Arkansas Blog

Well, of COURSE ES&S is dragging their heels on providing the software! They don't want to give us enough time to find the 'backdoor' security breach whereby their GOP cronies will go in and alter the data to quash the Dems!

Steve, that's really great. You manage to take the incompetence of Charlie Daniels - the *Democrat* who selected ES&S and also did not order enough machines - and turn it into a Republican conspiracy. I guess Charlie Daniels is a covert DINO.

No, he's probably just naive. Plus, his hands were tied by the GOP-Congressional mandate that FORCES a move to electronic machines combined with the fact that there are only two viable options for purchasing such equipment: Diebold Election Systems (McKinney, Texas) and Election Systems & Software of (Omaha, Neb.)

Both were founded by the same man; the current vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

Diebold gained infamy during the election of 2004 because their CEO Walden O'Dell evinced a conflict of interest when he stated that he was "committed to helping deliver Ohio's electoral votes for the President."

ES&S was recently run by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), an outspoken supporter of President Bush and conservative Republican political causes. In fact, both companies gained an enormous financial advantage from the elections-reform act passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2002.

Moreover, the machines marketed by both companies are unacceptably vulnerable to hackers who could alter the machines' votes and records through remote tampering.

I know some of the people on the Pulaski County Election Commission and they take their position very seriously. I feel confident that the elections will run as smoothly as an election can these days because they will work hard to make sure it does.

At least we don't have Carolyn Staley to kick around anymore.

With gas at three bucks a gallon, my personal time worth...well, sump'n, and these yo-yos not sure whether my ballot is even going to be counted, my choice has just become a no-brainer--STAY HOME!

The statement that this is a state wide problem somewhat misrepresents the true situation in Arkansas. Counties were offered three options to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act. The first, and most expensive options, calls for paper ballots that will be tabulated by sensors attached to ballot boxes at each polling sites as the ballots are inserted into the boxes. Counties that opt for this equipment will also have at least one touch screen device at each polling location to accomodate voters with impairments that have difficulty with paper ballots. Some counties chose this approach to provide a record of the vote that is not dependent on the software provided by ES&S. Unfortunately, ES&S is unable to provide the ballot box tabulators in time for the May primary. We in Pike County will be forced to use the central tabulator from previous elections along with the DVRs(touch screen machines) for the primary even though we chose the system that provides a paper record generated by the voter's own hand.

Counties that chose the touch-screen-only option will have to be content with a paper trail produced by the machine's response to the voter. I admit the voter can check the paper tape after they cast their vote, but in case of a recount or a contested election, the paper ballots will, in my opinion, be much easier to assess. Voting is a responsibility that we should cherish. It is the obligation of state and county officials responsible to make the voting process as fair and comfortable as possible. Our quorum court in Pike County chose to spend the money necessary to ensure that the system we use has the greatest accountability possible of the options offered. Citizens of all counties should insist that their elected officials do the same. It may cost some additional money, but protecting the integrity of elections is worth it.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I serve as chairman of the Pike County Election Commission.

It is really hard to plan for these pesky elections, I mean they come around so often there really isn't time enough to plan anything.

"I know some of the people on the Pulaski County Election Commission and they take their position very seriously. I feel confident that the elections will run as smoothly as an election can these days because they will work hard to make sure it does."

Surely you must be joking! Kent Walker, the same one who was worthless for the Dem Caucus is on the election commission and he'll be just as worthless in this role.

Good thing Columbia, Ouachita, and Union Counties stuck with the Harp Shouptronic machines instead of setting up ES&S equipment. I've only heard horror stories about that company.

I thought Pulaski County had already been using electronic voting machines? So how can they claim that as an excuse. Arkblog, you live in Pulaski. Don't you know?

If you want to blame someone, look no further than Charlie Daniels office.

When was this purchase of equipment authorized? HAVA was mandated several years ago, and we're just now doing something about it?

I think the wrong questions are being asked here.

I agree Pul resident. However, it must be added that the vendor, ES&S, is much to blame for the problems happening not just in Pulaski Co or other counties in Arkansas. States around the nation that have contracted with ES&S are experiencing the same problems, and even worse. You can read about problems with ES&S in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana and the list goes on and on. Simply go to www.electiononline.org and read for yourself. For example, Oregon is suing ES&S, Marion Co. Indiana is going through a nightmare, and I could tire my fingers from typing out just 1/10 of the mess ES&S has caused...just read about it all on the site mentioned above.

