Electronic Voting Equipment Problems Tabulated By State And County
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Known problems with electronic voting equipment
Summary of commonly-observed problems with electronic voting machines
General and problems with central tabulator
Direct recording election or touch screen machines
A few of the known problems with electronic voting equipment are tabulated below by state and county. Obviously this is a work in progress and the tables are by no means complete and are derived largely from incidents severe enough to be reported in the press. The intent is to summarize the recurring defects encountered in voting machines.
Note that one thing election officials, county clerks, politicians in general, and manufacturers are extremely good at is covering up their errors, especially where they have grossly endangered the most fundamental infrastructure of our society and wasted billions of tax dollars in the process. So just because your state or county doesn't appear here does not imply you don't have e-vote problems. Also, we limit our tabulation to problems with electronic voting machines. For more complete coverage of voting problems in general see such sites as eRiposte, Verified Voting, VotersUnite, or the many other election issue web sites we have listed.
Electronic voting machines have now been in use for decades but the types and numbers of problems are increasing rather than decreasing. In fact, a recurring theme is that a problem was recognized and reported but goes unfixed. The same problem then crops up disastrously in the next general election. Obviously, since the problem exists in all machines made by the same manufacturer, these problems go unreported and unrecognized in many election districts.
Typically where one wants to manipulate the election for fraud is at the central computer where the entire county's election can be changed in minutes. Logistics generally rule out hacking each DRE or even optical scanner, or at least make it difficult. Note that punch card ballots are also tabulated on a central processor, or computer.
Electronic voting machines are supposed to virtually eliminate "human error" in elections. Yet time after when a machine problem occurs it is blamed on "human error." Such fuzzy logic is characteristic of the thinking found whenever the question of why are these machines being used is raised. And all too frequently machine problems are blamed on the poll workers. No, the problems are with the machines.
Fix the problem, not the blame!
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With regard to the HAVA-mandated statewide voter registration database it is reported that Accenture software froze up, failed to print poll books, delayed elections, and mailed voter cards to incorrect addresses in Arkansas for at least three years. |
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Officials had trouble merging totals from early voting, absentee ballots, and election day. Company technician didn't know how to help them. |
Poll watchers questioned whether the tally legally constituted a count, recount, or audit of the election. |
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Voters' selections for mayoral candidate Jackie McPherson were changed on screen to votes for incumbent Paul Muse. Testing confirmed problem. |
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Ballot printer had the wrong format, and the software provided for scanners wouldn't read the ballots, which had to be counted by hand. |
Two days after election deputy county clerk discovered votes from iVotronic machines of Van Buren's Precinct 1-1 were not included in tally finished 4 PM the day before. |
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Optical scanner reported that 1,853 of county's 17,284 voters selected more than one presidential candidate (overvotes). Another 131 ballots were counted as having no vote for president (undervote). |
About one in every eight ballots cast failed to register a choice for president. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Damaged optical scanning machine scanner disqualified 692 of county's 4,083 voters. Machine also disqualified 433 votes in U.S. Senate race for same reason. |
Apparently there was a scratch on one of sensors in a scanner. |
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Candidate for mayor of Waldenburg voted for himself on the iVotronic, but the tally shows he received no votes. Eight or nine other people said they also voted for him. |
VotersUnite Nov. 11, 2006 |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Roughly thirty voters reported that the DRE's cast their vote for the wrong candidate. After they pushed the button for their choice another name popped up. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Testing revealed programming errors that could not be corrected in time for election. |
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Software misdirected 2,747 votes from Sen. John Kerry to Rep. Dick Gephardt in Democratic primary. |
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Ballot jams forced election officials to replace 25 optical scanners. |
Sequoia blamed the problem on a ragged-edged ballot printed by a contractor hired by the county. |
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Results from some absentee ballots were lost election night when the memory card on which they were being stored was corrupted |
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Central processor refused to add results from early and absentee ballots to those cast on DRE's prior to Election Day. |
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In violation of a directive from Sec. of State, poll workers were told by county officials not to offer paper ballots despite backups due to DREs. |
On December 12, 2006, registrar "trust me" Tony Anchundo pled no contest to 43 counts of forgery, misapplication of funds, embezzlement, falsification of accounts, and grand theft. |
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Machine calibrated to detect carbon-based ink, but not dye-based ink commonly used in gel pens, and machines failed to record nearly 7,000 ballots. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 123) Prior to election technician ran test ballots through machine to calibrate reading sensitivity but failed to test for gel ink. |
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Election computer made a 100% error. The error was attributed to a programmer reversing the "yes" and "no" answers in the software used to count the votes. |
Registrar of Voters Office initially announced that a bond issue lost by wide margin. In fact, it was supported by a majority of the ballots cast. |
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Machines shut down for no apparent reason. Also, in 21 districts there were more ballots cast than voters. Election officials believe that around 5,500 voters at 55 polling locations had their ballots tabulated for the wrong location and 1,500 voters use the wrong ballot altogether. |
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None of the voting machines were working at the San Juan Capistrano Community Center at noon. Voting machines were broken at Seal Beach polling place as well. One machine functioned perfectly until the paper record printing on the side wouldn't show vote on Measure A. |
Paper ballots were apparently available for Democrats, but none for Republicans in this bastion of conservatism. |
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Tabulation software overloaded and started deleting votes from the tallying system. |
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Voting machines weren't working and no paper ballots provided for voters. Long lines. DREs ran out of paper. Some machines delivered but never became operable for the election. As one result 100,000 absentee ballots remained uncounted 10 days after the election. |
Some voters used ballots from another precinct and modified them. County first went to DREs in 2000 and situation is getting worse rather than better. Election office says they have never before received so many absentee ballots. |
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In more than half the precincts the touch screen machines failed to boot |
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In polling place 2214, machines counted 416 ballots, but there were only 362 signatures in the roster, and the secretary of state found only 357 paper ballots. |
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Machine problems caused voters to be sent away without balloting in Stockton, Lodi, Tracy and Morada. Voters at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Stockton couldn't vote for three hours because machines broke down twice. |
