Ed Felten: "Could a Bug Have Lost Votes?" and why I say YES

WillYourVoteBCounted

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Wed Feb-28-07 12:21 PM
Original message

Ed Felten: "Could a Bug Have Lost Votes?" and why I say YES

Ed Felten has posted more comments about FL 13 on his blog, Freedom to Tinker:

Sarasota: Could a Bug Have Lost Votes?
Tuesday February 27, 2007 by Ed Felten

At this point, we still don't know what caused the high undervote rate in Sarasota's Congressional election. There are two theories. The State-commissioned study released last week argues that for the theory that a badly designed ballot caused many voters to not see that race and therefore not cast a vote.

Today I want to make the case for the other theory: that a malfunction or bug in the voting machines caused votes to be not recorded. The case sits on four pillars: (1) The postulated behavior is consistent with a common type of computer bug. (2) Similar bugs have been found in voting machines before. (3) The state-commissioned study would have been unlikely to find such a bug. (4) Studies of voting data show patterns that point to the bug theory....

read the rest here: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1126

MY QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS

ES&S memo about Software bug?

ES&S sent a "software bug" memo to FLorida SOEs in August of 2006 that there was a problem with a "smoothing filter" that would possibly delay the recording of the voter's selections. This delay would be longer than expected, and the voter might move on before the vote was recorded.

ES&S recommended putting signs in the voting booths to warn voters, and also recommended a "software patch" prior to the November election.

I do not know if all or any Florida machines ever received that patch, or if the patch was distributed, if it was put on every single voting machine.
Further, if the patch was applied, was it tested? Did it work uniformly on all machines, including those that were ADA enabled?

See that memo here: http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ESS_Aug_2006_iVotronic_FL_memo.pdf

Ballot design? I believe we also had some terrible ballot designs in some counties, including one style that pretty much "hid" the US Congressional race for the NC 08. Besides having different versions of the iVos, FL also got a memo about a "software bug" that did not apply to North Carolina:

North Carolina had some terrible ballot designs.
If ballot style was the sole cause of FL 13 undervote, then we in North Carolina should have had far worse problems in our iVotronic counties.

Here is Sarasota FL 13's ballot http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/sarasota_ballot_style.pdf

Now take a look at what appears to be a more confusing ballot style
for Mecklenburg County NC, the NC 08 ballot:
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Mecklenburg_2006_ballot.pdf
(notice the nearly hidden placement of the US congressional race?)
Meckelnburg had a 4 % undervote rate for that contest.

Here is a memo from the NC State Board of Elections explaining the differences in NC iVotronics and the FL iVotronics, as well as a ballot comparison:
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Sarasota_NC_Ballot_Comparison_06.pdf

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troubleinwinter

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Wed Feb-28-07 02:52 PM
Response to Original message

1. Excellent post.

Links are 'must reads'.

I agree that the NC Meclenburg ballot seems even more confusing (congressional race listed beneath TWO 'Straight Party' headings in the column) than FL 13.

The ES&S letter is certainly disturbing.

The info comparing the different versions (NC vs. FL iVotronics) is interesting.

A recommend for your post, and thanks.

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Stevepol

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Wed Feb-28-07 08:19 PM
Response to Original message

2. I think the bug was probably tested in the ES&S labs

and found to be effective.

Here's the question:

"I do not know if all or any Florida machines ever received that patch, or if the patch was distributed, if it was put on every single voting machine.
Further, if the patch was applied, was it tested? Did it work uniformly on all machines, including those that were ADA enabled?"

If the bug don't get you, the patch will. Wonder if it was anything like the patches that were used in GA in 02 to steal that election?

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read the law first

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Sun Mar-04-07 12:12 AM
Response to Original message

3. I believe he is right on all counts

I believe that he is right on the bug and I believe that he is right that there was no malicious hack. I know that runs counter to most here, but Felton says that there was no malicious hack. Now, there was clearly a bug that caused thousands of votes to go missing.

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OnTheOtherHand

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Sun Mar-04-07 07:23 AM
Response to Reply #3

4. parsimony

As Felten also pointed out: If there was a hack, there ought to be a reason why the hack caused visible undervotes instead of undetectable vote-switching. There could be answers to that, but at this point they don't seem top-tier probable.

I wouldn't say there was clearly a bug -- we don't know how large an effect ballot design could have -- but I agree with both of you that it's very much a live hypothesis.

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