Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine

By Michael Collins
Created Jan 15 2007 - 6:00am

"Scoop" Independent News [1]

Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine

Examining Florida 13th and North Carolina 8th
Congressional Districts Leaves Little Doubt

Michael Collins [2]
Part 2 of a Series - Part 1 [3]
Washington, DC.

The Election Contest [4] filed by Democrat Christine Jennings and her
attorney Kendall Coffey creates complications that could blow the electronic
voting world to pieces. In the simplest terms, the Jennings Florida 13th
Congressional district case requires a review of the Kissell loss in North
Carolina's 8th Congressional district. And that spells disaster for
e-voting.

Why? Because both the Florida and North Carolina districts used iVotronics
touch screen voting machines. These voting machines produced very similar
levels of counting errors. The errors cost both Democrats thousands of
votes. Ultimately, both Democratic candidates were denied a victory by less
than 400 votes.

While Jennings makes a very strong case for a voided election and new vote
in Florida, the case becomes virtually unassailable when reviewing results
from North Carolina. At the same time, the North Carolina 8th results,
reviewed in the context of the election contest analysis of Florida's 13th,
makes it abundantly clear that the loser, Kissell, should have won in almost
any scenario other than voting machine malfunction.

In both districts, the iVotronic touch screen voting machines produced
undervote rates at or above 15%%. What this means is that supposedly one in
seven voters cast ballots but left out a choice for the most important
election (an unmarked race on an otherwise marked ballot is called an
undervote). The only culprit in both the Florida 13th and North Carolina 8th
elections is voting machine malfunction. The facts supporting the case for
losers winning don't allow for much debate in these Florida and North
Carolina races. They're simple and a review leads to conclusions that
devastate any trust in electronic voting.

The Florida election contest brief filed in Congress looks at data within
the 13th Congressional district and data from other Florida districts.
Coffey notes that the undervote rate in Sarasota County is six times the
undervote rate in surrounding counties in the same district. How did that
happen? These are contiguous counties and part of the same congressional
district.

Coffey performs a rhetorical slam dunk by looking at undervotes for the two
types of early voting in Sarasota County. Early voting by mail required
voters to mark their choices on optical scan paper ballots then mail the
ballots to the elections board where they were totaled using optical scan
readers. Mail in early voting undervotes were at 2.6%%. In person early
voters came to central locations and voted on iVotronic touch screens like
those used in the general election. Undervotes by that method ran 17.6%%.
There is no reason for a difference of 15 points other than the one provided
by Coffey in the Jennings case: voting machine malfunction by the
iVotronics. As a result, 14,000 Sarasota County voters lost their
constitutional rights. The election should be voided and a new one held.

Mecklenburg County, NC and the End of Electronic Voting

One might argue that this is an exaggerated claim but review the facts and
decide yourself.

Any serious evaluation of the Jennings election contest by Congress leads
right to North Carolina's Mecklenburg County. iVotronic touch screens were
used in the Jennings race and three Congressional races in Mecklenburg. That
county holds the answers to both the Jennings contest and a resolution of
another 2006 travesty, the loss of Democrat Larry Kissell in that North
Carolina's 8th Congressional District.

As a result of voting problems in 2004, North Carolina requires a paper [5]
trail for touch screen voting machines. Right now there are paper receipts
for each vote cast in these three districts. The test is simple. Total the
votes for Congress on paper trail receipts in each Congressional district
and compare those totals to the vote totals from the iVotronic touch
screens. If paper receipts show more votes for Congress than reported by the
touch screens, the variance points clearly to an iVotronic machine error. If
Jennings could provide such data, this would add a compelling new level of
evidence added to her case.

If the paper trail receipts are available and examined, they represent a
smoking gun that validates the Florida case. Even without the paper
receipts, there is strong support to argue that the same class of touch
screens used in Florida, iVotronics, produced exceptional, no unbelievable
rates of undervotes in North Carolina not evident in high visibility races.

Graph 1 [5] Graph 2 [6]
iVotronic voting machines were used in Mecklenburg County in 2006. The
county contains part of three Congressional Districts. The graph on the left
shows very high undervotes in the 8th and 12th. In the 8th, Democrat Kissell
lost by 329 votes with an undervote rate close to that in the Jennings race.

A preliminary look at 2006 and 2004 undervote rates shows that the 2006
undervote rate in Mecklenburg County, NC indicates that the iVotronic
machines throw away votes. Using the county as a whole, in 2006 the average
Congressional undervote rate (for all three races) was 11%%. In 2006, the
Congressional race was the lead or one of the lead races. In 2004, with vote
totals for President as the baseline, the undervote rate in Mecklenburg was
2.6%%. Thus, undervotes increased by a factor of four from 2004 to 2006.

By investigating Jennings claims through the use of the highly pertinent and
available data from North Carolina, it becomes abundantly clear that
Democrat Kissell lost that contest due to machine malfunction - by the very
same type of machines used in the Jennings race. Since the undervote rates
in these distant and disparate counties were almost the same, the data on
Kissell supports Jennings claims.

Below you see the electronic nightmare created by analysis of the North
Carolina race. The graph on the left shows 3,199 undervotes (16.6%%) in
Democrat Kissell's stronghold in Mecklenburg. On the right, the victory
margin district wide for Republican Hayes is shown next to the undervotes
for just Mecklenburg where Democrat Kissell won by a two to one margin. The
North Carolina 9th and 12th races were blow outs. The 8th was not. In the
very area where Kissell was strongest, le lost 3,199 voters, many of whom
would have voted for him.

Graph 3 [7] Graph 4 [8]
The undervotes in the Mecklenburg portion of the 8th were more than nine
times the victory margin for the entire district and they occurred in a
voting area that went 68%%
to 32%% for the Democratic Party candidate, Larry Kissell.

Let's assume a typical rate of undevotes at a generous 3%%, or 579 votes, and
Kissell's Mecklenburg share of 68%% of the votes counted. The math is easy.
Kissell wins. Presume that Kissell's undervote rate of 16.6%% is the final
proof (with or without recounting the paper trail voting receipts) of voting
machine malfunction in Jennings' Florida district. It's easy, Jennings wins.
These numbers won't go away.

We now have two members of Congress seated as a result of elections decided
by less than 400 votes. A simple analysis of current and historical data for
expected undervotes shows that the double digit undervote rates in each
candidate's stronghold resulted in lost votes; votes that would have lead to
a victory by either of the now designated losing candidates. The first shall
be last, once again.

Stay tuned.

END

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson