"Nonvotes"

I've looked through the official results for the state of Florida and have found some a strange fact that no one else has either noticed or attempted to offer an explanation for. That fact is that voters who turned out but did not cast a vote for President are clearly more numerous on some machines, groups, and counties than others.

This anomaly becomes apparent even when sorting the vote by voting technology used, which only has two categories. I'll be referring to ballots cast without Presidential votes as "nonvotes." Let me know if there is a better word to describe them.

In the graph above, we can see that while touchscreen voting machines contributed 54% of the state's vote, they managed to contribute a much greater percentage of the state's nonvotes, 61%. There is more than a seven point spread between votes and nonvotes contributed. We can also see that optical scan voting machines performed in the reverse, contributing a lower percentage of the state's nonvotes than it contributed to the state's turnout.

In this graph we witness a distinct difference between the amount of voter turnout and nonvotes that Diebold's machines contributed to the statewide totals. While Diebold contributed more than 30% of the state's total turnout, it only contributed about 19% of the state's total nonvotes. Diebold's percentage of nonvotes contributed was only about 60% of what its total turnout contributed was. Diebold is the only manufacturer whose machines contributed less to the amount of nonvotes than to turnout.

The other two manufacturers, ES&S and Sequoia, exhibited a difference between themselves, as well. ES&S's percent nonvotes contributed to the state total was approximately 120% of its percent turnout contributed. Sequoia's nonvote contribution was about 112% of its percent turnout contribution.

Another calculation shows that 0.24% of the ballots Diebold counted included no vote for President. ES&S's and Sequoia's machines respectively returned 0.48% and 0.45% of ballots with no Presidential vote. This data is shown below, and is in my Excel spreadsheet, as well.

Vendor	Vendor Turnout Sub-Total	Vendor Nonvote Sub-Total	Vendor's % Statewide Turnout	Vendor's % Statewide Nonvotes	Vendor's % Statewide Turnout - % Statewide Nonvotes
Diebold Election Systems	2,354,808	5,666	30.82%	18.57%	12.25%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.24%
Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S)	3,743,986	17,888	49.00%	58.63%	-9.63%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.48%
Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc.	1,541,525	6,955	20.18%	22.80%	-2.62%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.45%

 

The last comparison I was able to make of this kind was nonvotes and turnout categorized by machine model.

This graph shows us what we already knew in the second graph. The Accuvote-ES2001B is the only machine manufactured by Diebold in the state, and so its percent nonvotes and percent turnout contributed to the state totals will be the same as Diebold's numbers in the vendor comparison.

The new information contained in this graph is that behavior is mostly uniform among machines of the other two manufacturers. The AVC Edge, iVotronic, Model 100, and Optech 3P Eagle all contributed a higher percentage of the state's total nonvotes than they did to the state's total turnout.

More calculations reveal that ES&S's optical scan machines, the Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle, were the only machines that counted more than 0.5% of their ballots as not having a vote for President. This data is below.

Model	Model Turnout Sub-Total	Model Nonvote Sub-Total	Model's % Statewide Turnout	Model's % Statewide Nonvotes	Model's % Statewide Turnout - % Statewide Nonvotes	Voting Tech's % Statewide Nonvotes as a % of Statewide Turnout
AccuVote-ES2001B	2,354,808	5,666	30.82%	18.57%	12.25%	60.26%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.24%
AVC Edge	1,531,477	6,862	20.04%	22.49%	-2.45%	112.21%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.45%
iVotronic	2,590,145	11,855	33.90%	38.86%	-4.96%	114.62%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.46%
Model 100	364,622	1,894	4.77%	6.21%	-1.44%	130.08%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.52%
Optech 3P Eagle	799,267	4,232	10.46%	13.87%	-3.41%	132.60%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.53%

 

This is a list of some facts that I did not think needed to be supported by charts and graphs:

• The ten counties with the lowest percentage of nonvotes made use of Diebold Accuvote machines. All but one, Monroe County, voted for Bush. Monroe was Kerry's second narrowest win in Florida, as he edged out the President by only 0.47%.
• The ten counties with the highest percentage of nonvotes used optical scan machines. Eight were manufactured by ES&S, one by Diebold, and one by Sequoia. The machine manufactured by Sequioa, the Optech 3P Eagle, is the only such machine manufactured by Sequoia. All other Optech 3P Eagles in Florida were manufactured by ES&S. In these counties are both Bush's second greatest win and Kerry's narrowest victory. Bush won 78/22 in Baker county, which utilized the sole Optech 3P Eagle made by Sequoia and reported 0.93% of ballots as not having a Presidential vote. Kerry won by 0.21% in Orange county, which used Optech 3P Eagles manufactured by ES&S and 0.68% of ballots cast as not having a vote for President.

There are two more peculiarities that don't require much complex calculation at all to recognize.

The first is that Osceola county's turnout and Presidential votes are exactly the same. Osceola had 0 nonvotes. I thought perhaps that Osceola was a smaller county, as that could be a possible explanation for not even one person not casting a vote for President on their ballot, but it's not. Osceola county, in which 82,204 ballots were cast, accounted for 1.08% of Florida's total turnout. This is not a small number - the average (median) county in Florida accounted for only 0.55% of Florida's total turnout.

