Man's Vote for Himself Missing In E-Vote Count

Catbeller writes "The AP is reporting that Randy Wooten, mayoral candidate for Waldenburg Arkansas (a town of eighty people) discovered that the electronic voting system hadn't registered the one vote he knew had been cast for him ... because he cast it himself. The Machine gave him zero votes. That would be an error rate of 3%, counting the actual votes cast — 18 and 18 for a total of 36." From the article: "Poinsett County Election Commissioner Junaway Payne said the issue had been discussed but no action taken yet. 'It's our understanding from talking with the secretary of state's office that a court order would have to be obtained in order to open the machine and check the totals,' Payne said. 'The votes were cast on an electronic voting machine, but paper ballots were available.'"

Comments

Re:Please note

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

It's a trade secret, you can't look inside the voting machines.

It's much worse than that

[neomage86]

According to the actual article it says 8-9 other people claim to have voted for Wooten (the canidate who had 0 votes registered. Out of a town w/ a population of 80 (and with less than 50 people actually voting) that's over 20% error. Completely unacceptable

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2646802&CMP

Re:Why would you need a voting machine for 80 vote

[ozzee]

The U.S. voting system does not meet international mandated guidelines for a "democratic" election yet we say we are the "greatest democracy on earth", go figure ....

Until there is a viable independantly managed standard, it's impossible for citizens to truly trust the outcome of elections. Given that fellow citizens have died to save our democracy, anything less that the utmost trust in our voting system is to show fallen the utmost disrespect.

Other countries have very strict voting rules. If the shennanigans on the HBO special were to have happened in any other true democracy, they would have been rounded up in election fraud arrests the next day. It's that serious.

Re:You're both wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if errors are random, the more votes involved, the lower the expected error. Statistical variance.

If the errors are random then it doesn't matter how many votes there are, the expected error is the same. Statistical variance affects the actual error.

Unverifiable for counted-as-cast

[twisty]

This story at least provides the rare but helpful proof of improper accounting. Usually, in larger races, you'd need a sizable group to testify they had voted contrary to the "official" total. Because laws often allow for a margin of 'error,' there is a definite sense of diluted responsibility that regards acountability to be out of reach in existing systems. At least some systems exist such as PunchScan.org that address the ability for the total to be checked as counted-as-cast. I only wish the story stated *which* electronic voting machines Poinsett County used.

Diebold's Accuvote TS machines have a history of failing the counted-as-cast test, starting with the NEGATIVE 16,022 votes awarded Al Gore in Volusia County's 2000 election. (At the time, Global Elections made the machines. Afterward, they were bought up by Diebold, who were instead infamous for their insecure ATM machines. Ironicly, Their "success" in the voting sector is selling more ATMs to bank chains such as 5th/3rd.)

According to the "HACKING DEMOCRACY" HBO Documentary, Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Elections threw out the signed paper audit tapes used in the 2004 elections, despite the legal obligation to file them for 14 mounths after a presidential election. Bev Harris of Black Box Voting is seen retreiving the tapes from the election board's warehouse trash, with signatures, and it shows hunreds of discrepencies from the "official" tape they printed afresh for her.

In my own experiences here in Butler County Ohio, I have no confidence in the results of our elections: suspicous to say the least. This year's 2006 results deny every Democrat candidate any victory in each race, despite the larger state totals (including non-electronic voting counties) giving the win to a Democratic Governer, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Senator. But what makes the local results anomolous is that the House Representative an local offices were awarded to Republicans, and the county itself is largely a 'welfare county' whose largest City (Middletown) is founded on a failing steel industry. The disparity seems more closely tied to the voting machines than the voter demographics. Creepy.