Sequoia Vote Machine Can't Do Simple Arithmetic?

whoever57 writes "Ed Felten is showing a scan of the summary from a Sequoia voting machine used in New Jersey. According to the paper record, the vote tallies don't add up — the total number of Republican ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Republican primary and the total number of Democratic ballots does not match the number of votes cast in the Democratic primary. Felten has a number of discussions about the problems facing evoting, up to and including a semi-threatening email from Sequoia itself." Update: 03/20 23:30 GMT by J : Later today, Felten added an update in which he analyzes Sequoia's explanation. He has questions, comments, and a demand.

Comments

Count from Zero

[jibster]

Both tallies are out by 1 count. Could it be the one is counting from zero and the other from one?

On the bright side at least the error will vanish as the number of votes approaches infinity :)

Re:Count from Zero

[TripMaster Monkey]

Both tallies are out by 1 count. Could it be the one is counting from zero and the other from one?


Actually, the Republican tally was heavy one vote, while the Democratic tally was light one vote. Thus, your proposed explanation doesn't wash.

On the bright side at least the error will vanish as the number of votes approaches infinity :)

That's assuming that the error is due to the cause you postulated, which cannot be the case.

Re:Count from Zero

[91degrees]

I suspect it's actually a data error. Dems have one too many, GOP have one too few. This is exactly the number of votes cast for Guiliani. They could have simply set him to the wrong party.

Re:Count from Zero

[cbart387]

Probably because the code is doing something involving a single off-by-one error, then subtracting that from the total votes cast. If that's the case, that's amazingly poor coding. I can code better than that. Do you mean sloppy testing? No one writes perfect code and a 'off-by-one' error is easy to write. However, that kind of mistake should have been caught in tests... of course we're assuming this is not a human error.

Re:Count from Zero

[Shakrai]

I live in NY (still using the old level machines, which I love :) ), and consistently the people running the poles forget to switch the switch on the side of the machine to "enable" republican or democrat (depending on whose in the both last, and whose in it next). Heck, the people running the polls are usually retired, elderly, and volunteer.

What county do you live in? Here in Broome County they give us colored cards (green for the Democrats, pink for the Republicans) that we had out to the voters after signing them in. The voter then gives that card to the person operating the machine who sets the primary lever accordingly before hitting the entrance button that allows them to vote.

I've been running a polling place since 2004 and I've never had that mistake happen in a Primary Election. If you've seen it happen more then once or twice you should probably inform your local Board of Elections so they can address the problem. It just isn't supposed to happen that way......

Re:Count from Zero

[bryce4president]

If the voting machine used some sort of "stance on issues" to determine the party of the candidate I could see how they thought Guliani was a Dem, but since it should just be some field that is entered, maybe the data entry person got it mixed up :)

Re:Count from Zero

[Shakrai]

I'm not sure if its just laziness on the part of the poll runners

That's possible. I've come close to pulling out my hair during past elections trying to get the other three people in my polling place to follow proper procedure.

As a random example, we aren't supposed to sign in more then two or three voters at a time. If you sign in more of them then that you'll invariably wind up with someone standing in line at the machine who realizes that he needs to be somewhere and decides to duck out of line without voting. Since we've already signed him in this screws up our public counter and effectively costs him his vote -- we have no way of knowing that he hasn't already voted (he signed the book) when he comes back.

I stress this point to my fellow inspectors every single election, yet if I'm called away for something (usually to do an affidavit ballot) I'll come back and discover 10 people waiting behind the machine to vote, all mixed in with other people who have already voted and yet more people who can't vote (spouses who aren't registered, SOs from other districts, etc, etc) mixed in with the same mass of humanity.

The solution to these problems (IMHO) is to get more young people to volunteer to work as Elections Inspectors. I encourage people to do this whenever I have the opportunity. Call up your Board of Elections and volunteer. It requires two days a year (the Primary and the General) plus a few hours to attend a training class. Most Counties in NYS will even pay you for doing it -- here in Broome we get $10/hr or $11/hr for the supervisor.

Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[TripMaster Monkey]

As Felten made clear in the article, it's not the size of the discrepancy that's the issue, but the fact that it's there at all. You'd expect this sort of minor error from humans, but the machine turning out this discrepancy is a dead giveaway that something is fundamentally wrong with its inner workings. If we could examine said inner workings, we could determine the cause of this bizzare behavior, but actually knowing what is going on inside their machines is something Sequoia is bound and determined to prevent. One can't help but wonder why, given what we've just seen...