Osceola was the sole county whose turnout figures were updated on November 8 that still had a a turnout that was lower than the number of votes it reported cast for President. On that update, 82,178 votes were cast and 81,917 voters were reported to have turned out. 261 more votes were cast than voters were reported to have turned out. Osceola used Diebold Accuvote machines for its elections.

The second oddity is Volusia county. Volusia has the second smallest difference between its turnout and vote numbers, exceeded only by Osceola's difference of 0. 254 of the 229,193 ballots cast in Volusia county, 0.11%, were reported not to have included a vote for President. On its own, this would not be too strange, but Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org just recently updated her site with an account of her experience in Volusia. Here is that account:

TUESDAY NOV 16 2004: Volusia County on lockdown

County election records just got put on lockdown

Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew catching it all.

Here's what happened so far:

Friday Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up the Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. "No, Bev, please don't do that!" Lowe exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be, folks. Black Box Voting didn't back down.

Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.

Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for "privacy" reasons they can't make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin' time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.

Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn't have to stand there "looking dumb" when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.

Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 Tuesday morning, Nov. 16. There was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered them out. Well, they couldn't see why because there she was, with a couple other people, handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on them. Harris and Wynne stepped out and Volusia County officials promptly shut the door.

There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. Harris looked into it and what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there. They came out and glared at Harris and Wynne, who drove away a small bit, and then videotaped the license plates of the two vehicles marked 'City Council' member. Others came out to glare and soon all doors were slammed.

So, Harris and Wynne went and parked behind a bus to see what they would do next. They pulled out some large pylons, which blocked the door. Harris decided to go look at the garbage some more while Wynne videotaped. A man who identified himself as "Pete" came out and Harris immediately wrote a public records request for the contents of the garbage bag, which also contained ballots -- real ones, but not filled out.

A brief tug of war occurred, tearing the garbage bag open. Harris and Wynne then looked through it, as Pete looked on. He was quite friendly.

Black Box Voting collected various poll tapes and other information and asked if they could copy it, for the public records request. "You won't be going anywhere," said Pete. "The deputy is on his way."

Yes, not one but two police cars came up and then two county elections officials, and everyone stood around discussing the merits of the "black bag" public records request.

The police finally let Harris and Wynne go, about the time the Votergate.tv film crew arrived, and everyone trooped off to the elections office. There, the plot thickened.

Black Box Voting began to compare the special printouts given in the FOIA request with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. By this time, Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson had joined the group at Volusia County. Some polling place tapes didn't match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans.

Hmm. Which was right? The polling tape Volusia gave to Black Box Voting, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or the ones with signatures, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?

Well, then it became even more interesting. A Volusia employee boxed up some items from an office containing Lana Hires' desk, which appeared to contain -- you guessed it -- polling place tapes. The employee took them to the back of the building and disappeared.

Then, Ellen B., a voting integrity advocate from Broward County, Florida, and Susan, from Volusia, decided now would be a good time to go through the trash at the elections office. Lo and behold, they found all kinds of memos and some polling place tapes, fresh from Volusia elections office.

So, Black Box Voting compared these with the Nov. 2 signed ones and the "special' ones from Nov. 15 given, unsigned, finding several of the MISSING poll tapes. There they were: In the garbage.

So, Wynne went to the car and got the polling place tapes she had pulled from the warehouse garbage. My my my. There were not only discrepancies, but a polling place tape that was signed by six officials.

This was a bit disturbing, since the employees there had said that bag was destined for the shredder.

By now, a county lawyer had appeared on the scene, suddenly threatening to charge Black Box Voting extra for the time spent looking at the real stuff Volusia had withheld earlier. Other lawyers appeared, phoned, people had meetings, Lana glowered at everyone, and someone shut the door in the office holding the GEMS server.

Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson then went to get the Diebold "GEMS" central server locked down. He also got the memory cards locked down and secured, much to the dismay of Lana. They were scattered around unsecured in any way before that.

Everyone agreed to convene tomorrow morning, to further audit, discuss the hand count that Black Box Voting will require of Volusia County, and of course, it is time to talk about contesting the election in Volusia.

# # # # #

I don't endorse Bev Harris's account as the truth, because it is rather sensationalist and accusatory. However, it did cause my interest to pique when I saw that Volusia county was so far from the norm.

I believe that what I've shown here furthers the argument that there are unexplainable differences between optical scan and touch screen voting machines. Prior evidence invoked Bush and Kerry, and could be easily explained away by stating that poorer, more rural counties tend to utilize optical scan machines, and those rural communities favor conservatives like Bush. I don't know of any evidence that rural voters are less likely to fill out a ballot and not vote for President than any other voters, though.

You may download my Excel spreadsheets by clicking here.

You may view my Excel spreadsheets online (IE or Safari required) here.

Impeded in my efforts

I've been trying to assemble a massive list of results from all counties in all the states in America, but have been impeded either by lack of such information on state's websites or by cumbersome page layouts that prevents me from easily importing the information into Excel.

If anyone reading knows of a place that has what I'm looking for, please let me know. I need to be able to compare Florida to other states in order to demonstrate that what I've found is not only strange, but that it is also unique.