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Early voting centers used a wireless computer connected to a voter-registration database to match signatures and prevent double voting. |
The level of ignorance of basic computer security is astounding. |
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Grand jury found computer voting equipment miscounted ballots for three propositions. Problem was blamed on programming error. |
A hand recount found that Measure A, a statewide proposition, had actually won. |
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Computer malfunction mislabeled 500 paper polling-place ballots as absentee ballots. The Sequoia representative didn't know the cause of the problem. |
Assistant Clerk and Recorder Bev Ross said she was told machines had been incorrectly set to receive information for the wrong type of machine, although she wasn't certain of the cause. |
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Optical scanner s rejected ballots at dozen precincts. Scanner at county Fire Station 37 on Upper Ranch Road, continued to reject ballots as the morning went on unless the override button was used. |
Quite obviously the poll worker and the reporters didn't recognize problems and dangerously allowed use of override button even though no overvotes were apparent on ballots. Counting errors are certain to have occurred. |
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System reversed results between the first- and last-place candidates in City Council race. Someone positioned two of the six candidates out of order when the computer was programmed. |
"The [actual] winner knew something was wrong," says County Clerk-Recorder Tony Bernhard, "when he got one vote in the precinct where his mother and father lived." |
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Optical scanners were misconfigured and didn't read all the votes. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. |
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Al Kolwicz Colorado Constitution requires secret ballot. |
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Scanner doesn't correctly read folded ballots in mail in election. Counts fold in ballot as a vote. |
Longmont Daily Times Call , October 8, 2005. Story by Brad Turner (720) 494-5420, or bturner@times-call.com. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. Recount changed outcome of Salida City Council race. |
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Democratic voter given Republican ballot on DRE at voting center. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. Recount found 97 ballots not included in machine count. Recount found that a school district issue lost by 18 votes after machine count indicated it won by 6 votes. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. |
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Four voting machines malfunctioned. Officials mistakenly assumed these machines were not used but there were 300 votes on them. |
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30% undervote in one school board race led to examination of ballots. Ballot was found to be translucent with bar on opposite side of ballot possibly being read by optical scanner. |
Two months after this election the IT expert for Denver was arrested on charges of felony theft, forgery and embezzlement. He had also been taking election computers home. |
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In first trial of voting centers with DREs CO Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff and Rep. Jerry Frangas were given ballots programmed without their names included as candidates. |
There was a pattern of voters being given wrong ballots on DREs at voting centers. Denver was also one of the last counties to report election results and voting centers opened late when election judges couldn't get machines to boot up. |
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Misprinted barcodes that identify precincts on absentee ballots. County had to hand sort 70,000 ballots into the 23 different ballot styles. Then 1 of 2 optical scanners broke down. |
Vote center, electronic poll book, absentee voting, and voting machine disaster. |
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Due to printer's error, a light smudge ran across the line for a candidate for the Eagle County Home Rule Charter Commission. Optical scanners picked up the smudge as a vote for one of the candidates. |
Vail Daily, October 24, 2005, article by Scott N. Miller. Employees from the clerk's office hand counted the ballots after the error was discovered. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. County clerk indicated problems with ballots marked with wrong writing devices. |
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Bug discovered in mid-July and uncertified software installed before primary election. |
Memorandum from Tari Runyan to Ken Clark, both with Diebold, dated July 15, 2002. See book Black Box Voting p. 186. |
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According to the Election Verification Totals Report 82,463 ballots were scanned. Yet the Daily Totals show 97,620 ballots scanned, a difference of 15,157 ballots. Which number is correct? Many other problems noted in this election. |
Mail in election for city council and tax issue. A pre-election press demonstration revealed a serious programming error by Diebold, whom the city clerk contracted to run election, that didn't count the votes on the tax issue. No known tests or checks were made for other possible computer errors. |
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DRE's failed during early voting at Chapel Hills mall in Colorado Springs. |
Voters were turned away without being given a chance to vote. No paper ballots were available for use when machines failed. |
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During closing tallies the TSx locked-up when supervisors card was inserted. The screen read "NOT AUTHORIZED." A tally tape to post on the door could not be made and election judges were not able to balance voter record books. |
Holmes Middle School, 2455 Mesa Road. Precinct's 147, 197, 250. When the supervisor called election clerk's office they were told to just pack-up the Diebold TSx and bring it to drop-off point as this was happening with many of the units around the county. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. |
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Software could not correctly count ballots in at least Precinct 20. ES&S had to replace chip then do recount. |
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Instructions unclear on how to mark ballots. Pen one place, pencil another. |
Garfield county clerk hired her son to run ballot optical scanner. Errors ignored. CO Sec. of State finally did hand recount that changed election results. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. |
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Election judge trying to shutdown machine accidentally got administrative access to software. |
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Optical scanner failed and could not count approximately 400 votes. |
Denver Post, November 2, 2005, p. 15A Note that the total population of Mineral County is only about 930. |
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Programming errors, machine malfunctions, no security plan, no logic and accuracy test run. Machines broke down in all seven vote centers. Montrose Pavilion was the worst, 11 out of 12 eSlate machines broke down. |
County clerk and Hart representative didn't even know how to plug voting machines in. Telluride Watch, Nov. 17, 2006. Insufficient paper ballots were available, so poll workers made copies, which the scanners failed to read. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. Recount turned up many undervotes. |
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Election officials posted results indicating that 1,560 people voted in Precinct 5. On Wednesday, amended election returns showed 374 people living in Precinct 5 had voted. |
Phantom votes seem to turn up in Colorado. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. |
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Random audit didn't match machine count. All ballots were hand recounted on orders from Sec. of State. |
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Reported 212,995 presidential votes counted out of 220,871 ballots cast. Difference of 7,876 votes represents undervote of 3.6 percent, almost twice national average. |
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Ballot jams occurred in optical scanners after ballots were read. Some voting machines were delivered to the wrong polling places. |
