IO: Congratulations to (and thank Deity for) Mary Jo Drake

Iowa: Congratulations to Mary Jo Drake

By John Washburn, VoteTrustUSA Voting Technology Task Force

June 10, 2006

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On her own authority she performed a hand count of the absentee ballots (in effect an audit of one precinct since absentee ballots are assigned to their own precinct called "Precinct Zero") to determine if the voting machines were counting correctly. She determined from this audit that the machine counts for Precinct Zero were manifestly incorrect.

She then went public - immediately. No reassurances that this was "just a glitch" or an attempt to blame the problem on "human error". That same night she informed the press, candidates, and the Iowa Director of Elections, Sandy Steinbach that the ES&S equipment (M100 precinct scanners and the M650 central count optical scanner) had tainted the administration of the public elections in Pottawatomie County.

She then conducted an audit of the machine programing for the other 48 precincts of Pottawattamie County, Iowa.

As a result of the other 47 audits Marilyn Jo Drake now has vote totals for Potawattamie County, Iowa instead of convenient, computer-generated numbers masquerading as votes totals for Potawattamie County, Iowa.

She accepted the uncomfortable truth over the pleasant, convenient and plausible lie. Her life would have been so much simpler today had she accepted the lie and stated that Pottawattamie County, Iowa election were "problem free". Instead, she chose accuracy over expediency.

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http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1380&Itemid=113

Thank goodness there are still some who value them and seek them out.:bounce:

Hats off to you Mary Jo Drake!

The Minnow would be lost!

Look, she did the right thing -- no question about it.

But this was an outsourced, privatized election run by ES&S who did the ballot programming that screwed up the election in the first place. If Drake hadn't noticed that one race had wildly unexpected results, what would have tipped her off?

She did the right thing, but what procedures will be implemented or improved to prevent this from happening in future elections in Iowa or elsewhere?

Continuing the nautical metaphor, this is the tip of the iceberg.