David Cobb pushing for recount in Ohio

I've looked through the official results for the state of Florida and have found some a strange fact that no one else has either noticed or attempted to offer an explanation for. That fact is that voters who turned out but did not cast a vote for President are clearly more numerous on some machines, groups, and counties than others.

This anomaly becomes apparent even when sorting the vote by voting technology used, which only has two categories. I'll be referring to ballots cast without Presidential votes as "nonvotes." Let me know if there is a better word to describe them.

In the graph above, we can see that while touchscreen voting machines contributed 54% of the state's vote, they managed to contribute a much greater percentage of the state's nonvotes, 61%. There is more than a seven point spread between votes and nonvotes contributed. We can also see that optical scan voting machines performed in the reverse, contributing a lower percentage of the state's nonvotes than it contributed to the state's turnout.

In this graph we witness a distinct difference between the amount of voter turnout and nonvotes that Diebold's machines contributed to the statewide totals. While Diebold contributed more than 30% of the state's total turnout, it only contributed about 19% of the state's total nonvotes. Diebold's percentage of nonvotes contributed was only about 60% of what its total turnout contributed was. Diebold is the only manufacturer whose machines contributed less to the amount of nonvotes than to turnout.

The other two manufacturers, ES&S and Sequoia, exhibited a difference between themselves, as well. ES&S's percent nonvotes contributed to the state total was approximately 120% of its percent turnout contributed. Sequoia's nonvote contribution was about 112% of its percent turnout contribution.

Another calculation shows that 0.24% of the ballots Diebold counted included no vote for President. ES&S's and Sequoia's machines respectively returned 0.48% and 0.45% of ballots with no Presidential vote. This data is shown below, and is in my Excel spreadsheet, as well.

Vendor	Vendor Turnout Sub-Total	Vendor Nonvote Sub-Total	Vendor's % Statewide Turnout	Vendor's % Statewide Nonvotes	Vendor's % Statewide Turnout - % Statewide Nonvotes
Diebold Election Systems	2,354,808	5,666	30.82%	18.57%	12.25%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.24%
Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S)	3,743,986	17,888	49.00%	58.63%	-9.63%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.48%
Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc.	1,541,525	6,955	20.18%	22.80%	-2.62%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.45%

The last comparison I was able to make of this kind was nonvotes and turnout categorized by machine model.

This graph shows us what we already knew in the second graph. The Accuvote-ES2001B is the only machine manufactured by Diebold in the state, and so its percent nonvotes and percent turnout contributed to the state totals will be the same as Diebold's numbers in the vendor comparison.

The new information contained in this graph is that behavior is mostly uniform among machines of the other two manufacturers. The AVC Edge, iVotronic, Model 100, and Optech 3P Eagle all contributed a higher percentage of the state's total nonvotes than they did to the state's total turnout.

More calculations reveal that ES&S's optical scan machines, the Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle, were the only machines that counted more than 0.5% of their ballots as not having a vote for President. This data is below.

Model	Model Turnout Sub-Total	Model Nonvote Sub-Total	Model's % Statewide Turnout	Model's % Statewide Nonvotes	Model's % Statewide Turnout - % Statewide Nonvotes	Voting Tech's % Statewide Nonvotes as a % of Statewide Turnout
AccuVote-ES2001B	2,354,808	5,666	30.82%	18.57%	12.25%	60.26%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.24%
AVC Edge	1,531,477	6,862	20.04%	22.49%	-2.45%	112.21%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.45%
iVotronic	2,590,145	11,855	33.90%	38.86%	-4.96%	114.62%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.46%
Model 100	364,622	1,894	4.77%	6.21%	-1.44%	130.08%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.52%
Optech 3P Eagle	799,267	4,232	10.46%	13.87%	-3.41%	132.60%
	Percent Nonvotes	0.53%

This is a list of some facts that I did not think needed to be supported by charts and graphs:

• The ten counties with the lowest percentage of nonvotes made use of Diebold Accuvote machines. All but one, Monroe County, voted for Bush. Monroe was Kerry's second narrowest win in Florida, as he edged out the President by only 0.47%.
• The ten counties with the highest percentage of nonvotes used optical scan machines. Eight were manufactured by ES&S, one by Diebold, and one by Sequoia. The machine manufactured by Sequioa, the Optech 3P Eagle, is the only such machine manufactured by Sequoia. All other Optech 3P Eagles in Florida were manufactured by ES&S. In these counties are both Bush's second greatest win and Kerry's narrowest victory. Bush won 78/22 in Baker county, which utilized the sole Optech 3P Eagle made by Sequoia and reported 0.93% of ballots as not having a Presidential vote. Kerry won by 0.21% in Orange county, which used Optech 3P Eagles manufactured by ES&S and 0.68% of ballots cast as not having a vote for President.

There are two more peculiarities that don't require much complex calculation at all to recognize.

The first is that Osceola county's turnout and Presidential votes are exactly the same. Osceola had 0 nonvotes. I thought perhaps that Osceola was a smaller county, as that could be a possible explanation for not even one person not casting a vote for President on their ballot, but it's not. Osceola county, in which 82,204 ballots were cast, accounted for 1.08% of Florida's total turnout. This is not a small number - the average (median) county in Florida accounted for only 0.55% of Florida's total turnout.