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Officials said that all the precincts were included in the election and that the new, unauditable touch-screen machines had counted the vote without a major hitch. The next day, the County Elections Office discovered 103,222 votes had not been counted. |
Broward Deputy Elections Supervisor Joe Cotter called the mistake "a minor software thing." |
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Over 10,000 voters signed in at the polls, 134 apparently failed to vote though there was only one race on the ballot. The winner captured the seat by only 12 votes. |
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Tabulation software in central computer reversed the vote count at 32,500. It was triggered when all 97,535 absentee ballots in one mega-precinct were tabulated. |
Bug had been found 2002 election but ES&S neglected to fix it. Some 70,000 votes were changed in this election. |
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553 people voted in Precinct 11R but the DRE's only registered 536 votes cast. |
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More than 66,000 votes for a county commission candidate were recorded when only 39,369 voters went to the polls. |
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Votes recorded on 24 of 26data cartridges would not transfer to be tallied and had to be re-entered manually. |
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Votes recorded on two more cartridges could not be transferred and also had to be re-entered manually. |
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Power surge blamed for incorrect computerized vote tallies. Ballots were then hand counted. Because one candidate won by just 2 votes a second hand count was done. |
All results, including the two hand counts, were completed within 48 hours. |
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Voting machines gave town council elections in Medley and another race to wrong candidates. Problem was attributed to a programming error by voting machine technician. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 127-128) Order of names changed on ballot. Elections Supervisor David Leahy expressed concerned because computer didn't raise red flags; humans had to spot error. |
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Machines locked up, refused to start, or reset. Machines were inoperable at 36 precincts. Machines malfunctioned in a Liberty City precinct by resetting themselves, routing voters back to starting screen. |
Playboy (Sept. 2004). In 31 precincts examined by ACLU the machines lost 1,544 votes, or >8% of votes. Some precincts lost 21% of the votes cast. |
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Serious software bugs caused the audit log data to fail to account for all the ballots cast. Election officials also found the central tabulation machines cannot handle all the audit data, have difficulty taking in data passed through phone line modems, and have trouble merging DRE and optically scanned ballot data. |
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For a single issue election the iVotronics machines showed a 1.0% undervote rate compared to 0.2% rate for absentee paper ballots. Programming error was blamed. ES&S claimed it was county error. |
Miami Herald March 31, 2005 In a single issue election 155,554 ballots were cast, 123,532 in polling places and 31,963 absentee. iVotronics failed to register a vote on 1,246 ballots compared with 61 absentee paper ballots cast. Five other city elections were called into question as a result of these errors. |
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At more than 100 precincts in Orlando area election workers used scissors to cut across flawed ballots before handing them to voters to enable electronic ballot readers to properly record votes. |
Boxes of ballots that had not been cut before workers noticed the problem had to be read by hand. |
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Software program could not tabulate more than 32,767 votes in a single precinct. |
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Voting cards failed to fit properly in slots of some voting machines. That gave 300 votes to Libertarian candidate where only 100 Libertarian voters are registered. |
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Entire precinct left uncounted because operator pressed CLEAR instead of SET. |
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Programming error caused voting machines to freeze up and register incorrect votes. No votes were recorded for 78 voters. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 122 Also, 15 vote cartridges came up missing and were found at home of poll worker. |
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Former news reporter found votes being tabulated for 644 precincts but only 643 precincts had eligible voters. |
Appendix A (p. v). Earlier court case found same problem but it went unresolved. |
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Routine test of electronic voting machines canceled because computer network at elections office malfunctioned. File server went off line before they could back up the system. Malfunction was supposedly caused by power failure during Hurricane Jeanne. The "logic and accuracy" test requires feeding simulated voter data from a computer to actual voting machine. Information is tabulated by computer and checked to ensure it matches a predetermined outcome. |
Air-conditioning was shut off and temperature in the computer room reached 90° F (Note that standards require the voting equipment to operate at temperatures up to 104° F and function after storage at temperatures up to 140° F). State law requires a portion of the county's machines be tested publicly to ensure the equipment will count votes cast for all the offices and measures on ballot. 86 of the 4,720 touch-screen machines are tested publicly. Rest are tested behind closed doors. |
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Nine voting machines at a Boynton Beach precinct not plugged in properly and batteries wore down by 9:30 AM. A poll clerk said 37 votes appeared to be missing after comparison of computer records to sign-in sheet. |
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Voting computer in Clearwater crashed election night. Republicans, who lost, complained about corrupted files, skewed data, and lost votes. |
Chapter 2 (p. 22) and Appendix. Election supervisor Dot Ruggles stated it was not the first time such a crash had occurred. |
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A second recount was required after the first gave Gore more than 400 new votes. Some cards that were thought to have been counted were not. |
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County Commissioner Marlene Young lost election in machine count but won after court ordered a hand recount. |
VP Todd Urosevich claimed his voting machines were not responsible for error. |
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Programming error caused machines to read 2,642 Democratic and Republican votes as entirely Republican. Poll workers were forced to count 2,600 ballots by hand. |
St. Petersburg Times, Sept. 11, 2002 ES&S accepted responsibility for the programming error and paid for hand recount. |
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Clerk in one precinct turned computer off, then back on, accidentally erasing 320 votes. |
Error was only noticed when all ballots were counted by hand. |
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Machines gave Al Gore minus 16,022 votes while at same time giving G. W. Bush 4,000 erroneous votes. Detected when 9,888 votes were noticed for the Socialist Workers Party candidate. |
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Resulted in many errors, including: 0 votes tallied after a full week of voting, requests for permission to upload totals before the election had begun, and messaging regarding whether the card needed to be reformatted. |
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Reported election results don't match election poll tapes found in Volusia county elections office trash. |
After installation of statewide Diebold AccuVote TS touch-screen DRE's in November 2002 ballots in one county in at least three precincts listed the wrong county commission races. While election officials shut down the polls to fix the problem it was unknown how many wrong ballots were cast or how to correct errant votes. In another county the commissioner race was omitted from the ballot. There were frequent malfunctions associated with the ballot cards voters needed to access the machines. In other localities the DRE's froze up and dozens had been misprogrammed.
For more details on the problems with Georgia voting machines see The Election and Black Box Voting.
