit Poll Study." The report discusses exit poll data collected by the Survey Research Center at the University of Georgia, working with the Georgia Secretary of State's Office. Here is the executive summary of the report:

On November 7, 2006, the Survey Research Center at the University of Georgia, in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of State of Georgia, conducted an exit poll at three selected Georgia election precinct to assess voter satisfaction and confidence in a paper trail electronic voting system. Exit pollsters counted a total of 1,935 voters exiting the polls throughout the day of November 8th and successfully interviewed 459 voters. The response interview rate was thus 23.7, well below expectations. However, the distribution of voters interviewed matched demographic characteristics of each precinct extremely well, boosting confidence that a representative sample of voters was obtained. Assuming the 459 voters interviewed represent a random sample of all voters in the three precincts the maximum estimated theoretical sampling margin of error would +/- 4.6% at the 95 percent confidence interval.

• 99.3% of voters interviewed reported noticing that the electronic voting machine used on November 8th printed a paper trail showing their voter choice.

• 95.6% of voters reported that the paper trail voting system was easy to use.

• 89.3% of voters reported having previously voted on Georgia’s electronic touch screen voting units.

• 35.7% of voters found the paper trail voting system to be easier than the electronic-only voting system, while 56.7% reported there was no difference between the two. Only 7.6% of voters reported that the paper trail was not easier than the electronic-only voting system.

• A majority (51.3%) of voters reported that the paper trail voting system took no longer to vote than the electronic only system, while 19.4% reported no difference, and 29.3% reported it took longer to vote with the paper trail voting system.

• Only 3.5% of voters reported having problems printing the paper trail, with half of those reporting the problem was the length of time it took to print the ballot. Only 2.6% of voters reported having any problems reading the paper trail, with half of these voters reporting that the print was too small.

• 43.7% of voters reported that poll workers were able to assist them if they experienced any technical problems while voting, and 54.4% of voters reported experiencing no technical problems while voting. Only 1.8% of voters reported poll workers were not able to assist them with technical problems experienced while voting. Non-white voters were significantly more likely than white voters (49.2% versus 37.2%) to report that poll workers were not able to assist them with technical problems experienced while voting.

• 87.7% of voters described their overall experience voting on election day as good, while 10.9% reported fair, and only 1.3% poor.

• 86.9% of voters reported being either very confident or somewhat confident in the accuracy and security of the touch screen voting units, and 89.4% reported being very confident or somewhat confident in the paper trail voting system used on election day. Non-white voters were significantly more likely to report not being confident in the accuracy and security of the touch screen voting units (12.9% non-white versus 5.9% white), and significantly more likely to report not being confident in the paper trail voting system used on election day (6.8% non-white versus 2.2% white). Female voters were significantly more likely than male voters to report confidence in the accuracy and security of the touch screen units.

• 82.4% of voters favored adding a reviewable paper trail like the one used on election day to Georgia’s voting system, while only 5.9% opposed a paper trail system, and 7.3% were not sure. 4.4% reported having no opinion on the matter.

• 79.1% of voters reported reviewing their paper trail, and 95.9% reported the paper trail was easy to read. Non-white voters were significantly more likely to report reviewing their paper trail than were white voters (84.6% non-white versus 70.8% white).

• 99.8% of voters reported that the paper trail reviewed correctly reflected the ballot choices the voter selected.

The Technical Guidelines Development Committee is meeting on December 4-5, focusing on the development of the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines, 2007. The TDGC meeting materials are now available at the following website.

Ron Rivest's election observation report from his visit to Atlanta, Georgia, is now available on the VTP website.

Ron has also made available photos that document his trip.

Another interesting set of election observations from November 2006, and a lot of great photographs. Thanks, Ron, for making this information available!

Video of the October 5-6 VTP conference on voter registration and identification is now available; go to the conference website for links.

Michael Herron passed the following link to a working paper coauthored by himself, Laurin Frisina, James Honaker, and Jeff Lewis, on the Sarasota County undervote, "Ballot Formats, Touchscreens and Undervotes: A Study of the 2006 Midterm Elections in Florida."

Here's the abstract from Michael's email message:

The 2006 midterm elections in Florida have focused attention on
undervotes, ballots on which no vote is recorded on a particular
contest. This interest was sparked by the high undervote rate---more
than 18,000 total undervotes out of 240,000 ballots cast---in
Florida's 13th Congressional District race, a race that, as of this
paper's writing, was decided by 369 votes. Using precinct-level voting
returns, we show that the high undervote rate in the 13th
Congressional District race was almost certainly caused by the way
that one county's (Sarasota's) electronic touchscreen voting machines
placed the 13th Congressional District race above the Florida Governor
election on a single screen. We buttress this claim by showing that
extraordinarily high undervote rates were also observed in the Florida
Attorney General race in Charlotte and Lee Counties, places where that
race appeared below the Governor race on the same screen. Using a
statistical imputation model to identify and allocate excess
undervotes, we find that there is a roughly 90 percent chance that the
much-discussed Sarasota undervotes were pivotal in the very close 13th
Congressional District race. Greater study and attention should be
paid to how alternatives are presented to voters when touchscreen
voting machines are employed.

I've not had a chance yet to read the paper myself, but do appreciate the fact that again social scientists are moving quickly to study these problems and to disseminate their work!

I got this in an email release from the New America Foundation:

In California, where San Francisco became the state's first Instant Runoff
Voting city in 2004, voters in the cities of Oakland and Davis approved the
idea, which would allow voters to rank their first, second, and third
choices for office. Oakland overwhelmingly supported the measure by 68% of
the returns, meaning voters will use Instant Runoff Voting for all local
offices in November 2008. The Davis measure was an advisory recommendation.

Elsewhere, voters in Minneapolis passed their ballot measure with 65%
support. And in Pierce County, Washington, voters supported the move to IRV
for their partisan county elections with 54% of the vote.

For more, see the NAF website.