Osceola was the sole county whose turnout figures were updated on November 8 that still had a a turnout that was lower than the number of votes it reported cast for President. On that update, 82,178 votes were cast and 81,917 voters were reported to have turned out. 261 more votes were cast than voters were reported to have turned out. Osceola used Diebold Accuvote machines for its elections.

The second oddity is Volusia county. Volusia has the second smallest difference between its turnout and vote numbers, exceeded only by Osceola's difference of 0. 254 of the 229,193 ballots cast in Volusia county, 0.11%, were reported not to have included a vote for President. On its own, this would not be too strange, but Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org just recently updated her site with an account of her experience in Volusia. Here is that account:

TUESDAY NOV 16 2004: Volusia County on lockdown

County election records just got put on lockdown

Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew catching it all.

Here's what happened so far:

Friday Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up the Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. "No, Bev, please don't do that!" Lowe exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be, folks. Black Box Voting didn't back down.

Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.

Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for "privacy" reasons they can't make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin' time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.

Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn't have to stand there "looking dumb" when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.

Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 Tuesday morning, Nov. 16. There was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered them out. Well, they couldn't see why because there she was, with a couple other people, handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on them. Harris and Wynne stepped out and Volusia County officials promptly shut the door.

There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. Harris looked into it and what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there. They came out and glared at Harris and Wynne, who drove away a small bit, and then videotaped the license plates of the two vehicles marked 'City Council' member. Others came out to glare and soon all doors were slammed.

So, Harris and Wynne went and parked behind a bus to see what they would do next. They pulled out some large pylons, which blocked the door. Harris decided to go look at the garbage some more while Wynne videotaped. A man who identified himself as "Pete" came out and Harris immediately wrote a public records request for the contents of the garbage bag, which also contained ballots -- real ones, but not filled out.

A brief tug of war occurred, tearing the garbage bag open. Harris and Wynne then looked through it, as Pete looked on. He was quite friendly.

Black Box Voting collected various poll tapes and other information and asked if they could copy it, for the public records request. "You won't be going anywhere," said Pete. "The deputy is on his way."

Yes, not one but two police cars came up and then two county elections officials, and everyone stood around discussing the merits of the "black bag" public records request.

The police finally let Harris and Wynne go, about the time the Votergate.tv film crew arrived, and everyone trooped off to the elections office. There, the plot thickened.

Black Box Voting began to compare the special printouts given in the FOIA request with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. By this time, Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson had joined the group at Volusia County. Some polling place tapes didn't match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans.

Hmm. Which was right? The polling tape Volusia gave to Black Box Voting, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or the ones with signatures, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?

Well, then it became even more interesting. A Volusia employee boxed up some items from an office containing Lana Hires' desk, which appeared to contain -- you guessed it -- polling place tapes. The employee took them to the back of the building and disappeared.

Then, Ellen B., a voting integrity advocate from Broward County, Florida, and Susan, from Volusia, decided now would be a good time to go through the trash at the elections office. Lo and behold, they found all kinds of memos and some polling place tapes, fresh from Volusia elections office.

So, Black Box Voting compared these with the Nov. 2 signed ones and the "special' ones from Nov. 15 given, unsigned, finding several of the MISSING poll tapes. There they were: In the garbage.

So, Wynne went to the car and got the polling place tapes she had pulled from the warehouse garbage. My my my. There were not only discrepancies, but a polling place tape that was signed by six officials.

This was a bit disturbing, since the employees there had said that bag was destined for the shredder.

By now, a county lawyer had appeared on the scene, suddenly threatening to charge Black Box Voting extra for the time spent looking at the real stuff Volusia had withheld earlier. Other lawyers appeared, phoned, people had meetings, Lana glowered at everyone, and someone shut the door in the office holding the GEMS server.

Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson then went to get the Diebold "GEMS" central server locked down. He also got the memory cards locked down and secured, much to the dismay of Lana. They were scattered around unsecured in any way before that.

Everyone agreed to convene tomorrow morning, to further audit, discuss the hand count that Black Box Voting will require of Volusia County, and of course, it is time to talk about contesting the election in Volusia.

# # # # #

I don't endorse Bev Harris's account as the truth, because it is rather sensationalist and accusatory. It did cause my interest to pique when I saw that Volusia county was so far from the norm.

I believe that what I've shown here furthers the argument that there are unexplainable differences between optical scan and touch screen voting machines. Prior evidence invoked Bush and Kerry, and could be easily explained away by stating that poorer, more rural counties tend to utilize optical scan machines, and those rural communities favor conservatives like Bush. I don't know of any evidence that rural voters are less likely to fill out a ballot and not vote for President than any other voters, though.

You may download my Excel spreadsheets by clicking here.

You may view my Excel spreadsheets online (IE or Safari required) here.

Original webpage is now a blog

I've converted my original page into a blog to make updating and archival easier, and to take the load off of my university's network just in case my page appears on Slashdot or some other high-traffic site. I originally thought that my page would be a static piece, but this is not a static issue, and a blog makes more sense.

I've also acquired a formal mailing list. You may sign up at the bottom of this page.

Analsysis of House races won't produce meaningful results

I've decided to not analyze the House races after realizing that the incumbent advantage in Representative races skews the results so much that the data is mostly useless. There was no incumbent in the Senate race, as the former Senator Bob Graham retired this year. Graham is a Democrat.

