San Diego Diebold Poll Worker's Report Posted

James Renken writes "I was a poll worker in San Diego for this year's primary election. It was the county's first using Diebold voting machines, and as you may have heard, we ran into some problems! My full report of the goings-on can be found at Live from the Nuke Free Zone. Enjoy!"

Comments

Recount?

[MooseByte]

"I think that current electronic voting systems are better than the traditional systems in terms of security, and also in terms of usability for most people."

But how are those Diebold machines at allowing a recount? Do they finally create a paper trail, or is it still "faith-based voting"?

Re:Recount?

[dealsites]

I think that the electronic "trail" is good enough to hide the shady buisness that politics incurs.

--
Slashdotted today already, can I survive another?

Re:Recount?

[LostCluster]

There's no recount possible. If you doubt the number's they're outputting, there's no way to challenge the number for validity.

No hanging chad problems... but no pieces of paper at all to count wasn't the solution we were looking for.

Re:Recount?

[k_head]

Unless the machine is actually printing out a receipt for each and every vote that the voter can look at and confirm then the process is suspect.

Many things can go wrong. For example.

1) The machines could be programmed to favor one party or another. No matter who the voter selects the machine one out of a thousand times switches the vote. If only one out of a thousand voters notice the discrepency the party gains power and grants more govt contracts to diebold.

2) the machines could skew the results enough to beat the margin for a recount. If the politician A wins by more then 5% then no recount will be triggered and nobody is wiser for it.

As long as commercial companies are making these machines and as long as those companies are allowed to lobby and bribe politicians the process is suspect. The software should be open source period. The machines should be imaged at secure locations under tight surveillance and should be accounted for 100% of the time they are in use.

elections are too important to trust to corporations with political agendas. The profit motive is just too great not the mess with things.

Re:Election

[LostCluster]

Wouldn't the loser be more likely to complain?

Security by Confusion?

[LostCluster]

It seems like these Diebold systems have all sorts of features like smart cards and locks that make them look secure, but when you actually kick the tires you realize things are not as secure as they should be.

We'd be much better off with a system that produces prints a human readable and machine readable piece of paper, and then put those pieces of paper into a ballot box. At least, when the security of a box in plain sight gets compromised we know that something happened... the worst case here is swearing in a losing candidate.

Re:Security by Confusion?

[ScarKnee]

That was a funny comment, but do remember that in all the recounts that occurred in Florida AFTER the whole bru-haha, Dubya still came out ahead. He won the electoral vote and lost (very narrowly) the popular vote. The framers of the constitution intended the vote for President to be decided in this manner (hanging chads notwithstanding) to prevent the most-populous areas from completely controlling the vote. In a purely popular vote states like Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, and other low-population states would have very little say in the election of a president. I personally believe the electoral college is the better way. Those who wish for a strictly popular vote do so because they know they (generally liberally-minded folks) can get elected by promising to hand out more doles (or claim their opponent will take away or severely cut their hand-out) to those already dependent upon the gov't for handouts (welfare, social security, etc.) - most of those dependents live in highly populated areas.

Anyway, we should keep it the way it is. We should also go back to allowing the State Legislatures elect members of the Senate instead of the people directly. Too many people in Washington, D.C. depend on polls of the people to determine if they should breathe, go to the bathroom, like vanilla/chocolate ice cream, etc...

G'day

Re:Security by Confusion?

[ScarKnee]

"BTW if you think state politicians don't look at polls you need to put your crack pipe down. The only difference between your state legilator and your senator is that your legilator is cheaper to buy."

My point is, the Senate was originally intended to represent the State's interests, not the people within the state - at least not directly. The way things are now we may as well have just a Congress or just a Senate; they are both elected in the same manner. Both sides only want to *please* their constituents when voting time is near and then go back to catering to their lobby-of-choice when no one's looking. I know that going back to having the States elect the senators wouldn't solve everything, but I believe it'd have the potential to cut down on the all the polling for people's opinions by the Senate. The people would still have a say in the electing of Senators by electing their state legislators. The States need to have their say in the way the Federal Government is run because they are losing many rights to the Feds and we the people need things to be more localized... education, police, etc. Let the Feds help with roads, Social Security, military, etc.

Bye

Re:Security by Confusion?

[k_head]

The real problems are constitutional.

Here are the core problems built into the constituion. Things can not get better till they are changed.

