3/24/05 SOS reply to questions on VBM posted on DU

From: Anne.M.Martens@state.or.us
Subject: Re: More VBM issues
Date: March 24, 2005 8:40:07 AM PST
To: betsysalter@comcast.net

Of course. See below.
Anne M. Martens
Chief of Communications
Oregon Secretary of State
503-986-1502

Betsy Salter 3/23/2005 7:21:17 PM >>>
Dear Anne:
Thank you for responding to the criticisms of vote-by-mail I forwarded to you from Mr. Herrin. Oregon Voter Rights Coalition is sharing your responses with Mr. Herrin and will use those responses should we be asked similar questions. Following is another set of vote by mail issues to which the Coalition would like to be able to respond. Could you share with us how SOS would respond to the following VBM concerns?

Thanks,
Betsy Salter
503-238-4661

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?
az=view_all&address=203x283681

Vote by Mail clearly HAS potential problems. It should NOT be thought
of as the perfect system or a panacea for the whole nation to adopt. I
made my living as an auditor back in the days when professional
accounting was an honorable profession (before conglomerates and
offshore corporate registration and international consolidations) e.g.
before those corporations became so big their power exceeded the power
of government bodies and they could not be regulated

Here are the problems I have identified with vote-by-mail:

Comment 1.
Like with all other systems (except hand-counting), the votes are tabulated centrally at either county or state level in computers where the software is proprietary. This is often the first count taken of the actual votes Vote switching can take place, ballots can be nullified, etc. (or just "disappeared") and there is no way to know or prove it.

No one is going to do enough random hand recounts to prove anything. Remember, it would only have required changing an average of something like 11 votes per precinct in Ohio to change the result by about 100,000 votes. If a random hand recount found 11 errors in a single precinct it would not be considered significant

SOS Response 1:
In Oregon, votes are tabulated centrally at the county elections office using optical scan machines made by either ES&S or Sequoia. Ballots are counted by county elections officials only. The software is proprietary, however, the software is also tested. We use an independent contractor to test tabulation before every election, counties also test tabulation before and after every election (3 times). This includes a prepatory test for logic and accuracy to ensure that each ballot correctly tallies, and two public certification tests. After the election, a random audit of a small number of ballots in each county is recounted by hand to check accuracy.

Comment 2A.
There are no batch controls originating at the precinct level that would show how many votes were cast, because obviously no one knows how many ballots were mailed in. You might think you COULD do batch controls on the locked drop boxes IF a count was taken of the number of envelopes contained in each pickup. It still would not mean anything because people from any precinct can use any drop box, even drop boxes not in their own county. (wonder what happens to those? -- supposedly they get forwarded later to the right county and become an adjustment item after Election Day) Common example would be college student ballots where their permanent address and registration is in a different Oregon county than the county the college is in.

SOS Response 2A
I don't understand this point. We do know exactly how many ballots are mailed in. We also know how many ballots are mailed in or dropped off each day, and what precinct they are from if that county counts by precinct. Ballots that come in to one county that belong to another county are mailed to the proper county each day.

Comment 2B.
I am not worried so much about ballots being stolen at a post office and such. I worry about how much of the Oregon system is based on pure trust of election officials and election workers and of course pure trust in secret computer code. I think for the most part Oregon has good people in charge of each county, but that could change if we elect bad people as county commissioners who then do the appointments. We actually DO elect our Secretary of State (some states do not). We could still end up with a Blackwell clone in there somewhere someday.

SOS Response 2B
Some county clerks are elected and some are appointed. We believe that our trust is well placed in independent county officials who have a proven record of unassailable behavior in elections, who swear to uphold the law and the constitution of the state of Oregon, and who take their responsibilities very seriously. County clerks, or a Secretary of State, who abuse their responsibilities are, like all public officials, accountable to the people.

Comment 2C
The second problem I mentioned is true for all of the Absentee Ballots in any state's system, but that is usually a relatively small number of ballots. In Oregon, it is the whole ball game

SOS Response 2C.
I don't understand this point.