Re:Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[bunratty]

Even if the tally was exactly right, in general you cannot prove a program correct by using only black box testing. There are simply too many possible inputs to have time to test for all but the most trivial inputs. For all we know, there's a backdoor or unintentional security vulnerability that can be used to alter election outcomes. We need to be able to examine the machine's inner workings to have any hope of verifying those are not problems with the voting machine.

Re:Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[EvanED]

Perhaps the error was on Mr. Felton's side... what method did he use to count the votes?

He used the "look at the vote totals the machine printed" method.

Seriously, it has a picture of them. Did you RTFA and somehow didn't notice it, or do you like making uninformed comments? (Okay, that is a bit inflammatory. The first time I went to TFA, the pictures didn't load. But it still says in the text.)

Re:Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[StrawberryFrog]

I agree. Humans can be sound, but still off by one. calaculators are either correct or broken.

However, the size of the discrepancy is 1/60 or so. That's 1.6%, which is enough to change the outcome of some recent US elections. So is it of a significant size? Yes, it is.

Re:Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[TripMaster Monkey]

RTFA. The discrepancy isn't between Felten and the voting machine...it's between the voting machine and itself. The machine generated results that were self-contradictory.

Re:Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[Tom]

Totally correct.

For all we know, the machines could be programmed to work perfectly, except on election day when subroutine X is used (on that day only).

But, we also know that thanks to compiler trickery, even studying the source code isn't enough.

Re:Minor discrepancy...MAJOR problem.

[Vornzog]

Even if the tally was exactly right, in general you cannot prove a program correct by using only black box testing. There are simply too many possible inputs to have time to test for all but the most trivial inputs. For all we know, there's a backdoor or unintentional security vulnerability that can be used to alter election outcomes. We need to be able to examine the machine's inner workings to have any hope of verifying those are not problems with the voting machine. You are not wrong. But, this article raises an interesting point - while consistency checks won't prove that there is a bug/vulnerability/backdoor, they will raise red flags in a significant number of cases that *something* isn't right.

The problem with electronic voting in general is that there are a number of places where it can go wrong. Let's assume you do get the source code, and prove that it is correct. Can you also prove that this exact version is what is installed on every voting machine, in every polling location? Checksums are nice and all, but the checksumming software could be tampered with. Can you be sure that no other software is also installed that could alter the core application at run-time? Can you be positive that the results cannot be altered after they are already entered? Hell, can you be positive that the compiler used hasn't slipped something into the executable? As it stands right now, I think the answer to these questions is, collectively, no. Somewhere, there is a piece that is going to be extremely difficult to verify in all cases. It doesn't have to be much - a 1% error in the results would have swung a couple of the last elections. Some allege that this has already happened. (Hey, you all, in the back - with the tinfoil hats. Raise your hands...)

In addition to requiring open source code, we should also have in place an extensive system of consistency checks to ensure that we catch most of the obvious ways to rig an election. If there are not the same number of ballots cast as there are people casting, that's bad. If a number of votes get invalidated (because of hanging/dimpled/pregnant chads, or what have you) that's bad. If people that can't vote (say, because they are dead), somehow manage to, that's bad. All of these things have been used as evidence of voting fraud in the past - don't throw them out just because you 'validated' some random piece of code.

One more thing. If we are going to use electronic voting (and it seems like we are), you also need to get a voter-verifiable print-out - like, you know, on paper. This way, you can be sure that if something is wrong, it'll be caught on a hand-recount, and your vote will still mean something. This is really just the ultimate consistency check, and I don't see how we are going to get around the fact that without it, there will always be a way to tamper with the results. Check out http://coloradovoter.net/ for more - or look for a group of concerned citizens closer to where you live.

As someone who would like my vote to count, I think we should ban all voting machine manufactures that don't agree to these sorts of checks. If they are trying to avoid this for any reason, I think they've got a hidden agenda. No more excuses about proprietary source code - if you want your machines to be used, you submit to a battery of external reviews and consistency checks. No exceptions.

Lawyers

[Jaysyn]

Well, bring on the lawsuit from Sequoia I guess. Hopefully the ACLU & EFF will help Dr. Felten with his legal fees.