1) The idea that artifical geographical boundries matter. There is no reason my voting choices should be limited by where I live. Whether it's the state or the neigborhood where I live should have no bearing on who I am allowed to vote on.

2) winner take all elections. It's not fair that a person who wins 50.01% of the vote gets to shit on half the population that did not vote for him. The politicians do shit on people who don't vote for them.

3) Lack of a parlimenterian type of representation. Third parites just don't stand a chance and it's not fair to people who don't agree with the parties.

The answer is simple but requires a constitional amendment so it will never happen.

1) anybody who gathers X amount of votes from a nationwide election gets a seat at the parliment. You can fiddle with the number X to taste. If you think one representitive per million people is Ok then settle on that. If you think that's too diffuse drop the number to 100,000.

2) All legislation must pass by a 2/3rd Majority of the parliment.

3) Who the fuck needs a president anyway. That's just a relic from the monarchy days.

Voila, problem solved.

Let's say you went with the 100,000 number (I think even that's too high but let's stick with that for now). That means there would be 3000 representitives. In order to get a law passed you'd need 2000 votes.

So if a corporation wanted a particular law passed they would have to bribe 2000 politicians!!. I am not saying that they could not but let's make it expensive for them for gods sake.

Each politician only has to answer to 100K people which means all voices have a chance of being heard. Only if there is massive concensus however do the laws get passed.

It would be an awsome system.

Re:Security by Confusion?

[Ironica]

1) The idea that artifical geographical boundries matter. There is no reason my voting choices should be limited by where I live. Whether it's the state or the neigborhood where I live should have no bearing on who I am allowed to vote on.

Artificial geographical boundaries are still our best approximation of representation. Gerrymandering laws recognize that minority voting blocks can be either held together or split apart when drawing the lines, and splitting them up is in many cases illegal. People still tend to gather geographically according to demographic characteristics which usually affect their representation choices.

So how do you propose to have a representative democracy without using geographical boundaries?

Re:Security by Confusion?

[zangdesign]

Whether it's the state or the neigborhood where I live should have no bearing on who I am allowed to vote on.

Many problems that voter face are somewhat geographic in nature, though. There's no way you can maintain the argument that problems in East Texas can be adequately represented by someone living in Northern California, or even West Texas. Not to mention which, geographic representation allows the representative to (theoretically) maintain a perspective on those problems.

It's not fair that a person who wins 50.01% of the vote gets to shit on half the population

That's a problem of human nature. It's not necessarily right, but it's also not something that can be easily solved until you get people into office who actually care about those they represent. The system is built to attract a certain type of person drawn to power. Perhaps, instead of drafting people into the military, we should draft them into public representation instead.

Third parites just don't stand a chance

Not entirely true. There is some representation by third parties at state levels. The third party voters are pretty scattered throughout the US and do not form a concentrated voting bloc in any one area.

Who the fuck needs a president anyway

Well, the Constitution calls for it, so unless you change the Constitution, we're stuck with it. Not to mention which, having a President allows us to have a single representative of the entire nation to deal with other nations, when it is really necessary. Most of the time, the job seems redundant or unnecessary, since most of the contact is handled through lower level representatives, but on occasion, someone has to make the hard decision and do it in a decisive way.

Just because you don't like the one we've got (and believe me, I wouldn't pee on him if he was on fire, in the figurative AND literal sense), doesn't mean the Office is not necessary on occasion.

Re:Security by Confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. 1) The idea that artifical geographical boundries matter. There is no reason my voting choices should be limited by where I live. Whether it's the state or the neigborhood where I live should have no bearing on who I am allowed to vote on.

So, you only vote in presidential elections?

Re:Security by Confusion?

[HRH King Lerxst]

So basically you're saying that the people in the 5-10 largest urban areas will decide for everybody because that's where the majority lives.

The constitution was built to provide for protection of the minority, and not rule by the majority. (e.g. the Senate). Similarly, the POTUS is elected by the people in each State, not the people of the U.S.as a whole. This serves to protect the interest of each state, and prevent tyrany of the majority.

Re:Security by Confusion?

[aukaru]

Who the fuck needs a president anyway. That's just a relic from the monarchy days

The president as head of government/state is very usefull. Beyond being the single point of contact for foreign governments, the president has coordination and control authority over the executive departments. Imagine Rumsfeld without a leash (however long the current one appears to be).