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After a suspiciously narrow victory for the incumbent governor ES&S admitted that during the general elections their voting machines had malfunctioned in at least seven precincts. Despite recent, serious technical problems in Venezuela, Canada, and four American states, ES&S blamed the malfunctions on "ignorant poll workers," "ignorant voters," and even "piggish voters" who brought food into the voting booths that fell into their delicate machines. A software programming error caused the new $3.8 million system to miss 41,015 votes because the machines did not count ballots from 98 precincts. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 97-100 and 127) ES&S responded to critics by threatening lawsuits, writing scathing rebuttals to journalists, and the usual public relations spin campaign. Tom Eschberger, ES&S vice president, was also involved at the time in bribing the Arkansas Secretary of State but was granted immunity in that case. Despite ES&S's machine and software failures both in the U.S. and abroad in 1998 Hawaii's chief election officer awarded ES&S an exclusive contract for eight years without open bidding. |
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In March 2004 voters in four Indiana counties learned that ES&S installed uncertified software on the iVotronics machines after the certified version didn't properly county their votes. Also, software bugs caused the audit log data to fail to account for all the ballots cast. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 126-127) So much for the value of "certification." And nothing was said about elections run with the faulty software. |
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5,352 voters somehow cast 144,000 votes. County Clerk Lisa Garofolo traced problem to software programming errors, not deliberate fraud. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 125) How does one tell deliberate fraud from a "programming error"? |
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Scanner showed 63 unvoted ballots in one precinct. Problem either with machine or pens used to mark ballots. |
Law did not allow election board to reject certification by the precinct board so nothing was done. |
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Had to hand count county council votes in its 19 precincts on election day. |
Indiana Election Commission determined computer program didn't comply with Indiana law for that office. The same software problem occurred in the 2003 municipal election in one precinct, which was hand counted. |
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Incorrect PIN number halted voting on electronic voting machines. As a result 1,699 provisional, paper ballots were cast and polls kept open until 8:40 PM. |
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Error caused straight-party Democratic ballots to be counted for Libertarian candidates and straight-party Libertarian ballots to be counted for Democratic candidates. Recount changed the outcome of election. One of three seats went to formerly defeated Democrat Carroll Lanning and took a seat from initially-declared winner, Republican Roy N. Hall. |
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No votes were recorded in any precincts because of a software problem. |
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System would not combine totals from new and old e-voting machines. |
Poll worker's unfamiliarity with new Infinity raised concerns about whether 60 e-voting machines were ever activated on Election Day or properly canvassed after polls closed. |
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All 74 precincts showed exactly 300 ballots cast. County clerk apparently downloaded a software patch from ES&S during the election (a definite no-no). However, the patch didn't fix the problem either. |
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County Clerk Doris Sadler accused ES&S of lying and a cover-up. ES&S' on-site project manager, Wendy Orange, blew the whistle on her employer. Orange informed Sadler on April 16, 2004, that ES&S installed illegal, uncertified software for November 2003 election then replaced it with legal software on March 30, 2004. |
WISH-TV April 20, 2004 WISH-TV April 22, 2004 — 1 WISH-TV April 22, 2004 — 2 |
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Some voters who cast straight-party Democratic ballots saw their votes show up as votes for Republican Party. |
County Commissioners voted unanimously to conduct an "independent audit." County is leasing machines under five-year, $2.9 million agreement. |
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Ballots were miscounted. In one race the machine count was 1,834 to 1,836 but hand recount showed actual tally of 1,831 to 1,830 and election results were overturned. |
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Voting machines skipped over more than 170 ballots affecting the outcome of at least one election. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 119) Candidates in other races did not request a recount in time and those races could not legally be recounted. |
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Only 1,132 of 1,326 ballots registered a presidential vote (15% undervote). |
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Optical scanner memory cartridges read by the computers counted all votes for just one candidate. |
In November 2002 Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Charlie Matulka, went to the polls to vote for himself. When he was given a ballot produced by ES&S , in which his opponent Chuck Hagel retains a financial interest and was once CEO, Matulka noticed that the ballot had already been filled out in Hagel's favor. In Appendix A (p. vi) of Black Box Voting , Bev Harris refers to this as "the most newfangled voting of all — not just electronic voting, but automatic voting."
There are also persistent rumors that both optical scanners and DRE's have been programmed with default voting so that if a voter doesn't pick a candidate or vote for an issue, the machine votes its pick for them.