'Escuses' and 'pul resident' have very short memories. The feds kept changing the HAVA regulations and then the state legislatures got involved with the famous voter verified paper trail so that it was a huge gamble to purchase equipment until the target quit moving. All election providers are having major difficuclties providing equipment, because all states were in the same boat and NOW they're ALL trying to get their equipment in and working for prinary and general elections all across the country. There are only so many vendors, factories, and trained personnel to go around. Change never comes easy. Our folks in Arkansas have done as good a job as any in trying to deal with the situation. It's easy to throw rocks, much more difficult to make it work. Our elections people both state and local have been working non-stop to make this happen.

Having recently attended a session designed to familiarize us with the new voting equipment to be used here, I can only say that voters need to read the screen instructions carefully and ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. And remember, all those non-reading kids working at McDonald's have mastered this touch screen stuff.
But even before that, have patience with the poll workers. I suspect the time it will take the poll worker to ready the machine for each voter will be substantially longer than anything you have experienced in the past.
(I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'll vote absentee. Is it against the law to incite a voter rebellion in favor of those old dinosaurs they say are already in the dump?)

This state has no idea how bad it's about to get. Voters: if you care at all about your vote you better demand your election commission call a local printer and have them print up plenty of paper ballots per the EAC recommendation, and you had better do it now. You're going to need them.

ES&S machines have crashed, burned, delayed elections, shipped machines without vote counting software, provided memory cards that count, store and tabulate the vote that are breaking off in the machines crumbling in the hands of election officials in 9 states AND are taking votes from the machines not in use and adding their stored totals in with the current election totals (IF they have the software on them) during their recent primaries.

Don't take my word for it. Visit VotersUnite.org, click on link on right, machine failure by vendors and states. Also subscribe to the Daily Voting News. Google for machine problems+ ES&S.

The buck indeed stops with Mr. Daniels, et al as he stated. Every single person from the county level to the state level to the AR media was made aware of the problems with not only this vendor, ES&S, but with the machine woes of all the other vendors as well, for at least four years.

Get the lifeboats, the Titanic sets sail May 23.

***

Voting system under fire

By JENNIFER WHITSON Courier & Press Indianapolis bureau (317) 631-7405 or whitsonj@courierpress.com
April 14, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced Thursday he intends to bring an enforcement action against Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a Nebraska-based voting systems vendor.

Rokita will conduct a public hearing, though the date has not been set, and has ordered his legal staff to issue subpoenas to ES&S officials.

http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1064&Itemid=51

ES&S Vote Machine Memory Card Failures Spread to Other States
By John Gideon, VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA   
March 17, 2006
1000 Cards Fail Tests in North Carolina After Massive Failures Discovered in Ohio!

ALSO: Testing Reports Say Voting Machines One-Third as Reliable as Incandescent Light Bulb!

This article appeared on Brad Blog. It is reposted here with permission of Brad Blog.

As reported on March 9 and March 10 by The BRAD BLOG the folks in Summit Co. OH have discovered massive problems with memory cards on ES&S Electronic Voting Machines in recent tests. Some 30% of the cards completely failed.

ES&S, the largest voting machine provider in the country, attributed the problem to low or dead batteries on the PCMCIA memory cards. At the time, we inquired as to whether other states using ES&S equipment might be expierencing similar problems. The reporter covering the story for the Akron Beacon Journal told us she was able to get no response from ES&S -- but was then given an assurance that ES&S had contacted their customers to inform them about the concerns.

A week ago Tuesday, Texas experienced loads of problems (or "glitches" as Voting Machine Vendors and Election Officials enjoy minimizing them as) in their Primary Elections. Just a few of those reported in newspapers the day after are listed here.

Then yesterday the Akron Beacon Journal reported that, in fact, ES&S had contacted North Carolina. North Carolina, who lost some 4,500 votes completely via an electronic voting machine in Cartaret County during the 2004 Presidential Election, began checking their ES&S memory cards and have so far found more than 1,000 cards that to be bad!

Summit County, OH has also now confirmed that two-thirds of the cards failed due to "battery issues"; the rest failed due to "read-back errors".
ES&S officials contend that bad batteries were to blame for the problem memory cards, but Summit County officials now say that low batteries were the problem in only about one-third of the hundreds of faulty memory cards here.

"The majority of them were read-back errors, not a battery issue," Bryan Williams, director of the Summit County Board of Elections, said Wednesday.

About one-third were battery errors. Two-thirds were read-back errors," Williams added.

He said after new batteries were installed in the memory cards, many still failed to work.

Marijean Donofrio, deputy director of the Summit elections board, said memory cards reading "low battery" began to work properly when new batteries were installed. But others that read "dead battery" still did not work when the batteries were changed.