The alternative is to place the executive under Congress, but then you lose the separation of powers. Might as well abolish the judiciary while you're at it and make it all one branch. Well, with Republicans in control of Congress what would you have to worry about? "The Republican party is the only legal party and yes that is constitutional because we said so!"

Re:Security by Confusion?

[iwadasn]

That system would suck, here's why.....

1) everyone lives in the city. Country folk are already screwed regularly. If there was no need to even consider them, then they would be wholly marginalized. The current system of districts ensures that they at least have senators, even if the representatives are all owned by the cities. 80% of the US population is urban. Same thing goes for other groups. This prevents tyrrany of the majority.

2) Multiple parties cause a strange kindo of gridlock, in particular, spoiler parties can cause horrible damage. Look at what the green party did to the Dems in the last election, and what they're going to do again in November. Anyone who says that nader voters are half republicans didn't notice the huge drop in Kerry poll numbers when nader entered the race. Two parties does just fine, no issue loses out just because it is supported by multiple parties.

3) Though our current president is a joke, that is n't always the case. It's nice to have one person responsible for virtually any grievance you may have, someone who can't say "that's not my problem, that's because of ...." The president has enough power that he's expected to be responsible for the general state of the country, but not enough (historically, before GW tried to be Caesar) to really screw us.

4) Winner take all elections are needed for president, just that simple. Congress is almost always so evenly divided that a winner take all election doesn't really matter.

5) There is no such thing as a fair election. This is mathematically proven to be the case. There is no optimal electoral system, the electoral college and winner take all elections we have are as good as any other. They come close to being optimal in the case of only two parties, and are far better with two parties than parlimentary style are with many parties.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that you don't know what you're talking about.

Re:Security by Confusion?

[nobody69]

Those who wish for a strictly popular vote do so because they know they (generally liberally-minded folks) can get elected by promising to hand out more doles...

Um, no. Actually a big part of the reason people want to get rid of the electoral college is because of the gut feeling, reinforced in every other US election that I can think of, is that the person with the most votes should win, coupled with the fact that all those ads say is ' for President', not 'Electoral college rep who promises to vote for , honest.' It's a perception problem as much as anything else, and you can be sure that if GWB had a majority in the popular, but had lost the electoral, the people bitching about the electoral college would be The Elephant Ass-Licking Society, not The Jackass-Licking Society.

...can get elected by promising to hand out more doles (or claim their opponent will take away or severely cut their hand-out) to those already dependent upon the gov't for handouts (welfare, social security, etc.) - most of those dependents live in highly populated areas.

Actually, according to the Economic Research Service and USDA (http://www.jcpr.org/conferences/oldconferences/ru ral.html), "most poor and welfare-recipient families live outside of central cities, and substantial minorities live outside of metropolitan areas altogether," and lots of other data at the Joint Center for Poverty Research (www.jcpr.org) show that welfare reform hits rural households harder than urban ones. It seems to be mainly due to fewer jobs available in areas with lower poulation densities. Therefore, reducing 'doles' hits the rural poor harder than the urban poor, which doesn't seem to fit your hypothesis.

Also, you seem to imply that Liberals are the reason for huge government spending. They do spend money, but so do the Conservatives - hence the budget deficits under Bush are frequently compared to the ones under Reagan. Or do you consider these Presidents liberals?

We should also go back to allowing the State Legislatures elect members of the Senate instead of the people directly.

And this would stop the impact of polls how? Sure, the senators would conduct the poll by calling their party boss in the state rather than calling in Gallup, but so what? Since elections are popularity contests, polls in some form or another will be there.

The scary part

[GarbanzoBean]

All the places where he said
"It appeared to have recorded all of the votes properly, but I can't be 100% certain" or apparently.

With 1,000,000 people voting, an error 1/1000 is enough to change the results of election for the whole state. We need paper ballots.

It is even scarier, because he was a poll worker and did't realize this.

Re:Election

[Froggert]

So, I'm going to argue against the seemingly overwhelming majority of people out there about voting machines.

Yes, there are issues. Are the issues any worse than what can/has been done in the past with non-electronic voting? Probably not. I think that Florida proved that you can tamper with the old system just as well as an electronic one.