Comment 3.
Because of the centralization of everything now, Oregon is going through a systematic consolidation of precincts. I was co-ordinating GOTV for a rural precinct in Lane that was huge in physical size. It was actually what had been 5 precincts which were all significantly different in character and voting history. I can no longer look at the reported results of the whole new precinct and say, "those results are about what I expected." Before the consolidations I, and others, would have been able to spot results that looked "unusual", "questionable" or "just plain cock-eyed." We sure can't do that now.

SOS Response 3
Some counties count by precinct, some counties count by batch (usually the larger counties). Just because some guy can't eyeball the results, doesn't mean that the results are wrong.

Comment 4A
Don't get me wrong. I love the convenience of all-mail voting. It is great that there is no possibility of outside intimidation of voters. The home-bound can vote without worrying about getting a ride or extra help. There is plenty of time to scrutenize and think about your ballot and do extra research on a candidate, etc. You don't have to worry about being in town on a particular day or if your car will run or be available on a particular day, etc.

But I have become convinced that the only workable honest elections are the ones with local control:

SOS Response 4A
Elections "with local control" are subject to far more fraud and abuse than elections under the supervision of county elections officials. "Local control" usually means disperse polling places where volunteers who are trained for four hours every two years are expected to know everything about election laws and processes, where voters are turned away, where ballots are misplaced, and where mismanagement is the rule and not the exception. In the county elections office, processes are managed by a professional staff who work in elections every day of every year, who participate in the process of creating laws and policies affecting elections, who are known and accountable to the people of their county, and who know what they're doing.

Comment 4B
Raw counts of ballots (all the counting of each race and ballot measure done with witnesses) after the polls close right at the polling places.

SOS Response 4B
This would significantly delay the release of elections results. Currently all counting is open to observation by any member of the public.

Comment 4C
The number of separate ballots counted must reconcile with the number of signatures in the poll book.

SOS Response 4C
We do this in advance by checking the signature on the ballot as it comes in.

Comment 4D
The detailed results publicly posted and reported to the media at the same time the results are reported to the county. Sure, there will be adjustments, but you have got raw counts to start from and everybody knows what the raw numbers are.

SOS Respone 4D
Results are not reported to the county. The county reports results to the SoS and to the media, and in 2004 we had online real-time unofficial results available to anybody. These are available beginning at 8:05 pm on election night. Because counting begins in the morning on election day, the first tally released usually contains about half of the ballots received and is an accurate predictor of final results.

Comment 4E
Each precinct needs to be small enough (say, no more than 1000 expected voters -- most will be around the 300-600 voter level on normal turnouts) to pretty easily get the job done in a couple of hours or less.

SOS Respone 4E
I don't understand why this is an issue.

Comment 4F
After that the county can tabulate them in those computers, make adjustments for the Absentee and Military Ballots, etc. but they cannot stray very far from those base raw numbers without arousing suspicions. Any differences have to have an explanation.

SOS Response 4F
Again, this is a non-issue. We tabulate ballots received, what other "raw numbers" would there be?

Comment 5
The American people lost control of their elections when HAVA was passed by Congress. Do not let any senator or congressman say otherwise. The "paper trail" bit does not solve the problem. It reallydoesn't, because it is in the tabulators where the real fraud can take place and leave no trace.

SOS Response 5
Nonsense. Every election system is subject to fraud, some more than others. Fraud happened before HAVA, HAVA just brought people's attention to elections. The prevention of fraud and other shenanigans is found in the process and procedures of the election.

Comment 6
The system I suggest is the one used in Canada and in almost all other countries that are considered democracies. Most use local volunteers for the counting process. It is considered a civic responsibility and is often done by respected members of the community, not politicians or political junkies or people just pulled off the streets.

SOS Response 6
Canada uses vote-by-mail for local elections. So does Great Britain. If you would like to increase the sense of civic responsibility in the U.S., then place your focus on education, not on mandating an elections system.

Comment7
Responsible high school students could well be a part of the mix.

SOS Response 7
That would be wonderful. We currently visit over 100 high schools each year to perform a mock election exercise that emphasizes the importance of voting and civic responsibility. We also work with the Classroom Law Project, the New Voters Project, Rock the Vote, the Oregon Student Association, and other organizations that are involved in increasing youth participation in civics.