Hypocrisy

[lamarguy91]

FTA:

As you have likely read in the news media, certain New Jersey election officials have stated that they plan to send to you one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines for analysis. I want to make you aware that if the County does so, it violates their established Sequoia licensing Agreement for use of the voting system. Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property.

I love the double-standard here. The government wants to invade the privacy of it's citizens (discussed several times over on these very forums) and one of the typical responses is "Well, if you don't have anything to hide...".
But when an independant third party wants to verify that an important piece of hardware used in our political process can actually do the very simple math that it's required to do, the corporation who produces is has laws that it can throw in one's face to prevent verification of data. Shouldn't someone be pressing Sequoia with the "if you don't have anything to hide..." mantra?

Does anyone else here see the obvious double-standard that we've created for ourselves?

Re:Hypocrisy

[tony1343]

If a company is really trying to not allow a state to verify that their voting machines work correctly, why would any state use such voting machines? This is ridiculous. Such a company should quickly go bankrupt. Must have some fantastic lobbying to get state legislatures to use machines which aren't going to count their votes correctly.

Re:Hypocrisy

[robertjw]

But when an independant third party wants to verify that an important piece of hardware used in our political process can actually do the very simple math that it's required to do, the corporation who produces is has laws that it can throw in one's face to prevent verification of data. Shouldn't someone be pressing Sequoia with the "if you don't have anything to hide..." mantra?

Yes and no. It appears that this is a contractual issue. The State of New Jersey signed licensing terms that does not allow an independent party to review the code. The state should not violate that contract.

Thing is, there is a limited market for voting machines in the US. There are only 50 states, it seems to me the states are in a pretty good position to negotiate the licensing terms. Why is it that New Jersey didn't specify in the terms that the code and hardware had to be reviewed by independent sources? This isn't an issue so much of "if you don't have anything to hide" as it is simple economics. Abide by my terms or I won't purchase your product. Instead NJ bought a pig in a poke and now they are stuck with these machines.

The idea that the machines workings have to be secret for security reasons is a complete fallacy. Sooner or later one of these voting machine companies is going to break ranks and allow independent security reviews - just so these problems go away.

Re:Hypocrisy

[monxrtr]

The State of New Jersey signed licensing terms that does not allow an independent party to review the code. The state should not violate that contract. And thus, the State of New Jersey violated its own laws (and so did Sequoia), and possibly Federal Statutes as well, regarding independent poll observers and independent verification of vote tallies. By definition of it being closed source proprietary code, it's illegal. Goodbye Sequoia contract, at a minimum. Rinse and repeat for every State and County. This is going to be a huge victory for open source, and a huge blow against "imaginary property". Just an appetizer before the RIAA goes down.

Software bug

[INeededALogin]

The readout on a screen seems like a simple data display problem. Perhaps the programmer did something stupid like:

print array.lastIndex.indexNum

instead of

print array.count

The real concern here is not that it has a bug. All software has bugs. The concern is over what kind of QA was performed to guarantee our votes. If such a simple and obvious test case was not performed, how on earth are we to feel good about this machine?

Re:Software bug

[gstoddart]

The readout on a screen seems like a simple data display problem. Perhaps the programmer did something stupid like:

What stupid thing the programmer may have done is irrelevant here.

This is supposed to be a secure machine for tallying votes. Either it is capable of counting, and providing a verifiable audit which matches the results it reports. Or, it's fundamentally broken and can't actually be used to count elections. I don't see how there is any middle ground.

There simply is no room for trying to account for what might be the underlying cause.

The real concern here is not that it has a bug. All software has bugs.

Software used for mission critical things (and I would argue an election counts) goes through much more rigorous certification.

This stuff hasn't, obviously. The fact that they keep threatening to sue people who point out that this thing has glaring mistakes in it means they probably know how badly written it is, and don't want to be accountable for it.

Cheers

Re:Software bug

[betterunixthanunix]

First of all, when did it become acceptable for "all software" to have bugs? The software that runs a missile control center better be bug free, especially the part that controls the firing sequence. There are certain situations where software errors are just not tolerable -- and I would say that voting machines are one of those cases. Our entire society is based on the idea that people have the right to vote on who leads them; if our ability to trust voting machines is undermined, then the foundation of our society is undermined. Plain and simple: this kind of software error is absolutely not tolerable, and this entire line of voting machines should be immediately recalled from every district that they are in use in.

