HAND COUNTING SEQUOIA MACHINES W/O PRINTERS

THIS WAS POSTED ELSEWHERE & THOUGHT YOU MIGHT MISS IT. I KNOW YOU HAVE SEQUOIA'S W/O PRINTERS IN SOME COUNTIES.

chomskysright (105 posts) Sat Dec-04-04 01:32 PM
Response to Original message
3. way to 'hand count' DRE's
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/04/12/04/100loc_locvot...
We in Washington state have a unique situation in that we are going to do a
hand-recount state-wide. We have 3 different systems in this state. A
majority of the state uses central optical-scan. One-third of the counties
use punch cards. A couple counties use precinct based optical scan. Two
counties use DREs (Sequoia and Hart InterCivic).
The link I sent explains how a hand-recount is done from the DREs. That's 5
PC's and 5 printers and 20 cases of paper and 5 days to print out 96,200
ballots that are exactly the same as the data on the memory packs on the
DREs. If a voter verified paper ballot was required, the ballots would have
been printed when those 96,200 voters voted. They would have saved 5 PC's
and 5 printers and 5 days in the recount process.
John Gideon
Information Manager
www.votersunite.org
ORIGINAL THREAD:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x111875

paperless machines, 10-year old machines, that can do individual recounts and are paperless no less....all located in Las Vegas during the Presidential election ...the largest concentration of voters and Dem base in the state....no wonder they ran off the Green Party so easily.

appeared, overnight in ABC tallies, which quickly became AP tallies that quickly became state ok'd.

Check _World Almanac 1987 (for example):
Under "Presidential Election Results" section:
Page 275: under overall national tallies:
Nevada...Reagan...188,770
page 291: under Nevada:
Reagan: 108,770

This error appears in every issue of _World Almanac_ from 1985 through 1991, on the various pages #s on which this material appears in each issue.

Perhaps Judge Breen/ needs to be apprised of this kind of thing?
Nevada was a Plurality state for Bush last time.
With Yucca Flats as an issue this time, how could it not have been at least a Plurality this time, too? Nuclear waste is every bit as much of a threat to the security, I'm sure, in the minds of NV voters, as other Nat'l Sec. issues would have been this time.
Too bad the Dems don't or didn't jump in to pay for the recount.
Is there to be an appeal of Breen/> ruling?

--An AR resident, but I'm trying to put something together re: close states (in addition to OH:
FL
IA
NM
NV
CO
AR
in all of which Kerry led Bush, and in which Bush seldom was out of Pluralities in Pre-electon polls. Etc. What harm is there to recounting these other six states? It would add to Demo tallies at very least, and might do some serious damage to Bush in Electoral College.

huge number of Sequoia machines in Las Vegas were of the older variety with no paper trail. See

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2004/jul/12/517159661.html

See also the San Francisco Chronicle archive of a Nevada AP story: "Computer experts are concerned because only 740 of 2,926 machines in Clark County produce paper records of every ballot cast."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/11/04/politics1958EST0134.DTL

I think this is one of the only cases a computer glitch went for W - and guess what - ELKO County had to call up Diebold who helped them find the votes. This whole episode was uncovered by a DUer. I'll find the link

http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/12/08/news/local/news1.prt http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2004/12/08/news/local/news1.txt

Missing votes found in machines

By DAVE WOODSON, Free Press Staff Writer

ELKO - Elko County Clerk Win Smith said 271 votes in November's general election were not counted because of a "computer glitch" with the new touch-screen machine system.

Smith said three result cards from machines used at the Elko Convention Center, the voting location for the City of Elko, were found to have had problems.

However, she said those votes have since been recovered from the computer cards and added to the final totals.

"The good thing is that they found it," Elko County Manager Rob Stokes said.

Smith said the recovered votes did not impact any election results.

"No votes were lost," she said. "No races were changed."

Smith said the missing votes were discovered late Thursday when county employees inputting voter history into the system discovered that the number of voters and the number of votes did not match.

"We found out all the votes were not counted," she said.

Smith said she contacted Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., the Oakland, Calif.-based hardware and software firm that provided the touch-screen system, and the company provided assistance in finding and correcting the problem.

"We walked it through," she said. "We easily got the votes out of those cartridges."

Smith said the ability to quickly correct the problem was a positive aspect of the new machines, which were used for the first time this year.

"It proves that this system was very reliable," she said.

Smith said the Nevada Secretary of State's office has been notified. She also said an amended vote canvass would have to submitted.

Stokes said the county board will meet in special session at 1 p.m. Thursday at the county courthouse to approve the amended canvass results. He said those results would then be sent to the Nevada Secretary of State so statewide totals also can be amended.

In only two races did the losing candidate pick up more votes than the winning candidate, but it was not enough to alter the outcome of the balloting.

In the contest for Elko County School Board of Trustees District 4, Gordon Fobes added 129 votes to Bill Wilkerson's 58 additional votes.

Despite Fobes cutting into Wilkerson's margin, Wilkerson still won the seat with 7,399 votes to Fobes' 5,981 votes.

In the Elko Civic Auditorium race for Seat C, winner Dave Huckaby added 122 votes while John Collett collected 123 votes. Huckaby still won the seat by a 6,081 to 5,225 margin.

