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Counting Glitches In Washington Governor Race
Fjornir writes "With 19 votes currently seperating the challenger from the incumbent in Washington state's race for governor, local news sites sites are reporting more glitches in the process for counting votes. This one, which has been described alternately as 'computer problems' and 'human error' as I've watched the story unfold, caused 6,200 ballots to be counted twice. This raises the question -- how many 'isolated incidents' are there going to be before we admit we have a 'real problem' on our hands?" Votes must be certified today, and a difference of less than 2,000 means an automatic statewide recount. If the difference is less than 150, that recount will be by hand (which is hard for the voting machines that have no paper trail). Update: 11/18 05:46 GMT by P : One candidate finished with a lead of 261, so the statewide recount will not be by hand, and should be completed before Thanksgiving.
I flippantly voted for the Republican because I didn't think a Republican had a chance of winning in Washington. That was stupid. My vote really counted this time, and I wasted it.
"how many 'isolated incidents' are there going to be before we admit we have a 'real problem' on our hands?"
Well I'd say 'we' already have admitted we have a problem on our hands...
I am a Washingtonian, and I voted. Let me voice my opinion of the problems.
Yes, it's a problem when you accidently count votes twice. The 93% voting turnout should have been the first red flag of the human error.
The race wouldn't be so close if they simply allowed IRV or Rank Choice Voting. I voted for Ruth Bennett, and would have chose Chris second.
And I find it very funny that we might have to wait until Christmas to finally find out the final results.
You know I'm not perfect I create errors all the time. That is why we have test users and a nice long development cycle, we don't expect my first draft of a program to run right out the blocks. Now normally these election officials have 2 weeks to find out all the problems that happened and fix them. The scarier thing would be if the problem was never found, intentionally. We need to lay off and let the officials do their job, they don't even get paid good enough to be critizied the world over for not doing good enough
I propose a new voting system.
Each person goes to a polling station in their county where they identify themselves through their identity papers. A mark is made on the paper as well as the person. This mark is made in such a way it cannot be removed. People who have voted are secluded. For one day every four years the country shutsdown. No double voting. No travel.
You know have three checks. The voter does the first check of course. The checker does the second and the voter checks the checkers has read it right. You now have the count on the counter wich can be so simple there is no way to cheat. it can be a pure mechanic device with the mechanism open for checkers to see (not for everyone to see or else you could see by the turning wich vote a person has cast. You also got a paper trail wich you know only contains correct votes.
The current system fails for two reasons. people can cast the wrong vote or unclear votes. This should be eliminated.
A vote should always be assured to be 100% accurate. Start adding interpretation to how each ballot was cast and you get the america of today.
Sure sure, most of this is to extreme to pass but at the moment democracy in the west is becoming a joke. And no not just america. The netherlands is busy tearing itself apart with a totally ineffective goverment style wich policy has and continues to be to wait things out and hope they go away on their own.
Remember that while we are stuggling with democracy China is marching on without all this mess. Yes democracy is "better" but is this really democracy or just a charade? When the majority of adults have a leader they did not vote for? When election result after election result turns out to be wrong?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No.
1. We are concerned with the will of the people, not the candidates themselves.
2. There is no such thing as "margin of uncountable votes." In the end, even if there is a difference of 1 vote, that person wins. Margins of error only apply to polls, not actual elections. It's true that there is error involved, but the laws do not -- thankfully -- attempt to take that into account in the final tally.
3. There is no incumbent in this race.
Don't forget, that the votes being thrown out can still be claimed.
But since people don't know their vote was thrown out there is no normal way of contacting them.
So, Republicans called only Republicans and Democrats went to each of the Democrats and got signatures. And of course, which nobody knows if its legal. But thats why you vote by mail, because you can't make it in person. Vacation, Business travel, or any other reason.
Also, I'm tired of all the problems with counting votes, bad enough we have machines that have *Glitches* and looses votes, or gives votes to the wrong person. It's not a fucking *Glitch* its a fucking failure! It's job is to count votes with 100% success. Thats like calling a lung machine that stops a *Glitch*...
No paper trail, too short of time to count votes, machines that don't work, processes that don't work, human error and fraud.
This is why everyone is pissed off, we know votes are being tampered with. Every time you do a recount, the vote count CHANGES!
I live in Washington and voted by touch screen. I have no proof where my vote was cast, and I must trust the machine?! No wonder people also turn in paper ballots.
In an age where powerful people are commiting fraud, why is it hard to believe that our votes are being corrupted?
Oh look, Ohio had some fraud, couldnt happen in our state. Pffft.
The post says there's an incumbent in the race, but there isn't. The current governor, Gary Locke (D), chose not to run again, so both Gregoire (D) and Rossi (R) are challengers.
This could be a good thing. If enough "small" problems like this crop up, maybe that will help give some momentum to the idea that we need to audit the living hell out of the entire 2004 election. Not with an eye toward overturning Dubya's win or anything drastic like that, but with an eye toward finding and fixing any and all problems before the next run. I just don't see how that's anything other than common sense; we've done a fairly drastic overhaul of our electoral system over the past few years, so who could possibly say with a straight face that checking its accuracy after the fact is not absolutely essential?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
The race is between Chris Gregoire (D) and Dino Rossi (R), both vying to replace the outgoing Gary Locke.
You know, something troubles me. Whenever weird "accidents" happen, like a block of votes being counted twice, the party that benefits is always the Republicans. There have been at many confirmed voting errors in Florida and Ohio alone, and all of them, when fixed, help Democrats and hurt Republicans.
This is the reason the blanket primary was overturned in the first place, and it is the reason it will be overturned now. The only reason there was not more of a fight against it during the election is because the parties knew it would pass, and the only way to defeat it would be going back to court.
I-872 is even worse than the previous blanket primary system, because not only is it unconstitutional in its blanket primary, it -- as you note -- destroys third parties and even in some cases will take away ANY party choice in the general election, denying the right of the people to petition to get a candidate on the general election ballot.
Also, you're wrong if you are implying both governor candidates would be listed on the general election ballot. That would never happen. That would rarely, if ever, happen for any statewide or national office. (Not sure if you meant this or not.) It would, however, happen for local candidates, but this would be the case in Eastern Washington too, but for the Republicans.
I am a Washington State voter, and my whole county (Snohomish) uses the same type of voting machine. Other counties are different. But here you can watch the little ticker-tape coming out of the back of each machine. I don't know how the votes are encoded, but there is definitely a paper audit trail.
I'm actually concerned about the accuracy of the recount, since it is likely to be hand-counted (required by law when the difference is below some threshold -- I don't know the specifics.) Despite any bugs in the electronic systems that may or may not affect the count, hand-counting pretty much guarantees a certain margin of error.
Anyone ever tried to accurately count a stack of ten thousand pieces of paper, dividing them into two separate piles in the process? I screw up occassionally just separating puzzle pieces into separate groups of edge and center pieces -- for small (100 piece) jigsaw puzzles!
I pray this nonsense is overturned by some "activist" judge.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Yeah, a guy who ran (and lost in the primary) for the Republican nomination Congress in my district told me a couple days ago that he could not in good conscience support overturning I-872, because it is the will of the people, and that would be judicial activism.
I say, bullocks.
Judges are there to strike down unconstitutional laws. That's part of their job. I am as against judicial activism as anyone, but this is not activism, it's the job description.
Could you see your vote and verify it was the vote you cast on that little ticker tape?
If you cannot see your vote being recorded on the tape, then the tape is no good really because it does not actually record what you did.
The tape contains a record of what the machine decided to record. It may or may not be based on what you, the voter, actually did.
The only acceptable systems are those that leave a voter verified paper trail. Without that, no trustworthy recount is possible...
Blogging because I can...
The problem with paper trails is that you have to have people to handle the paper.
Don't get me wrong, I WANT a paper trail, but I've been intimately involved enough in the mechanics of the voting system that I know a LOT of things have to change.
Ever notice who your election judges are? Old retired people, unemployed people, high school drop-outs, etc. Why? Because we expect them to be at the polls at 5:30 am to set up and open at 6, then stay until 8pm after closing at 7 and doing all the things that need to be done. And we pay them rather well for that - $85 for the whole day!
If we value our voting system, we need to treat it like National Guard and Reserve duty: your employer must let you off to do it, (not just vote, working the polls, too) and then we should pay people $200 a day to do it. Then we would get qualified people who could not only properly handle the system, but actually (and accurately!) count the paper ballots 1 polling place at a time.
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!