If you RTFA, you will note that this error does not occur in every instance, meaning that this is not a simple off-by-one error, but something much more serious. Sequoia claims that this bug can be reproduced if the operator of the machine presses a valid button, but then an unused button. That is a "logic bomb," and is indicative of two things:

1.) Formal methods were not employed in the design of this software, and so the system was never proved to work.
2.) The product was not tested sufficiently, and the testers assumed that the machine operator would never make an error while operating the machine.

Neither of these situations leaves me with much confidence in Sequoia's ability to design a mission critical system. Sequoia needs to perform a review of its methods of design and testing before they sell any more voting machines, and the governments purchasing these machines need to start demanding that the designs be made available to the public.

Maybe the votes were not placed?

[Ngarrang]

At first, I was thinking,"Oh, maybe some people chose not to vote after calling up either Rep or Dem." But then I realized the math involved. The computer says 60 votes were cast for the Reps, but 61 votes are actually placed.

Sheesh, why does this have to be so difficult. We can conduct trillions of dollars of business electronically, but we still don't have an effective digital voting system? I think the conspiracy here is by someone who hates technology likes to kill trees for paper balloting, not that digital voting is being rigged.

Re:Maybe the votes were not placed?

[encoderer]

One counter started at Zero, the other at One? ...These kind of bugs are written all the time. ...Of course, this is why the software should be OSS. The more eyeballs, the more people running in debug mode just to play around and have fun, the more people slicing and dicing the source code, the better.

It's hard to believe this is even an issue. The problem is that the people making voting machines (like Diebold) come from Banking sectors, where privacy and private, proprietary systems are the modus operandi.

Seems to me a good way to fix this would be to get some high-profile Non-Profs and top-brand CS schools (I'm thinking MIT, Apache Foundation, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, etc) all working together to gather some grant money, build the hardware and software solutions, open everything up for scrutiny, and produce a working product.

We can wave our arms over what somebody SHOULD build, but if we had a compelling alternative ready to go, it'd be a lot easier to pressure governments to do the right thing.

Re:Maybe the votes were not placed?

[Jason Levine]

In the comments, Felton mentions that he has looked at two tapes so far. One is shown in the article. The other one has a column that is off by 2 votes. That pretty much eliminates the "Array Counter" theory.

Re:Maybe the votes were not placed?

[Jason Levine]

I agree. It shouldn't be this hard to design a system that would count votes quickly *and* accurately. I could make a website that would tally the results accurately. Why can't they do the same (with a better interface) via more robust languages?

I'm not a big fan of the argument that Open Source = Always Better and Closed Source = Always Worse, but in this case I think it applies. The voting machines' inner workings are hidden from view from everyone, including the government running the election. If you're running something like a public election system, your machines should be open for scrutiny. Your *ENTIRE* machines. This means hardware *AND* software. If a company cried foul when the government that bought their machines tries to get them independently evaluated, I start to smell something fishy. This is probably the only time I'd give credence to "Why do you complain if you have nothing to hide."

In my mind, the perfect eVoting system would be completely open (meaning the government officials could get any third-party individual to evaluate the code/hardware). The components would be off-the-shelf PC parts and would likely run on Linux or even on a hardened installation of Windows. (Yes, you can secure Windows, but that's another argument.) The machine would sit in plain view, but the monitor would be in the closed-off area. This would eliminate the possibility of a voter tampering with the machine while in the voting booth. They would only have access to a few components and not the main system.

The voter would select their choices via a simple (but large type) keypad. (Press 1 for Obama, Press 2 for Clinton, etc.) After voting in one race, the machine would switch to the next race. The voter could easily go back and review/change their vote. At the end of the voting session, the voter would be presented with their choices and be asked to confirm them. A receipt would be printed showing the choices also. The voter would be asked to review the receipt and confirm that it was accurate. A No answer might alert Poll workers to a problem. A Yes answer would prompt the voter to inset the receipt into a special slot. A random bar code printed on the receipt and read by a bar code reader would ensure that the correct receipt was inserted. Then the electronic vote would be recorded and the voting session would be over.

After the polls closed, the machines would burn their results to CD and would be hooked up (via wired connection most likely) to a VPN connection to a central server. The central server would take in all of the votes and tabulate them. If any voting irregularities were suspected, you could go back to the burnt CD results or the paper receipts.