President Bush given greater preference than Republican Senate candidate in all but two counties in Florida

After being urged to do so in an email, I've examined the difference between votes cast for President and Senate, by party, in Florida. President Bush gained a higher percentage of the vote than the Republican Senate candidate in all but two counties.

In the following chart a positive number in the column comparing the percentage vote between the Presidential and Senate races indicates how many more percentage points than the Senate candidate the Presidential candidate had. A negative number indicates how fewer percentage points a party's Presidential candidate had than his Senate candidate counterpart.

County	Bush %	Kerry %	% Senate Rep.	% Senate Dem.	%Pres. - %Sen. (R)	%Pres. - %Sen. (D)
Lafayette	73.98%	25.41%	54.57%	42.90%	19.42%	-17.49%
Dixie	68.84%	30.42%	52.68%	43.37%	16.15%	-12.95%
Liberty	63.79%	35.42%	48.75%	49.12%	15.03%	-13.71%
Holmes	77.25%	21.81%	63.41%	32.35%	13.84%	-10.54%
Taylor	63.71%	35.54%	50.17%	46.98%	13.54%	-11.45%
Hardee	69.65%	29.64%	56.41%	39.30%	13.24%	-9.65%
Wakulla	57.61%	41.62%	45.10%	52.05%	12.51%	-10.43%
Suwannee	70.58%	28.61%	58.45%	39.00%	12.14%	-10.39%
Gilchrist	70.37%	28.75%	58.86%	37.40%	11.51%	-8.65%
Franklin	58.55%	40.47%	47.13%	50.26%	11.42%	-9.79%
Hamilton	54.97%	44.50%	44.75%	52.68%	10.23%	-8.18%
Union	72.64%	26.76%	62.49%	35.49%	10.15%	-8.73%
Madison	50.51%	48.73%	40.58%	56.74%	9.93%	-8.01%
Columbia	67.05%	32.14%	57.15%	39.89%	9.90%	-7.75%
Calhoun	63.41%	35.50%	53.69%	43.31%	9.72%	-7.81%
Levy	62.51%	36.48%	53.40%	43.56%	9.12%	-7.09%
Bradford	69.61%	29.90%	60.82%	36.67%	8.79%	-6.77%
Gulf	66.07%	33.05%	57.38%	40.13%	8.69%	-7.08%
Baker	77.73%	21.90%	69.16%	28.95%	8.57%	-7.05%
Highlands	62.36%	36.99%	54.72%	42.15%	7.64%	-5.16%
Washington	71.09%	28.09%	63.45%	34.15%	7.63%	-6.06%
Jackson	61.20%	38.15%	53.73%	44.24%	7.47%	-6.09%
Okeechobee	57.28%	42.23%	50.00%	45.84%	7.29%	-3.61%
Citrus	56.86%	42.14%	49.68%	46.32%	7.19%	-4.17%
Jefferson	44.11%	55.29%	36.93%	61.10%	7.18%	-5.81%
Hernando	52.93%	46.16%	46.03%	50.00%	6.90%	-3.84%
Putnam	59.12%	40.08%	52.23%	44.90%	6.88%	-4.82%
Hillsborough	53.00%	46.24%	46.29%	51.42%	6.71%	-5.18%
Polk	58.61%	40.79%	52.28%	44.81%	6.33%	-4.01%
Glades	58.33%	41.02%	52.15%	44.23%	6.18%	-3.21%
Pasco	54.07%	44.39%	48.02%	48.74%	6.05%	-4.34%
Sumter	62.18%	36.39%	57.04%	40.87%	5.14%	-4.49%
Pinellas	49.57%	49.51%	44.47%	52.74%	5.10%	-3.24%
Manatee	56.62%	42.66%	51.53%	45.86%	5.09%	-3.20%
Marion	58.20%	41.00%	53.23%	44.02%	4.97%	-3.02%
Walton	73.22%	25.92%	68.56%	28.94%	4.65%	-3.02%
Gadsden	29.80%	69.72%	25.15%	73.33%	4.64%	-3.61%
DeSoto	58.05%	41.18%	53.55%	43.28%	4.51%	-2.10%
Nassau	72.65%	26.16%	68.41%	29.73%	4.24%	-3.56%
Clay	76.18%	23.27%	72.25%	25.88%	3.93%	-2.61%
Leon	37.85%	61.50%	34.09%	64.64%	3.76%	-3.14%
Lake	60.02%	38.90%	56.38%	40.89%	3.64%	-1.99%
Bay	71.19%	28.08%	67.63%	30.24%	3.55%	-2.16%
Sarasota	53.51%	45.20%	50.08%	48.10%	3.43%	-2.90%
Alachua	42.89%	56.16%	39.63%	58.71%	3.25%	-2.55%
Brevard	57.66%	41.56%	54.44%	42.62%	3.22%	-1.07%
Hendry	58.89%	40.52%	55.76%	41.97%	3.13%	-1.45%
Duval	57.76%	41.65%	54.66%	43.71%	3.10%	-2.05%
Okaloosa	77.65%	21.58%	74.70%	22.53%	2.94%	-0.95%
Flagler	51.03%	48.28%	48.13%	49.49%	2.89%	-1.22%
Santa Rosa	77.35%	21.78%	74.65%	23.04%	2.70%	-1.26%
Volusia	48.85%	50.50%	46.17%	51.09%	2.67%	-0.59%
St. Johns	68.60%	30.59%	66.19%	32.14%	2.41%	-1.55%
Indian River	60.12%	39.03%	57.80%	39.60%	2.32%	-0.57%
St. Lucie	47.56%	51.81%	45.34%	51.70%	2.22%	0.11%
Monroe	49.24%	49.71%	47.19%	49.51%	2.05%	0.21%
Seminole	58.10%	41.34%	56.11%	41.76%	1.99%	-0.42%
Escambia	65.30%	33.74%	63.55%	34.56%	1.74%	-0.83%
Martin	57.09%	41.69%	55.41%	42.35%	1.68%	-0.66%
Palm Beach	39.03%	60.37%	37.95%	60.25%	1.09%	0.12%
Broward	34.60%	64.22%	33.61%	64.39%	0.99%	-0.17%
Orange	49.62%	49.83%	49.16%	48.99%	0.45%	0.84%
Osceola	52.46%	46.99%	52.00%	45.16%	0.45%	1.83%
Charlotte	55.69%	42.93%	55.49%	42.28%	0.20%	0.64%
Lee	59.82%	39.09%	59.81%	38.24%	0.01%	0.84%
Collier	65.04%	34.06%	66.01%	32.43%	-0.97%	1.63%
Miami-Dade	46.66%	52.84%	49.28%	48.96%	-2.62%	3.88%
Totals	52.10%	47.08%	49.44%	48.32%	2.66%	-1.23%