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Computer irregularity in vote-counting system caused 3 of 5 relay stations to fail. |
Chapter 2 (p. 23-24)and Appendix. Hand count had to be done from machine tapes. |
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County Clerk Kathleen Donovan blamed voting computers for conflicting tallies that rose and fell by 8,000 or 9,000 votes. The swings perplexed candidates of both parties. For example, Cassano, a Republican, had beaten Democrat Guarino by about 7,000 votes as of the day after the election but the lead evaporated later. |
Chapter 2 and Appendix A (p. i-ii) One candidate actually lost 1,600 votes during the counting. |
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44 of 46 machines malfunctioned in Cherry Hill. Election workers had to turn away ~100 early voters when it was discovered that 96% of the voting machines couldn't register votes for mayor, despite the machines' having been pretested and certified for use. |
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24 voting machines malfunctioned and were unable to be used in the election. 14 will have to be replaced because of circuit problems. Six other machines experienced switch problems on election day and were repaired in the field by technicians. |
One of three machines in West Orange broke down for an hour, "but a technician came to the site and showed poll workers how to fix the problem themselves, in case it were to happen again." |
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Software "glitches" caused votes to be counted twice. Voting machines properly recorded votes but summary reports sent to the county were in error. County election officials suspect a software update from Sequoia came with a fault that doubled count of about 150 ballots cast on a single Barnegat machine, then added 75 votes from that unit to a vote tally in a Lakewood district. |
VotersUnite Nov. 14, 2006 Officials suggest that the Sequoia software didn't prevent the system from reading results from some machines twice, but they cannot explain how votes from one district were transferred to summary reports in another. Sequoia has acknowledged a software error. |
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About 75% of voting machines failed to work when polls opened. Paper ballots then had to be used. |
Chapter 2 (p. 23) and Appendix. Consultant concluded problem was sabotage but reversed himself without explanation after problem was referred to FBI. |
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As 2006 election returns were electronically transferred from voting districts to the clerk's office, two voting districts had tallies that did not match the voting totals recorded by the machines. |
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Software programming error led officials to withhold 60,000 ballots from their vote count. |
Problem in voting database prevented a tabulation of any straight-party ballots. |
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Ten days after the election Richard Romero noticed that 48,000 people had voted early on unauditable touch-screen computers, but only 36,000 votes had been tallied—a 25% error. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 122-123) Sequoia VP Howard Cramer apologized for not mentioning that the same problem had happened just weeks before in Clark County, Nevada. |
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Early voters claim voting machines repeatedly mark wrong choices. |
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318 absentee presidential ballots cast but only 166 absentee ballots reported. |
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678 presidential votes were not recorded due to programming errors. 203 voters turned out in one of Rio Arriba's voting districts, but state's certified results show "0" votes were recorded for Gore or Bush. Same was true for the U.S. Senate and House candidates. In another, 188 of the 569 voters cast a presidential vote. In yet another district, two-thirds of those who voted in the month before Election Day had no votes recorded in any races. |
Al Gore won NM by 366 votes. Steve Fresquez, a state computer technician who oversaw vote counts for Rio Arriba County, said the electronic machines had been programmed incorrectly for early voters, but it was not discovered until days after the election. |
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Republicans claim voting machines changed their vote to Kerry. One Republican candidate for judge found he couldn't vote for himself at first. |
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In Precinct 14 every single person who voted early (on paper) voted for one presidential candidate or another, while 27% of their neighbors who voted on a DRE Election Day apparently didn't vote for any of them. |
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DRE's assigned votes to wrong candidates in extremely close races. One race had a 25-vote margin and another with a 79-vote lead. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 123) After noticing that the computer was counting votes under the wrong names, Taos County Clerk Jeannette Rael was told that the problem was a programming error. |
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Optically scanned paper ballots were used in early and absentee voting, and DREs were used on Election Day. In early and absentee voting the presidential undervote rate was well below 1%, while on Election Day the undervote rate soared to almost 10% |
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Printers attached to DRE voting machines had a jam or other problem. In many cases the paper record was unusable for state-mandated audit. |
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Voters cast 34,604 ballots, but only 30,762 votes for president were recorded. Less than 89% of voters recorded a presidential preference (>11% undervote). |
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4,439 ballots were lost because touch-screen system could store only 3,005, far fewer than the 10,000 the machine was said to handle. |
County was forced to hold another election, one would hope with hand-counted paper ballots. Same problems with this voting system in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. |
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Software glitch blamed for a vote miscount that changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election. In rush to correct the mistake the number of votes for president were 11,283 more votes than the total number cast |
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Computer error allowed election software to count about 5,000 early and absentee ballots twice. |
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Diebold internal memo referencing vulnerabilities states: "fancy footwork being done in Gaston County,...being 'famous' for end-running the database." |
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Number of voters did not match number of ballots on machines in more than half the precincts. |
North Carolina election problems. Problems blamed on poll workers. |
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About 12,000 votes were found that had not been counted. They were mostly early and absentee votes that were in computer system but not released when other votes were tallied. |
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Bought used optical scan system from Brunswick County. Machines came up with "crazy numbers" according to Director of Elections, Susan Farley. Election officials had to do 3 different recounts, and all 3 were different. Finally used hand recount. |
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Used vote-tabulating software with outdated technology and insufficient vote storage. Public vote totals for president were off by 22,000 votes. |
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9% of the printers attached to DRE voting machines had a jam or other problem. In many cases the paper record was unusable for state-mandated audit. In another incident "accessible" features of the iVotronic voting machine failed to provide independent voting for a visually impaired woman who tried it. |
One machine fell and broke during the election and ES&S had to be contacted for instructions on how to recover the votes. [Note that isn't a problem with paper ballots.] Problems also with DREs running out of VVPAT paper simultaneously. One roll only holds about 75 ballots. |
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Problems with the firmware caused machines to lose ballots in two precincts after machines falsely sensed their memories were full. Although the machines briefly displayed an error message they did not prevent voters from continuing to cast ballots. |
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After being bribed to do so, election supervisor Bill Culp purchased Microvote machines used from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, after they failed there. They didn't work any better in North Carolina's climate but Microvote agent who bribed Culp found it a positive career step even though he was convicted as well. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 125) Culp was indicted by federal grand jury for accepting $134,000 in bribes and kickbacks from Microvote agent Ed O'Day and repairman Gene Barnes. O'Day was convicted for bribing a government official but in 2005 he was president of the National Association of Government Suppliers and is still selling voting machines. |
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Elections Director Michael Dickerson said human error caused ballots from at least seven machines used for early voting to be counted twice, and seven others not to be counted at all. |
Electronic voting machines are supposed to prevent these kinds of errors. Also, election officials almost always blame such problems on "human error" rather than the voting machines. |
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Printers attached to DRE voting machines had a jam or other problem. In many cases the paper record was unusable for state-mandated audit. |
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Ballot tabulating machines failed to work properly in 31 of 41 precincts. Local election officials said problem result of software glitch. Ballots had to be recounted. |
