There’s been so much interest in Justin Moore’s “Summary of Electronic Voting System Analysis”, including a lot of people printing the thing out, that I want to provide the PDF of Justin’s original paper (64k), which is much more nicely formatted than the HTML version that I slapped together.
I attended the Charlottesville AG recount training session today, so my interest in this topic is particularly piqued right now.
I attended the Roanoke recount observer training. I’d hoped the recount would really be a recount, which would have done a lot to raise consciousness about the dynamics of electronic voting machines. But it seems the Virginia process is just a glorified re-canvass.
Still, with such a tiny margin, I’m keeping fingers crossed that the needed votes will turn up. A nightmare scenario occurred to me on the drive home: Creigh carrying the recount, then the McDonnell camp challenging. The challenge is decided in the House of Delegates. ‘nough said.
One thing that does not make sense is the much higher undervote on the lever machines. Is it simply that they are not user friendly and so people only cast the vote for their presidential choice and then walk away?
The DRE machines prompt you to vote in each election so I can see why they would have a lower undervote but I would not have expected the percentages to be off by this much.
One thing that I do know is that a lot of properly cast ballots are not being counted on the optical scan machines. This is especially true for those who mail in absentee ballots. The instructions on the absentee ballots tell voters to use a #2 pencil but the reality is that a felt tip pen is more likely to be read by the tabulator. If a ballot is not read by the tabulator then it should be manually counted, especially in a recount.
To me it is unconscionable in an election that is this close for someone to have gone to the trouble to request an absentee ballot and return it only to have their vote not counted when simply looking at the ballot would make it clear who they intended to vote for.
How did you attend the training session in Charlottesville on December 17, since it is not scheduled to take place until the morning of December 20?
I should know, since I’m one of the two recount coordinators, and the judge’s order for the recount states clearly that training shall not take place other than under the supervision of the court-appointed recount coordinators.
Some clarification, please.
I attended the Deeds campaign’s recount observer training, which is being held in localities across the state. This is for people who will be observing, not counting. This particular session was held at JMRL, and well-attended — several dozen people were there, having signed up to observe across Central Virginia.
Virginia has very clear, understandable, and quite orderly procedures — by statute — for how to conduct a recount, and that is exactly what is going to take place. It’s understandable that the candidate on the losing side would want to dig out all the ballots and try to come up with more votes. The legislators considered that when drafting the law, and knew that errors and fraud are much more likely to influence the outcome when people start messing with the ballots over and over again.
The votes that were counted on Nov. 8 will be recounted tomorrow. No “new” votes come in. That’s the law, and that’s what will happen.
I Publius,
So in other words, if incompetant, over-worked or nefarious* election officials throw out a vote without reasonable cause – say that they were operating the optical scanner incorrectly and disqualified some absentee ballots in error – then those votes can’t be included in a recount?
If so, I am curious as to whether you think that is a good idea. How is it that errors and fraud are more likely to be a problem when the ballots are recounted? Isn’t daylight the enemy of falsehood?
In a quasi-related thought, why is it that Republicans are so frequently opposed to scrutiny of election results in close races? Y’all were right to challenge and recount in Washington state. Every lawful vote deserves to be counted and every election should earn the full confidence of the people through a transparant, methodical and even a nitpicking process.
Democrats were saying this when McDonnell was a few votes behind in the wee hours of election night. Some were trying to get Creigh to make a statement in support of McDonnell’s right to a recount.
*Not that I think that there has been any deliberate hanky-panky in Virginia’s elections.