A look at all the data reveals that the top 27 counties showing a greater preference for President Bush than the Repulican Senate candidate were using optical scan voting machines. The two counties that did not show this preference were both using touchscreen voting machines. Both were iVotronic machines manufactured by ES&S.

I have updated my Excel spreadsheet on the site for those interested in examing the numbers themselves. Data in this calculation was taken from the Florida Department of State's Website.

An analysis of the House race as compared to the Presidential race shall follow soon.

A Letter from the Florida Department of State

Changed title of "% Total Voters" column to "% Total Votes Cast" to allay confusion. Dated news sources.

This email message appeared in this thread on the Something Awful forums:

From: "Allen, Tracey" <TAllen@dos.state.fl.us> Add to Address Book
To: Intrepid00
Subject: RE: Other - Questions/Comments from Website
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:10:12 -0500

The voter turnout figures have not been updated since election night.
They
are currently being updated. The vote count for all races is correct.
If
you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Tracey Allen
Webmaster
Florida Division of Elections

tallen@dos.state.fl.us

I know that the turnout data has, indeed, been updated since election night, as I made a PDF of the results as they appeared on the Florida Department of State's website yesterday. View it here. I also know that I created my Excel file at 8:09 PM on November 5, and the Presidential election information I imported into it and the information on the Department of State's website are the same. Logically, knowing that "the vote count for all races is correct," I know that the vote has been correct since at least November 5.

Why would the turnout information lag so far behind?

Much of the data on the Florida Department of State's turnout page has been updated today. One of the counties, Osceola, is still reported as having more ballots cast than voters turned out. While 81,917 reportedly turned out, 82,178 votes were cast for President. 261 more votes were cast than voters that voted. My Excel spreadsheet has been updated with this calculation. I've saved a PDF of the turnout page as it reads today.

Florida Excel spreadsheets updated

I've updated my Excel spreadsheets for Florida on the site with Turnout information. The table displayed on this site can be found on the far right of the first tab.

An Edit and an Explanation

Changed the title of the "Voters" column to "Total Votes Cast" in order to curb confusion. I'll explain the source of each column to avoid any further confusion.

"Total Votes Cast" is obtained by summing all the votes for all the Presidential candidates in a given county, as reported on the Florida Department of State's website here. "% Total Voters" is obtained by summing all the votes for all Presidential candidates in a given county and dividing by the sum of all the votes for all Presidential candidates for all counties. "Turnout" is obtained from the Florida Department of State's website here. "Turnout - Total Votes Cast" is obtained by subtracting the "Total Votes Cast" from "Turnout."

I created PDFs of these webpages in order to preserve the data on them should the Florida Department of State change their webpage. County election results are here and county turnout information is here.

Total Votes Cast Outnumbers Voter Turnout in Florida

Florida is reporting more votes in the presidential election than it is reporting citizens that turned out to vote. Adding all the presidential race votes reported by the Florida Department of State here yields a total of 7,588,422 votes. The Florida Department of State reports here that voter turnout totalled only 7,350,900. That's a difference of 237,522. 3.1% of Florida's presidential votes were in excess of the number of voters in the election. 380,952 votes separate the President and John Kerry in Florida.

If we disregard the votes cast on the Model 100s and the Optech 3P Eagles, the difference between Bush and Kerry drops to 124,514. The votes cast on the Model 100s and the Optech 3P Eagles in conjunction with votes that cannot be tied to voters may have elected George W. Bush.