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Touch-screen machines failed to count 436 ballots at two early voting locations. Problem blamed on firmware. |
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Computer miscount overturned House District 11 result. Incorrect programming caused machines to skip over several thousand party-line votes, both Republican and Democratic. |
Fixing the error turned up 5,500 more votes and reversed the election. |
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Programming errors prevented accurate vote count for a week. Mayoral and school board elections were in question because of bug. |
Sequoia didn't appear when requested and county had to figure out the bug. |
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M100 precinct scanners failed to scan ballots in at least two polling places. |
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Assistant director alleged in resignation letter that former ES&S employee violated election protocol with unauthorized use of county's central tabulating computer. |
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Voting machine malfunctioned with 12 of 67 precincts left to count. Backup machine also malfunctioned. |
Election workers had to use machine in another county to count the votes. |
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The four sources of vote totals, individual ballots, paper trail summary, election archives, and the memory cards, did not all match up. The totals were all different. |
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Error in tabulation process caused election results to be reported incorrectly. A month after the election Diebold informed county that a change had been needed because Issue 1 had been removed by SoS from ballot. |
This Week, Dec. 7, 2006 After processing the results correctly tabulator reported changes that reversed outcomes of three issue contests. Diebold informed some other county election boards of the modification but failed to alert Fairfield County. |
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One candidate was incorrectly credited with 14,967 votes; another received 6,889 in error. Deborah Pryce and John R. Kasich gained 13,427 votes and 9,784 votes, respectively after election officials hand-checked vote totals in 371 machines that were affected by software programming error. |
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Long lines in predominantly Democratic precincts despite the fact that 68 extra voting machines were available. See Phillips' article in the Free Press. |
Seems to be a new variant on election manipulation. Require voters to use e-vote machines then don't put enough machines out in precincts of the opposing party. |
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Computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. |
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14 TSx voting machines sat unattended for 10 days in central hallway at the University of Toledo Scott Park Campus after election. |
Election officials were unconcerned about the possibility of theft. |
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20 to 30 machines needed to be recalibrated during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being counted for that candidate's opponent. One machine showed negative 25 million votes for presidential candidate John Kerry. About a dozen machines needed to be reset because they froze |
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Numerous voters reported that voting for Kerry resulted in vote for Bush. Voters could not correct the error. |
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19,000 votes added (All for Bush) after 100% of precincts reported. |
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Two precincts had an incredible undervote rate of 25% in the presidential race compared to 2% county-wide. |
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More votes cast than voters. Some ballots counted twice, blamed on computer error. |
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After reviewing the computer discs used to store precinct tallies, it was found some ballots in nine precincts were counted twice. Mistake may have occurred when counted ballots were stacked with those waiting to be counted. |
Another "human error" that voting machines were supposed to prevent. |
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Optical scanners refused to accept hundreds of ballots ostensibly due to a printing error. |
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Scrambled votes: Ed Repp won the election — no, cancel that, a software programming error was discovered — Repp actually lost. Another programming error in same election resulted in incorrect vote totals for the Portage County Board election. Turns out bond referendum results were wrong too. |
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Votes from five polling locations were counted by hand because workers accidentally "set an option [on the five machines] that prevented the results from being transported onto the memory card." |
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On April 7, 2005, Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro M.Cortes decertified the UniLect Patriot DRE voting system. The system was found to fail to sense touches on multiple occasions during testing and didn't always register or record votes. |
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Voting machines in predominantly black neighborhoods, including Pittsburgh's 12 th and 13 th wards, began smoking and spitting out jammed and crumpled paper. |
Chapter 2 (p. 22-23)and Appendix. Poll workers felt machines had been hacked and sabotaged. Repairs were very slow in coming preventing many from voting. |
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Approximately 10% of voting machines failed. In many cases the machines suffered battery failure. Incorrect versions of voting software were used in some machines. Versions of software that were not disability compliant were not certified by the state. Internet security analyst at Carnegie Mellon University witnessed "multi-hour phone calls to ES&S support in Omaha, several iterations of manual file copying and renaming within Microsoft Windows and the generation and regeneration of reports from within the software until the vote totals agreed with the expected results." |
Poll workers had difficulty reaching the county's assistance lines, which were tied up for hours. In at least one Pittsburgh precinct, the zero report made when the machines were turned on did not list several candidates. A floating technician arrived hours after the polls opened, and citizens had voted on the machine, to inform the Judge of Elections that he would use a "secret code" to cause the machine to print out a tape showing the vote count at zero. |
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Office of Elections told poll workers to begin voting on two machines without printing the zero tapes that show no votes are already cast, because the iVotronic that prints the zero tapes was not working. |
Centre Daily Nov. 8, 2006 Poll workers used a paper clip to reset one machine. Centre Daily Nov. 10, 2006 50 voters walked away without completing their ballots by pressing the Vote button. |
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Programming error awarded all votes by Democrats casting straight-ticket ballot to a Republican. |
Problem involved a software coding error in which Kathy Keating's political affiliation was mislabeled as Democrat. |
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Computer software glitch caused touch-screen voting machines to malfunction in a dozen precincts. Some machines never operated, some offered only black screens, and some required voters to vote backwards, starting on the last page of the touch-screen system and working back to the front page. |
Same problems with this system in Carteret County, North Carolina. Election workers raced to take paper ballots to polling places in Shenango Valley after series of computer errors. Then they ran out of printed ballots and had to have more printed to finish the election. |
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Numerous voting machines shut down and votes were unrecorded. The machine software was not certified by the state and company programmers were making changes to the software right up to Election Day. The county then sold the Microvote machines to Mecklenberg County, North Carolina. They didn't work there either. |
Stealing Elections by John Fund (p. 124) After the election Mircovote had the temerity to sue Montgomery County for $1.8 million claiming malfunctions were somehow the county's fault. That suit was thrown out. The county then sued Microvote and affiliates and was awarded over $1 million in damages by a jury. |
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Primary had to be run with no central tabulating software when WinEDS system proved so unstable, prone to crashing, and possible manipulation that it failed the state certification in late March. |
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Hundreds of machines failed election day despite extensive experience on the system by poll workers and other officials. |
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Disabled voters find AutoMARK difficult to use. Ballot-scanners don't accept the ballots. |
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Voting machine found to be double-counting votes. Error blamed on "flawed chip." |
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Unforeseen technical delays caused panic among many precinct judges. Ballot machines were incorrectly programmed to shut down at 8 PM, not correct time of 7 PM. When precinct judges tried to collect the votes at 7 PM, the machines failed to comply and the judges "all panicked." They had to be told how to manually collect the data. |
Another problem. Before judges sent in precinct' s ballot results electronically, they printed out the results on a narrow stream of paper so numbers could be verified. The printouts were the length of buses. Judges called in, wondering why it was taking so long to print, with some complaining they were running out of paper. |