I'm sure this system would have holes (any electronic system would... even non-electronic voting systems are subject to fraud), but it'd likely be a lot more secure/accurate than Sequoia. Now I just need to convince some government worker to pay me a couple million dollars to build it.

Re:Maybe the votes were not placed?

[roystgnr]

We can conduct trillions of dollars of business electronically

If those trillions of dollars had to be transacted via "secret ballot", I'm pretty sure that hundreds of billions of them would have disappeared. Somehow it's a lot harder to write error-free code when you know that nobody's going to be able to do something as simple as checking their bank statements to catch your errors.

it's like the Kempelen's chess machine

[someone1234]

The little gnome in the machine made a slight error. So what?

Re:it's like the Kempelen's chess machine

[why-is-it]

The little gnome in the machine made a slight error. So what?

Maybe they should try running KDE instead?

Re:Not only that...

[Jaysyn]

Mod down, way NSFW.

Enough Already!

[flajann]

Nix all the evoting crap and go back to paper ballots. We know that paper ballots work, and are a LOT harder to fudge to the level of throwing an election.

On the whole of it, I have a big problem with the "Winner takes all" system anyway, with the majority giving the power to a handful to beat up on us all. Not even getting into how the Republicans and the Democrats systemically shuts out all other parties.

But if we are going to have voting, at least make it fair. Give equal time to ALL parties, not just the D-R club, and use paper ballots under tight security. At least make "Democracy" less of a joke than it already is.

Re:Enough Already!

[TripMaster Monkey]

We know that paper ballots work, and are a LOT harder to fudge to the level of throwing an election.

While I agree with you, I just have to point out that it's not all that hard...after all, the recent presidential election in Mexico was stolen the old-fashioned way.

Re:Enough Already!

[solipsist0x01]

Evoting can work if the source and hardware design of the machines are completely open to the public. We have a right to know how our votes are counted. I don't understand why this is such a problem, and I really don't understand why anyone would put up with anything less.

Re:Enough Already!

[Yvanhoe]

While I agree with you, I just have to point out that it's not all that hard...after all, the recent presidential election in Mexico was stolen the old-fashioned way. And we know this. In US, no one can know for sure.

Re:Enough Already!

[grumbel]

Evoting can work if the source and hardware design of the machines are completely open to the public. That isn't enough because you have absolutely no guarantee that the hardware and software you vote on is equal to the hardware and software design that was published. And also you would still have a voting process that is basically a magical blackbox for 99.9% of the population, some experts might be able to verify it, but not the voter and this is a big deal, since a voter should be able to understand and verify the voting process. Good old pen&paper based voting does that, eVoting doesn't even get close.

I see eVoting as basically a first step to abandon democracy. Other then gaining the ability to temper with votes there simply isn't a need for eVoting.

A Common Problem.

[oahazmatt]

Considering that this article was listed as showing "11 of 3 Comments" I think this is quite a common problem.

Slashdot Polls

[ke5aux]

Ok, thats it! We need the source code for /. polls.

Re:Slashdot Polls

[Constantine XVI]

I'll do you one better: http://slashcode.cvs.sourceforge.net/slashcode/

Re:Slashdot Polls

[ke5aux]

Well, looks like they have nothing to hide so it's not worth it.

Re:oh dear.

[CaptainZapp]

Pffffft, that was the sound of sequoia credibility dying a death

What credibility are you talking about?

After all those neato stints that just about every voting machine company tried to pull their credibility is somewhere between a San Francisco Tenderloin crack hooker and a timeshare salesman for quite some time now.

Thinking about it the hookers credibility is probably a lot better then the ones of those voting machine vendors.

Corporate Death Penalty

[Dog-Cow]

How is intentionally preventing auditing of the basic method of democracy anything less than treason? The Board of Directors should be jailed forever for condoning this activity by the Company's lawers.

Re:Corporate Death Penalty

[monxrtr]

This is a perfect wedge to drive between open and closed source code. All closed source code in government election counting is *illegal*. It's no different then if say Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic Party, was allowed to take paper ballot boxes to his home and count them in private, in secret, and then release the totals with no supervision, or independent observers or verification.

Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end for closed source code in government elections. Here is the perfect opportunity for open source. It's the *only* legal possibility.

This is Jersey, we don't need fair elections!