Eventually what voting comes down to is trusting that the people who run the system are honest. If you have dishonest people anywhere in the chain; you're going to get bogus results. The only solution that I can see to this issue is that the process must become more open.

1) Diebold needs to modify the machines to produce a printed slip that shows the party X voted for. X is then responsible for ensuring that the slip makes it into the collection basket. Bar codes can be used to correlate votes in the machine and votes on paper, and verify that they match. Because the electronic vote must match the paper vote, and because the user can verify the paper vote themselves, it becomes harder to cheat.

2) Make the vote counting process open. If anyone wants to, let them watch votes being counted. Canada does this, why not? Votes are counted to verify election results. In the event of a discrepancy, the paper votes would be used. The electronic tallies would be used for "quick" results.

Well, it's an idea, anyways :)

Go Absentee

[myownkidney]

And then you'll have a paper trail

Re:Go Absentee

[kst]

I voted on a Diebold machine in San Diego this month, just so I could see how the system works. The user interface was actually very nice, but I don't trust the system or the company that makes it. I intend to use an absentee ballot from now on, until and unless we switch to human-readable paper ballots. I'll fill out my absentee ballot and drop it off at my local polling place on election day. I may not be particularly quiet about it.

Using an absentee ballot will make it possible to recount my vote if necessary, but that doesn't do much good if everybody else's votes are miscounted.

Don't be fooled by talk of "paper receipts". What we need are paper ballots. If they're machine-generated, that's fine; it avoids problems with incorrectly marked ballots. If they're machine-readable, that's fine too -- as long as they're also human-readable.

My question

[jeffkjo1]

This never seems to be addressed, but cost.

If these machines are more difficult to operate and more expensive to maintain, and require the hiring of additional personnel to administer, why are they being used?

Paper ballots seem exponentially cheaper in all respects, and I haven't seen a piece of oaktag crash in many years.

Comprimise

[SubtleNuance]

Ok, I admit Diebold's systems are flawed. No Paper Ballot(tm), no trust. I agree.

Diebold and its advocates are bent and determined to use them in elections. OK, lets do that.

The Comprimise(TM): Change the voting Method.*

If your country is split so close, so narrowly through the center, that the *POSSIBILITY* of tampering is not 100% obvious (that causes those riots in the streets...) why not look to garner a better concensus? Why not consider altering the *structure* of the debate? Why not consider the method?

We /.ers are so frequently decrying "Method Patents" if we cannot fathom the creation of a *fair* automated tallying system (something more 'complex' than paper), why not question what the system itself is?

If your public discourse is incapable of discussing *that* issue -- Real Reform of Government (like, I dont know, maybe more than a Democracy of the Republicrat Party). If your paperless ballot system was meant to build concensus, you wouldnt have this debate in the first place.

NO LARGE GROUP WOULD BE UNHAPPY WITH THE RESULTS. Maybe the "one person one vote, winner take all" system is just a little dated? Lets start communicating. Lets focus enough to discuss our governance...if we cant, why build all these "communication tools?".....oh, look, a shiny thing...

*Woha, woha, woha. Before you go flaming me, or modding me down, I am not delivering a flippant "this is the solution" answer, im suggesting a place to start thinking. I am not for, or against, *that particular method*. There are many, how about PR? (Use Google))

Trust

[ucblockhead]

If you don't trust Diebold, request an absentee ballot. In California, at least, these are still old fashion recountable paper.

The Digital Commons

[flopsy mopsalon]

The central problem with electronic voting lies not with bugs, hardware failures, or security, but rather than with our modern concept of democracy and where we see ourselves going as citizens of a common nation.

It is clear that present electronic voting efforts are the first step in a general program of transforming voting as we know it into an online, decentralized process, with the final goal being a system where voting is an activity as simple and hassle-free as ordering a pizza or sufing to a website.

Therein lies the problem. As citizens of a common nation, our involvement in the democratic process should be something that brings us together, together with people we would not ordinarily encounter, for what can only be called our sacred ritual of casting votes. A ballot should not be a screen with virtual buttons floating in hyperspace, it should be a hefty card, symbolizing the hefty decision that lies with each voter, it shows our seriousness that decision needs is embodied in the real physical ballots that are carefully tallied and counted and not simply disseminated into electronic bits.

The process of voting should be a little inconveniencing, with voters having to drive to the polling station, stand in line, and punch a ballot. It reinforces our sense of civic pride to have to make a bit of an effort to vote. It demeans the democratic system for the voting process to be allowed to atrophy into a simple matter of point-and-click, no need to get out of your chair. Choosing the laws and leadership of a nation should be an act more involved than switching channels.

When the once-proud rituals of democracy are reduced to a set of simple gestures, once the paricipants in the voting process are reduced to a mass of isolated individuals typing on keyboards or pushing buttons on PDAs, a sense of togetherness is lost. The insiduous decentralization of the voting system that is the end result of electronic voting can only lead to the erosion of our sense of citizenship, of being equal paricipants in something larger than ourselves. Could the erosion of democracy itself be far behind? It seems the dystopian corporate-run societies of so-called "cyberpunk" "fiction" more than just sci-fi.

Re:When is civil disobedience justified?

[Mose250]

I don't remember "civil disobedience" as practiced by Ghandi or MLK including breaking things... it was generally a peaceful type of thing. Maybe a sit-in, demonstrating outside the machines and explaining to the people who come in to vote what's wrong with them, or disobedience like this - but not wrecking the machine. Anyway, these machines seem to do a good enough job of breaking themselves - why go to all the trouble?

Re:Diebold ATM crash

[gad_zuki!]

Hmmm..

>It's a P4 2GHz with 512mb of ram (wtf?! why on earth does it need that)

"Rich" media ads. You'll need some power to play compressed video of that next hollywood blockbuster while you wait for your cash. Or maybe its just cheaper to buy 'off the shelf' PC commodity stuff. Prob both. Thats probably why WMP was installed.

The speakers are for the future ads and for the interface for the blind. Most have headphone jacks too.

About the RAM

[goldfndr]

My speculation is that it caches the bloated application(s) into a RAM disk. Makes things quicker. RAM is cheap.

Re:When is civil disobedience justified?

[humankind]

Man, I totally respect your idealism, however completely ineffective it would be in our society today.

You: smash a voting machine

Media: some nutball tried to destroy the democratic process - cut to clips of Idaho cult training

next election

You and 20 other people you've convinced: smash a voting machine

Media: Terrorists(tm) try to keep Americans from voting, cut to footage of people wearing turbans with "Al Queda" crawl

assuming the nobility of your crusade at the next election manages to recruit more people:

You and 500 others: smash voting machines

Media: Poignant 30-second segment showing the entrails of battered voting machines (soundtrack provided by the currently popular country music whore) spliced with doctored images out of context of evil-looking, misguided perps, if one of the 500 is Middle Eastern, he will be exclusively focused on, cut to additional segment of children crying, cut to trade center attack, cut to Oklahoma bombing

You: electric chair

Media: congratulates itself for once again, protecting the American way of life(tm)

A receipt is not enough

[JimmytheGeek]

It has to be collected and retained like an old fashioned paper ballot. In which case, electronic voting offers nothing.

Say it prints out the vote. The tally still says what CEO "I am committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to G.W. Bush" wants the tally to say.

Canada counts paper ballots under the watchful eye of partisans, and gets it done in a few hours. How many ballots can you count in an hour? Hire enough counters and let the parties watch. Done fsking deal.

I was in the odd position of being called a luddite by a computer science academic. He was Russian, and figured electronic vote rigging was not such a new thing. I have a little more of a security background, and I think the challenges of securing the system end-end are insurmountable. As the systems are now, they are laughably easy to corrupt. And is there any greater incentive to cheat than political power?

Re:hmm i'm a san diegan voter

[Ironica]

Do you think they've got a room full of sweatshop workers chained to desks counting them by hand? No. They count them with a punch card reader. Okay, so I've never used one (I'm not _that_ old), but I really doubt that they're impossible to compromise.

I doubt that they are *impossible* to compromise, too. But, you're omitting a few relevant details:

- These machines work on technology that has been essentially unchanged for many, many years. The code is simple, and likely is public domain, since the government probably developed it. The process is mostly mechanical.

- Access to those machines is very limited. The people who use them are all employees of the election system, which doesn't put them above scrutiny, but does make them far more accountable than Joe Voter. You don't have the punch-card readers out on public display for literally every registered citizen to be able to walk up and stick a smartcard into.

- When there's a question about the results, a *hand* recount can be and is done. This happened in Florida... hundreds of people *did* sit there and go through those cards by hand, tabulating votes.