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DRE locked up during voting at Rose Mary Haggar Elementary School and was taken out of service. Despite coaxing from technicians the machine would not divulge results from 63 voters. Six days later the machine wouldn't budge despite the best attempts by experts from Diebold. The machine's memory card to was then sent to Diebold laboratories in Canada so technicians there could attempt to extract the numbers. They reported that attempts were successful and that the results were finally in. |
eRiposte.com copied from Dallas Morning News Collin County spent $2.7 million to buy 700 of the touch-screen machines in 2003. |
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Uncanny coincidence of three upset victories by three Republican candidates tallying up exactly 18,181 votes each. No one thought it was weird enough to audit. |
Chapter 2 (p. 20) and Appendix. Greg Palast Best Democracy Money Can Buy (p.348) Conversion to alphabet: 18181 18181 18181 — > ahaha ahaha ahaha |
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Software programming error caused new, $3.8 million high-tech ballot system to miss 41,015 votes. The system refused to count votes from 98 precincts, telling itself they had already been counted. |
Operators and election officials didn't realize they had a problem until after they' d released "final" totals that omitted one in eight votes. |
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18 machines were pulled out of action because they registered Republican when voters pushed Democrat. Some voters who wanted to vote a straight Democratic Party ticket instead had votes assigned to all Republican candidates, the court filing says. Judge Karen Johnson, a Republican, quashed an effort to investigate the accuracy of the tally. |
Chapter 2 and Appendix A (p. v). "We don't know if we lost 10 votes, 100 votes, 1,000 or 10,000," said Susan Hays, Dallas Democratic Party chair. She said the problem was with voting equipment not county personnel. "This is a vendor's problem," she said. "They need to prove to us that voters' votes are being cast as they want." |
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Machines were delivered to the wrong precincts, delaying many local elections. |
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A voting computer counted more votes in the presidential election than the number of ballots cast. A problem with the software was discovered before the election but was not fixed. |
Sequoia bought Business Record's optical scan vote tabulation business as part of 1997 Dept. of Justice anti-trust action with ES&S — under licensing agreement, both companies used the same equipment and software. |
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Hundreds of voters were turned away from polls when poll workers could not get the eSlate voting machines to work. |
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About 5,000 votes were counted twice. The on-site technical supervisor provided by ES&S did not know how to handle a problem that arose with one of the counting machines. |
As is common, the problem was blamed on "human error" but ES&S nonetheless paid for the recount. |
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One precinct tallied about 800 votes although only 500 ballots were ordered. |
Even with a 60% error rate that was unexplained the Republican party chairman used the results. |
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Congressional candidate Van Brookshire wasn't worried when he looked at the vote tabulation and saw a zero next to his name. He was unopposed in the District 2 primary and assumed the Elections Administrator's Office hadn't found it necessary to display his vote. He was surprised to learn the next day that a computer glitch had given all of his votes to U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, who was unopposed for the nomination for another term in District 8. |
A retabulation was paid for by ES&S who had made the programming mistake. The mistake was undetected despite mandatory testing before and after early voting. |
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Eight eSlate machines malfunctioned on election day. One broke down while a voter was using it. |
VotersUnite Nov. 12, 2006 Voters strongly preferred paper ballots that had to be hand counted. |
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Problem with software that merged electronic and paper ballot results encountered and that delayed vote tally. |
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Election officials blamed software glitches and mechanical problems for delay in tabulating ballots on election night. The "counter" — the machine designed to count absentee ballots also broke. |
Software used to tabulate the results had problems with data from certain precincts where Republicans and Democrats voted in separate locations. |
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Poll workers got suspicious about landslide victory for two Republican commissioner candidates. Told that a "bad chip" was to blame, they had a new computer chip flown in. They also counted the votes by hand and found that Democrats had won by wide margins, overturning the election. |
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Central tabulating computer failed election night. Technician removed hard drive and installed it in another computer that was used to tally the votes. |
County elections administrator, Paula Patterson, said, "Computers and other equipment can fail occasionally." |
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Machines recorded 100,000 more votes than were cast because of programming error. |
Officials claimed votes were added equally for both parties. |
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Machines switched Democratic votes for governor to the Republican incumbent Rick Perry, and some machines left off ballot initiatives or entire races in Fort Worth, |
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Equipment used to upload data from DREs wasn't programmed correctly |
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Software initially counted ~91,000 total ballots while voter sign-in sheets recorded ~84,500 voters. Recount showed some precincts counted twice and 84,795 signatures on sign-in sheets but only 84,419 ballots were counted in final results. iVotronic machines counted every vote three times making the initial reported vote total about 6,500 more than the actual total. Fortunately most votes in the county were cast on paper ballots. |
Don Blakely, ES&S sales manager, reported communication between software company and the Williamson County elections staff was lacking. There were problems as well with ballots cast in early voting. Election administrator resigned. News.com Nov. 16, 2006 |
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1,413 votes never showed up in the total in city election. Programming error caused a batch of ballots not to count, even though they had been run through the machine like all the others. |
When the 1,413 missing votes were counted, they reversed the election. |
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Programming glitch in card counter dropped 33,000 ballots from the totals — all of them straight-party ballots. |
Brad Blog copied from article in Salt Lake Tribune November 13, 2004. Salt Lake Tribune — January 25, 2005 |
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Without understanding differences in database formats county IT personnel used current version to program DRE memory cards and a backup version to program the memory card encoders. The formats were slightly different and ballot cards could not be encoded. |
Daily Herald, Nov. 22, 2006 "That mismatch prevented a ballot from being called up on the touchscreen voting machines," said Diebold spokesman David Bear. "Apparently, the county officials didn't test the system before using it, or the mismatch would have been detected." Bear is good for excuses but not usability. Voters were left waiting in long lines, and some were turned away from the polls. |
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Programming in M100 scanners tabulated paper ballots incorrectly. Two precincts where iVotronics were used required manual override and votes of 110 people had to be manually reentered race-by-race. |
Register Herald Nov. 8, 2006 Correcting the tallies changed the margins in several races. |
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Software error prevented tabulation of the results in a recount. |
Marshall County first county to conduct a recount since electronic voting instituted in West Virginia. |
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Different ballot sizes used for different voting systems. Tabulators added all ballots cast at a polling place when 2 or more precincts at same location. Optech Eagle in wards 258, 259, and 265 displayed 586 total ballots cast for the three wards, printed 576 total ballots, and poll books show 588 ballots distributed to electors |
Blended system of ES&S AutoMark and BRC/ES&S/ Sequoia Optech Eagle IIIP scanners. |
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Four and a half months after election a consulting firm discovered optical scanners were programmed incorrectly, failing to account for partisan elections. That failure meant that the votes of everyone who voted straight ticket were not counted. In all, about 600 of 2,256 ballots cast, about 27% of the votes, were not counted. |
Marshfield News-Herald, March 12, 2005 Medford and Taylor County officials have been told by ES&S that the city will be reimbursed for the costs of setting up the vote-counting machine in the fall because the program was faulty. A spokeswoman said the company takes full responsibility for the error. |
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Computer glitches, inoperable and incompatible equipment, and other problems. Data were recorded in wrong column for some returns. |
Two villages use ES&S while rest of the county uses Sequoia. |
One candidate was mistakenly posted as winner only later to be declared the loser. |
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Blended system of AccuVote OS optical scanners and AccuVote TSx DRE's did not give integrated precinct vote totals as advertised. |
Votes had to be hand counted and totaled. Apparently vote "accumulator" is vaporware. |
The following summary observations are derived from the multitudinous failures documented above. These observations are by no means complete or authoritative but they do paint a very bleak picture for the honesty and integrity of our elections using current models of electronic voting machines.