With the amended results, President George W. Bush's winning margin in Elko climbed by .5 percent to 77.98 when he picked up an additional 204 votes while Democratic challenger John Kerry added 55 votes to his total. Bush carried Elko County with 12,142 votes over Kerry's 3,106.

Incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid picked up 107 additional votes but Republican Richard Ziser added 135 votes.

Ziser continued to carry the county with 8,047 votes in his losing bid to unseat Reid, who polled 6,191 votes.

GOP Rep. Jim Gibbons gained 199 votes in his near landslide win over Democrat Angie Cochran, who added 42 votes, with the final total showing Gibbons with 12,008 to Cochran's 2,324.

State Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, mainted his lead over Independent American Party candidate Thomas Jefferson, when Rhoads added 198 votes to Jefferson's 68 votes.

Rhoads' winning margin was 11,794 to Jefferson's 3,060.

State Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, who ran unopposed, upped his ballot total by 206 votes to 12,030.

Also running unopposed was Elko County Commissioner Democrat Mike Nannini for his fourth term from District 1, who picked up an additional 215 votes to bring his total to 11,536.

Incumbent Republican John Ellison in District 3 added 191 votes while his challenger, IAP candidate Dorothy Jefferson, added 72 votes that gave Ellison a margin of 11,313 to Jefferson's 3,413 ballots.

Another incumbent Republican, Warren Russell, in District 5, collected an additional 176 votes while his challenger IAP's Michael Smith added 80 votes for a final tally of Russell with 10,347 votes to Smith's 4,305 votes.

In the Elko County School Board of Trustees race in District 3, winner Annette Kerr picked up 157 votes while Jerry Williams added 50 votes to make the final total Kerr with 7,651 to Williams' 6,045.

Incumbent District 7 school board member Lou Basanez added 160 votes while her challenger Mary Polish picked up 97 votes. Basanez defeated Polish by a 7,653 to 5,863 margin.

Innocently, while trying to help the Green Party last week - 271 votes
were discovered on "vote cartridges" from the brand new paper trailed Sequoia machines at our Elko County clerk's office in Nevada.

I can't post the link to the story in tonight's local paper but I will tomorrow as soon as it goes up. Someone from the Green Party in Vegas had asked me to see if I could get the precinct totals for this county to help them out with the recount they had initially filed. I sent a written request last Monday for the documentation to the Clerk. On Thursday, while entering the precinct votes into an Excel database ....from some other database (I was intially told), 271 uncounted votes were found on three separate precincts in the main population base of Elko County. Bush gained about 200 of these votes and Kerry gained 55. Just think, if I had not made that public information request for the Green Party that already bailed on their recount effort in Nevada, 271 people in my county's votes would never have been counted!!!

I will never vote in this state again.

Oh, forgot to add that the Clerk had to call Sequoia in California to help them "retrieve" the votes off the cartridges. What the hell does that mean? I'll let you guess.

Tell me lies, tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies ....

Do you think I should request this same thing from every county in Nevada now?

NVMojo (1000+ posts)
Wed Dec-08-04 02:56 AM
Response to Original message

1. ok, maybe no one else thinks this is important but I do



these were the brand new HAVA Sequoias with printers the Nevada SOS bragged about....

NVMojo (1000+ posts)
Wed Dec-08-04 03:07 AM
Response to Reply #3

5. sorry but I guess I am still upset about the cancellation of NV's recount



...this find was purely accidental. They have to recertify the vote at the SOS's office now.

And, by the very short period of time that I posted the first post and then posted the second one, Eloriel, that post was second from the bottom, that's why I did this.
This is the DU member formerly known as NVwriter.

4. Hi NVMojo...

Edited on Wed Dec-08-04 03:06 AM by Niche

Yes, request. I know that NV is split in its reps and dems but there are a few weird things there. I have posted this from looking at the numbers across the board - registered and totals - that 100% turn out for rep and 70% turn out for dems. In many counties this happened. Also, have been curious about hearing that 20,000 plus people in clark county signed a legalize marijuana petition and when asked what happened the signatures were lost. Do you know about that? The feedback I'm getting from friends and family there is that they aren't hearing anything about anything (on the news! haha) so they're not sure what to do. My mother is even starting to doubt my reports and emails and has stopped passing anything on. What do we do now? They were pissed off at first no

NVMojo (1000+ posts)
Wed Dec-08-04 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #4

7. Niche, then I guess we have to be vigilantes in NV



I think bigger fraud would be easier to pull in Vegas then on all these rural counties and their new Sequoias with printers. I have been totally disgusted at the State Dems, they did nothing to even reach out and acknowledge the Green Party when they were still trying to get a recount going.

I did hear about that marijuana petition. I had signed it in Reno while in line to see Michael Moore just before the election.

And then there is the issue of why Nevada was charging so much to do a recount for the population base of Nevada. They said they had to bring Sequoia in to help. Just like what here, they had to call Sequoia in California to help them retrieve the 271 uncounted votes on the cartridges last week. What is up with that? Who owns those machines? Sequoia is the only one who can do a recount or retrieve votes? Why bother voting with such a system?

before the electoral vote???