Obviously, the issues are far from parallel, and there are methods of dealing with them in the case of the old punch cards. Here, there's simply no voter-verifiable record... so no recounts possible.

Re: No visual ID required

[I am Jack's username]

I don't get it, are you saying anyone can go and vote at any polling place if they know the name and address of someone who lives in the allotted area? What am I missing?

Re:I, too, worked the SD Polls

[Idarubicin]

I was an assitant systems inspector. We had problems as well, but they were not as bad as the article describes.

True. They were much, much worse. Reread your post, please!

I started poking around the root filesystem looking for a link to the executable.
What are they thinking giving every clerk everywhere root?

I finally found the actual location of the executable--it seemed to be on a datacard of some sort--and started it for them.
Other posters have noted that you have no way of verifying that this is the correct excutable. What if it was a testing version, or something else uncertified by the state?

We had one voting maching give a blank page to someone when it was in large print high contrast mode, but we just hit next and it was fine.
And this is the sort of thing that can be horribly troublesome. People with poor eyesight are mostly (though not exclusively) the elderly--a group that are not known for their comfort (in general) with computers. And here they are with a blank screen.

One of our machines failed to print -- it just cut off in the middle and wouldn't reprint (some paper trail, eh?).
How many people voted at that machine? A hundred? Five hundred? How many votes are now either irretrievable at worst or highly suspect at best? Even though it couldn't print the totals, you expect it to submit electronically the correct tally?

The worst part was that the voting stations give a total number of votes cast onscreen and a total on the printed tape, and on all of our machines but one, these did not match. They were all off by one vote.
How is this problem not very, very serious? First, you lose whatever thin reassurance the total provided. The system now is without an effective check on number of ballots cast. Second, if there was an error--if it was randomly distributed then it's unlikely (though not impossible) for it to affect an election. If it was systematic (deliberately, or just a programming error that inadvertantly doesn't count the first vote for the first candidate, or something like that) then this could be very serious. If five hundred people use each machine, and you lose one of every five hundred votes for a candidate, that's an error of 2000 votes per million ballots. That's appalling--and larger than the margins in a number of states in the last Presidential election.

What is wrong with paper ballots ?

[frost22]

What is wrong with paper ballots ? Maybe someone can enlighten me. I live in a 80M poeple nation where paper ballots seem to work without any problem. We have elections, some of them rather complicated, and usually you have to vote on something every 1-2 years. We always get speedy and dependable results - even with national elections that are way mor complicated than a US presidential elections we usually have a stable estimation before midnight on voting day, ad a provisorical result sometime next day. There never was any problem with vote fraud worth mentioning (though occasionally a politician gets in trouble with the finer points of anti-vote-fraud laws) and basically the perception is that this just works.

Why can't yopu make that work in the US ?

Re:What is wrong with paper ballots ?

[bechthros]

I would cheerfully submit to strip-searching prior to casting a paper ballot rather than be forced to give my vote to a machine that may or may not count it, that will give no verification of whether it has done so or not, and that's owned by a company whose president's stated objective, in his own words, is to deliver as many votes as possible to the GOP.

Paper ballots are most accurate

[persaud]

An MIT/Caltech study of voting technology found that paper ballots are the most accurate.

The 2004 Democratic primary had a turnout pattern of primary-specific apathy (lower than expected votes) and caucus-specific inspiration (high and record high votes). Why did the New York primary record a 20-year low turnout on the same day that the Minnesota caucus recorded a 33-year high turnout?

South Carolina's state Dem party fought pressure from the national Dems to institute a loyalty oath for voters, which would have torpedoed Edwards. State officials chose to hand count paper ballots for security, even though machines were available. South Carolina was one of the few 2004 primaries to report record turnout and the only state where Edwards won.

Hand counted paper ballots are the gold standard of voting. Cheaper and faster are neither necessary nor desirable properties of biennial elections.

Re: No visual ID required

[bizard]

yes, that is correct. In order to provide anonymous voting to all registered voters, you are not required to have ID. The only thing keeping you from using someone elses name is the possibility that they will show up later (or have already shown up). In fact, this seems like a fabulous way to invalidate _all_ results at a polling place which is not likely to vote in your favor. Simply show up early with a couple of dozen people who claim to be local residents. When the real people show up later there will be no way to determine which votes were valid and which weren't.