• Outright fraud, sabotage, or gross incompetence (usually impossible to tell the difference).
• Absentee, early, and polling place votes not correctly or accurately merged, and "negative" votes entered.
• Computer identifies voter thus preventing secret ballot.
• Not enough machines provided in polling place (new variant on Chicago Rules of Election Fraud).
• No standard test for accuracy exists. ES&S only claims ±1%. Accuracy may not be any better than ±7%.
• Computers not properly tested or calibrated.
• Uncertified, untested, or wrong software installed.
• Audit logs incomplete or inaccurate. Sometimes due to insufficient storage media.
• Programming errors. Usually found when vote totals don't match poll book. No one has any way to discriminate between "programming errors" and deliberate fraud or sabotage.
• Candidates and issues omitted from ballot on computer.
• In voting centers, or polling places with multiple precincts, voters are given wrong ballot style to vote on supposedly due to encoding errors by election judges.
• Same ballots counted two or more times.
• More ballots counted by computer than voters logged in poll book.
• Computer stops counting after a few thousand votes but voters keep voting on machine without any notice.
• Votes are logged but then disappear.
• Undervoting and overvoting not properly checked.
• Votes are given to different candidate than one selected by voter.
• Persistent rumors that if no candidate or issue selected machine gives vote to a default selection decided by programmer.
• Several candidates all receive exactly the same number of votes, e.g., 18,181 in Comal County, Texas.
• Straight party voting reverses parties, i.e., elector votes straight Democrat, votes are given to Republicans.
• Straight party votes not counted at all.
• Voting a straight party ticket can too easily result in undervote.
• Machines freeze, shutdown, reset, jam, or fail to boot up.
• Touch screens fail or lose calibration in high humidity.
• Uncertified, untested, or wrong software, firmware, and hardware installed.
• Memory cards fail or are "lost." (Data cartridges are easier to "lose" than ballot boxes)
• Computers not programmed correctly and may be reprogrammed during election.
• Machines programmed for ballots in one precinct end up in another.
• Marking devices, i.e., pencil or pen, wrong ink color (red ink or pencil usually not read by any scanner), gel inks vs. carbon inks, mark intensity, etc., on paper ballots not recognized and votes are not counted by scanner. For an excellent review of such problems see the Statement regarding the optical mark-sense tabulators in Maricopa County, Arizona by Prof. Douglas Jones.
• Scanner sensitivity not properly calibrated or tested prior to election.
• Scanners are difficult to calibrate and lose calibration during elections.
• Defects in scanner cause apparent overvoting and votes are not counted.
• Scanner heads and other components become dirty or scratched and introduce reading errors. For example, voters at home may use correction fluid on their ballot that may wipe off on the read head of the scanner, or food gets spilled on the ballot that transfers to the scanner. This is a particular problem with mail elections where tens or hundreds of thousands of ballots may be scanned with a single machine.
• Double-sided ballots not sufficiently opaque and marks on opposite side bleed through particularly if wrong marking instrument used.
• Overvoting rejection turned off (used to discriminate against minority voters).
• Candidates and issues omitted when ballot is scanned.
• Ballots with straight-party votes not counted correctly.
• Ballots don't fit scanner, or cannot be, or are not read by scanner.
• Ballots often jam due to high humidity.
• Computer identifies voter thus preventing secret ballot.
• Uncertified, untested, or wrong software, firmware, and hardware installed.
• Computers not programmed correctly and may be reprogrammed during election.
• Machines programmed for ballots in one precinct end up in another.
• Absentee or mail ballots have toner or ink transferred while folded and sacked for mailing and scanner reads smudge as vote or overvote.
• Fold in absentee or mail ballots read as vote or overvote.
• Dust and other spurious marks (often attributed to contact with other mail ballots) read as votes.
• Part of ballot becomes folded under in the stack and may jam scanner. Particular problem when attempting to use automatic feeder.
• Folds drag adjacent ballot into the scanner with automatic feeder.
• Ballot upside down can supposedly be handled but additional memory is required.
• Ripped or damaged ballots get caught on the next ballot or in the scanner.
• Bar code on ballot may be slightly damaged by spurious marks and the ballot rejected. This problem seems to happen unnecessarily considering that bar codes are very resilient in other applications.
All in all electronic voting systems don't exhibit the reliability and trustworthiness of a Game Boy toy. Yet we have been forced to put our most fundamental freedom in the hands of a few opportunistic vendors with no meaningful standards of accuracy, reliability, or usability.
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