The 13 counties that report more votes than voters delivered 39.4% of the votes cast in Florida. These are the 13 counties:

County	Total Votes Cast	% Total Votes Cast	Turnout	Turnout-Total Votes Cast
Palm Beach	542835	7.15%	452,061	-90,774
Hernando	75832	1.00%	0	-75,832
Miami-Dade	768553	10.13%	716,574	-51,979
Volusia	228358	3.01%	209,052	-19,306
Osceola	82178	1.08%	63,589	-18,589
Highlands	41491	0.55%	33,996	-7,495
Orange	387752	5.11%	386,104	-1,648
Collier	128352	1.69%	127,409	-943
Glades	4188	0.06%	3,446	-742
Duval	379614	5.00%	379,257	-357
Okaloosa	89707	1.18%	89,485	-222
Lake	123938	1.63%	123,751	-187
Leon	136314	1.80%	136,229	-85
Totals	2989112	39.39%	2,720,953	-268,159

I was racking my brain trying to figure out why the total in this instance was -268,159, and realized that that number will be changed by all the voters who turned out and did not cast a vote for President.

Zero voters reportedly turned out in Hernando county, and that can't be right. Even if Hernando is not suspicious, around 200,000 votes in Florida are suspect.

The Original Post

A thread on the Something Awful forums, here, aimed at accumulating evidence of election fraud and error in the 2004 Presidential elections inspired me to do some detective work of my own. I made use of the Florida Department of State's county-by-county results and compared those results with voting method information gleaned from VerifiedVoting.org's "Verifier" service.

I think that I should state that while I voted for Kerry, this is in no way meant as propoganda or slander against President Bush or the Republican party. This is merely a probe of the results that I believe ought to be done by the major news outlets, but has not yet been.

There has been some brouhaha about the reliability of exit polling, so I'm going to eschew exit poll numbers in my examination and rely only on the official election counts provided by the state of Florida and machine information from VerifiedVoting.org.

Here are the results of the election, statewide:

We can see that Bush garnered a 52/47 victory in Florida.

I assembled the data into something that I could make further analysis of, and found some surprising results. The first thing I was able to realize was that there was a definite split between Bush and Kerry when examined in conjunction with the voting technology on which the vote was cast.

While the touchscreens returned a result that is nearly the reverse of the state's 52/47 Bush victory, precincts using optical scan technology were much more inclined to return results favorable to Bush.

When votes are compared by the manufacturer of the machine on which they were cast, the results are not as dramatic:

Diebold's machines are more favorable to Bush than on average, ES&S's machines nearly mirror the statewide results, and Sequoia's machines returned nearly the reverse of the statewide results, giving a 52/47 victory to Kerry.

The biggest surprise came when I looked at the vote when compared by specific model of machine on which the votes were cast:

While the first three machines deliver a relatively even split, consistent with what has been observed above, the last two machines, the Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle, delivered a 61/38 and 60/38 Bush victory, respectively. The greatest Bush victory, 77.73/21.9, was achieved on Optech 3P Eagles in Baker county. Oddly, these were the only Optech 3P Eagles manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems, as opposed to ES&S. The counties utilizing Model 100s and Optech 3P Eagles represented 15.24% of the Floridan vote.

The Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle are manufactured by ES&S, with the exception of the Optech 3P Eagles in Baker county. ES&S also manufactures the iVotronic, a touch-screen machine. The Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle are both optical scan machines. ES&S's machines, without a doubt, returned the most favorable results for the President.

I thought it'd be interesting to see what percentage of the state's votes were cast on each machine, and also what percentage of a candidates votes were delivered by each machine:

These results show that while the Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle showed a great preference to Bush, their impact was not as material as the other three machines. Indeed, if all votes cast on the Model 100 and Optech 3P Eagle were thrown out, Bush would still have won the state with a 50.55/48.62 result.

Many have tried to explain this trend by saying that the optical scan machines were utilized by poorer, more rural areas which tend to favor the President. I investigated this claim by plotting the percent of votes counties cast for Bush and Kerry on the y-axis of a scatter plot, and the number of total votes in that county on the x-axis:

We can see that while smaller counties on the whole vote for President Bush, there are a few exceptions. We can also see that the largest county's results are more favorable than the second or third largest counties. Among all those red lines on the left of the graph we can also see that Kerry's greatest victory was achieved in one of the states smallest counties, Gadsden. Gadsden county used Model 100s manufactured by ES&S.

ES&S has had problems with their machines in the past. I managed to find some thorough voting machine documentation here (PDF). Among ES&S's slipups, these stood out as most relevant to me:

• September 2002, Union County, Florida. A programming error caused ES&S Model 100 machines to read 2,642 Democratic and Republican votes as entirely Republican in the September 2002 election. The ballots program in the memory packs read the ballots incorrectly. The vendor, ES&S, accepted responsibility for the programming error and paid for a hand recount.


• November 2002, Scurry County, Texas. A landslide victory for two commissioner candidates caused poll workers to question the results. The chip in the ES&S 650 contained an incorrect ballot program. ES&S sent a new chip, and the county officials also counted the votes by hand. The opposing candidates actually won by large margins.


• November 2002, Taos, New Mexico. A software programming error caused the Sequoia Optech optical scanner to assign votes to the wrong candidates. Just 25 votes separated the candidates in one race; another race had a 79-vote margin. After noticing that the computer was counting votes under the wrong names, Taos County Clerk Jeannette Rael contacted the programmer of the optical machine and was told it was a programming error.