She said the more common problem was the "read-back error,'' which occurred when testers were attempting to run a mock election. The memory cards could not read the data programmed onto them.
It is important to point out that North Carolina state law requires any voting vendor to alert the state if there is a problem found on any voting system in another state that may be a problem in North Carolina. The law worked very well or the state may never have been warned except by the voting activist community who raised the 'red flag'.

Still unanswered is whether the recent myriad problems with ES&S systems in Texas had anything to do with the memory card failures. Also still unanswered is if there are any problems in other states like Indiana or West Virginia where primary elections are soon to be held and ES&S machines are in place.

ALSO: A newly released study of the reliability of voting systems shows that those voting systems studied and presently being sold across the country are one-third as reliable, at best, as an incandescent light bulb.

__

Let's put that in perspective: 2 four-packs of 60 watt bulbs blows out at my house every week...

+++

Vendors

Texas Counties at Mercy of ES&S

http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1149&Itemid=51

By Veronica L. Castro, Texas Coalition for Voting Integrity   
April 01, 2006
The elections drama that unfolded this week in Jefferson County, TX is an example of what can happen when an extraordinary amount of power is placed in the hands of a few. Democratic and Republican primary elections were being 'held hostage' by iVotronic manufacturer ES&S. Jefferson county purchased iVotronic machines in order to comply with federal law by the first primary election of the year. On March 7, the iVotronics were in place, but the system was not. Database components were missing. The programming was flawed. There were equipment failures. County Clerk Carolyn Guidry stated tabulation errors led to votes being counted twice. She added that the ES&S personnel were ill-informed. The Jefferson County Commissioner's Court reviewed what happened on March 7 and concluded that ES&S was not fulfilling its contractual obligations. They decided to withhold payment until ES&S held up their end of the bargain. This is a standard practice; when homeowners or businesses hire a contractor, they do not pay the entire sum in advance but pay a portion when work begins. The remainder is paid when work is satisfactorily completed. Even though the March 7th election was problematic and far from satisfactory, ES&S demanded payment. The company stated that they would not provide programming and technical support for the run-off election until they were paid $1.95 million.

County officials knew they could not conduct the run-off election on iVotronics unless they had ES&S support. Assistant District Attorney Tom Rugg told the Beaumont Enterprise, "They are refusing to do things only they can do. Without ES&S programming, "the system they say they've sold to us is essentially worthless."

Unable to put the voting machines to use, the County planned to use paper ballots for early voting, which begins Monday. "We're cutting and pasting from sample ballots," stated Chief Deputy County Clerk Theresa Goodness. County officials expressed concern about accessibility, but said if they did not reach an agreement with ES&S they would have to use paper ballots. The Secretary of State's office reminded Jefferson county officials that they risked losing federal money and sanctions from the Justice Department if they did not meet handicapped-accessibility requirements.
 
Although the county has reached an agreement with ES&S late Wednesday afternoon, it appears they had no choice. The county was between a rock and a hard place. The rock: they could pay ES&S for sloppy and incomplete work. The hard place: use paper ballots and face possible sanctions for violating federal law. County commissioners chose the former. They will pay ES&S, but the iVotronics will not be ready for early voting, and the county will have to use optical-scan ballots. The touch-screens will be added whenever programming and testing has been completed.  Hopefully that will be before the end of early voting.

Jefferson County is not alone. Several Texas counties who use the iVotronic are at the mercy of ES&S. Angelina, Brewster, Briscoe, Caldwell, Jefferson, Navarro, and Webb counties are among those.  None have received ballot programs, some have not received training or software, and all are hoping that someone from ES&S shows up on Friday. Otherwise, they will not be ready for Monday. As one County Clerk put it, "We are going to use whatever we have." Election officials must rely on the expertise of software programmers provided by the company and cannot program their own ballots. Without ES&S ballot programs, the iVotronic is as useless as a door-less refrigerator.

State Director of Elections Ann McGeehan has received numerous complaints. Although the Elections Office could not specify how many and which counties are affected by poor service, they know the problems are widespread. Ms. McGeehan's office issued a memorandum today giving counties permission to,

create emergency ballots. If you do not receive your ballots in time to properly prepare for early voting, you may create your own paper ballots or, if you received a proof from your vendor, you may use PDF format to print copies of the ballot. . If you do not receive your ballot programming in time to conduct your required Logic and Accuracy tests, you will have no option [emphasis added] but to begin early voting using the emergency paper ballots.  
Assistant D.A. Rugg knows about not having options. "Right now, they're [ES&S] my only shot at being ... compliant, and I really need to be that way so the federal government doesn't start asking embarrassing questions."

Ms. McGeehan acknowledged, "We recognize that this kind of service from our certified voting systems vendors is completely unacceptable and disturbing." Indeed, it is disturbing when elections cannot go forward without the help of a small number of people from a handful of companies.

Re: Shouptronic post. Wouldn't want you to be lulled into a false sense of security friend.

Ransom Shoup was indicted for bribery and corruption of election officials and imprisoned,

The Danaher Group bought his Shouptronics, along with other vendors, ES&S included from all indications. Voting vendors randomly buy and sell each other's machine firmware and parts, it's in fact, cannibalizing of machine parts.

You can learn more about the 'phantom votes cast' and other cute voting tricks performed by Shouptronics at VotersUnite.org. Click on the link to the right of the page entitled Machine Failure by Vendor. Shouptronics are there listed under Danaher.

Mess Ups by Vendor:

ES&S, Danaher Shouptronics Don't know if this has been updated since the 2006 primaries but there is way too much information if you know what I mean.

http://www.votersunite.org/info/messupsbyvendor.asp

Why am I not surprised? Typical. We will have the same thing all over again, and probably end up with the Republicans in even though no one wants them in.

Paper and pencil was working just fine.

Voterxyz, you must be working for ES&S, Diebold, or another voting equipment company....and no, I don't have a short memory. I am, and have been, completely aware of the HAVA issues from the Feds and the state's requirement of a VVPT (RTAL printer). I am also completely aware of the promises and agreements (written agreements, ie. contracts, ever heard those?) from ES&S specifically related to dates and time lines. ES&S has repeatedly failed to meat their end of the bargain. It's common sense, if you can't provide your customer the product, DON'T enter into a contract with said customer. In other words, don't bite off more than you can chew. I agree that election officials in Arkansas are doing a fine job, especially considering the situation and I commend them all, but to say that vendors are having a tough time meeting their obligations because of time frame is insulting. Don't promise a customer something you can't provide. Business 101.

Hey voterx:

You've not quite got your facts straight.

ES&S did not have a paper tail producting prototype. That is why they had to rush out in a frenzy to build a prototype and attempt to mass produce one, or bought some other vendors machines and slapped their labels on them. (Diebold and ES&S were formed by two brothers who still are VP's at both of them)

The HAVA waiver stated the states had until January 1, 2006, AR didn't announce they were buying ES$S until the spring of 06 because ES&S DID NOT have the machine available. AR was at least 4 months out of compliance with the HAVA. That's not legal but nobody cares, right?

Thus, the disastrous results ES&S left in 9 other states primaries. Including, TX, IN, IL, WV, OH, PA, FL, SC and NC to name a few. ES&S has also told several of these states they REFUSED to fix the machines and PA and IN are filing lawsuits against ES&S as of this writing. They've also sold the machines with no software to at least 6 other states recently. This is an old trick, ES&S sold IN machines with software that didn't count the vote back in 2001, thus the law on their books.

IN has an election law on the books that will fine any vendor up to $300, 000 a day for infractions. AR LEDGE ARE YOU READING THIS?

Could it be that it's because they don't have any software because the machines are Diebold or Sequoia machines which run on different software??

AR could always do what North Carolina legislators did-due to mass bombardments of calls and emails from upset voters: pass a voting bill with some very large teeth against vendors for any and all infractions, in fact their penalty is a felony charge.

Diebold pulled their bid off the shelf afraid of that very felony charge.

RE: I thought Pulaski County had already been using electronic voting machines?

They have been using electronic voting machines, ES&S iVotronic voting machines shortly before the 2000 GE. In the 2000 general election, Congressman Snyder's votes lit up for his opponent Hammons? more than 25 times. That 'calibration problem' is done at a county level. The software problems are programmed by ES&S along with the PEB's or small 'memory cards' they are selling now that load the electronic ballot and store and tabulate the VOTE TOTALS.

Personally, I'd like to see somebody turn Yosemite Sam lose on Charlie Daniels, Janet Miller, Tim Humphries and the ES&S rep.

The state of FL found that ES&S iVotronics had been taking stored votes off machines not even used in the past six of FL elections. An engineer on the election commission discovered this and sent out a letter advising these machines were not to be used to tabulate the vote. They wouldn't listen to him either.

ES&S machines show votes in election from UNUSED machines. Recount requested.

http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=11952&Section=L

The first situation occurred at the Kika de la Garza building in Mission. Here, there was confusion when an election judge reported three votes from an unused machine. Navarro said those were from the November constitutional election and were not counted in Tuesday's primary.

While I acknoledge there are some concerns with ES&S, it should be noted that Susan Inman is a notorious "chicken little". There is no telling how many elections she has screwed up in the past but she was always overshadowed by Staley's blunders.

RE: Unconcerned Citizen

That's about the size of it.