[why!42]

This is New Jersey why should bother with making sure the election machines can't be rigged. Hell, even our own NJ Supreme Court doesn't follow the NJ Constitution even when they rule something unconstitutional! Witness the 2002 Senate election when one candidate was replaced with another even though the Court ruled it was unconstitutional to do so. "Yeah, it's unconstitutional. Just don't do it again next time." As a Jersey resident, I'll be unsurprised if the election board allows the machines to be used anyway. Can't let some company's profit (and political payoffs) be sidelined by something as trivial as honest elections!

You cannot prove correctness at all

[l2718]

Mathematically speaking, proving a program correct from the source code is in generaly impossible (if you could do that you could, in particular, solve the halting problem). From the software engineering perspective it's true that examining the source code gives you greater confidence in the software than just black-box testing.

Re:You cannot prove correctness at all

[Chris Mattern]

Mathematically speaking, proving a program correct from the source code is in generaly impossible

Arbitrary program code cannot be proven correct, true. However, program code can be designed to be provable.

Re:Bigger fish to fry

[LMacG]

And that's exactly the way it's worked in every locality I've ever voted in, provide full name and address, workers cross name off list, get ballot. I'm not buying the GP's story.

Open source how?

[Hikaru79]

Everyone keeps saying that a solution to the problem of potential voter fraud would be to open-source the code. My question is -- how? Let's say they do and someone reads it and understands it; what guarantee does anyone have that the code they've published is the same as the code on the machines the day of the election? It would be absolutely trivial to cut out the naughty bits before publishing.

If Sequoia really were ready to commit mass voter fraud, I doubt they would have too many moral issues with violating the principles of open source while they're at it.

Re:Bigger fish to fry

[dogzilla]

I call bs on this. Every single election I've voted in (5 so far, in Maryland and Massachusetts) your name had to be on a list, and was marked off that list when you voted. There's simply no way someone who isn't registered to vote could have voted. While it's possible an illegal alien could be registered to vote, it would be a short matter of time before INS tracked them down that way. I think your uncle was having a double laugh - at both the incompetence and gullibility of Americans. You fell for it. I prefer to believe that than you're knowingly trying to shift focus form this very real issue to the phantom issue of illegal aliens (oooooo! scary!) usurping the rights of naturalized citizens.

Re:Minor correction:

[Naughty Bob]

And an Update: Sequoia's intimidation has worked , the state won't be sending Felten a machine.

Sparta NJ Referendum Results

[jurzdevil]

my town recently had a referendum and the votes dont add up. 2881 voted yes and 2467 voted no. This adds up to 5348 but the report shows a total of 5362. http://www.sussexcountyclerk.com/08ss.HTM/

Re:Huh?

[tmalone]

in the primary you have to pick a side if you want to vote. Democrat or Republican. Once you choose, you must vote within that party. At least in a closed primary that is how it works. So, if you're a registered Green, you don't get to vote in the primary. In the general election of course, everybody gets to vote.

Re:Bigger fish to fry

[mzs]

Had she registered to vote at the DMV, the first time she actually tried to vote they would ask for proof. This is how it works in IL. The DMV (here in IL the Secretary of State) is not allowed to examine most of these forms, regardlessly you will be marked in the role as needing to show proof when you go to the poll. Alternatively you can register to vote at the county clerks office and show proof of eligibility to vote and then the first time you vote you only need to sign. My wife did the first method, I the second.

It's quite obvious what happened

[whitehatlurker]

The machine counted the vote for Giuliani as being for the Democratic party.

my experience as a NJ poll worker

[scraggly codger]

I was a poll worker in the 2006 election in Essex County, NJ. We were using the new Sequoia machines, for the first time in a general election, I believe. We experienced a discrepancy between the machine vote count and the count of paper tickets which are issued to the voters when they sign in to vote, and which are collected when the voter actually votes at the machine. We had 5 more votes than tickets, out of about 600 total votes in the precinct. The gap was present quite early in the day; a voting official who checked in at our precinct observed the gap at about 10 am. We had no clue how this came about, whether it was operator error on our part or whether the machines were just plain buggy or hacked. Apparently the problem was widespread, since a form letter was sent to poll workers that indicated discrepancies on a ward by ward basis. Never got resolved, as far as I know, nor did it get any meaningful coverage in the local or regional press. Without a full paper trail, I will never trust any electronic voting result.