Union County, the county named in the September 2002 incident, returned a 73/27 Bush victory this year, on ES&S Model 100s. Only 9 of Florida's 67 counties were more decidely in favor of the President.

There is no smoking gun in the Florida elections, but the results still have their pecularities. It's true that if optical scan votes were not counted, Kerry would have won with about the same margin that Bush did. It's true that rural counties tended to use optical scan machines more, and the wideheld view is that rural voters prefer Bush. It's true that machines manufactured by ES&S, a company that has had problems on the past, gave a higher percentage of votes to President Bush than did other machines.

I'd like to compare Florida with Ohio for the last, small part of this examination. Florida and Ohio were both the most important states in this election, and they show some surprising parallels.

First, the statewide results:

We can see that Bush wins, 51/49. Now, an examination of the votes compared by the machine on which they were cast:

Although the chart shows dramatic differences in both the "E-Voting: Touchscreen" and "Optical Scan:Precinct-Based" categories, we can ignore them. Those categories were occupied by only one county each, and are not representative of a trend among many counties.

That said, there is a similar boost for Bush on optical scan machines. The difference is not as dramatic, but is still not representative of the 51/49 Bush victory in Ohio.

Further data is sparse on Ohio, and so examinations of the sort I was able to do with Florida are difficult. I wrote VerifiedVoting.org on the matter:

Hello,

I'm compiling information on the elections in Ohio and Florida, and am making use of your verifier service, as it is the only source of its kind.

The data on Florida is a boon, but the data on Ohio is sparse on specific model information.  Do you know where I might be able to get such information?  After scouring ohio.gov I came up empty-handed.

You can view my spreadsheets and charts, categorized by vendor, model, and technology here: http://www.wwu.edu/~adamsb6/vote/ From that page you can choose to download .xls files, or you can click on the webpage link to view an xml web spreadsheet.  The web feature does not work in Firefox, if you happen to get an error.

Thank you,

Brandon Adams

I received this reply:

Hi Brandon - Thanks so much - I know Ohio is thin.  Some
states offer easy to find information and lots of it - others none;
in some cases we had to make phone calls to each county to
learn more.  In Ohio, we relied for what we did find on a state
voting activist group called CASE-Ohio (www.caseohio.org)
to provide us with what you see there; it was obtained by them
through individual phone calls but in some cases the info was
difficult to obtain.  They may have acquired additional details
by now and you might like to contact them through their
website.  Much of the state still used punchcards for Nov 2,
having decided NOT to purchase paperless touchscreens in
31 counties after the state passed legislation calling for a
voter-verified paper ballot by 2006.  Rather than spend the $$
now and have costly retrofits later, they decided to hold off until
they could get systems that come with a voter-verified paper
ballot. 

If I learn more I will get back in touch with you, and I hope

you will contact me if you obtain additional details also.

Best wishes,

Pam

I'm glad that Ohio has passed legislation requiring voter-verified paper ballots, but confused by the secrecy. Why would the information be at all difficult to obtain?

Some news stories have emerged on this subject:

Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio
November 5, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. (Full Ohio results)

The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.

The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections. (Touchscreen voting troubles reported)

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.

In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.

Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.

The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.

Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round. (E-vote goes smoothly, but experts skeptical)

When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said.

"All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to."

A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem.

---

Computerized system lost more than 4,000 early votes in Carteret County

November 6, 2004

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. - Several N.C. counties reported problems with voting, including Carteret, where more than 4,000 early votes were lost because the electronic voting system could not store the volume of votes it received.

It was unknown what effect the problem would have on local or state voting results or what action the state Board of Elections might take. Two statewide races, for superintendent of public instruction and agriculture commissioner, remained unresolved and too close to call Thursday.

In Carteret, the county was told by the manufacturer of the voting system that its units could store up to 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

While waiting for the final precinct Tuesday night, election workers began tallying the absentees, no-excuses ballots and Election Day tallies. They found their numbers didn't match the computerized printout.

"That's when we started looking," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the Carteret County Board of Elections.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the system, acknowledged it had given the county wrong information about how many votes the system can store.

Verdon said that after a ballot is cast, the electronic vote is stored in one of the units, known as a black box. Because the county thought the capacity was 10,500 votes, only one box was used during early voting.

The loss of the 4,530 votes didn't appear to change the outcome of the county races, but that wasn't the issue for Alecia Williams of Beaufort, who voted on one of the final days of the early voting period.

"The point is not whether the votes would have changed things, it's that they didn't get counted at all," Williams said.

State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett said he did not know if the lost votes could somehow be retrieved from the computer equipment. He said there was some discussion of whether the votes could be extracted from the unit's internal drive.

In Mecklenburg County, a discrepancy in unofficial totals posted on election night had officials recounting early voting results Thursday.

The county election office said before the election that 102,109 people voted early or returned valid absentee ballots. But unofficial results from election night showed 106,064 people casting early and absentee votes for president.

The difference was pointed out by county Republicans on Wednesday.

Elections director Michael Dickerson said late Wednesday that he was unsure if there was a problem but acknowledged the situation was unusual. He said election officials had not lost any votes.

"I'm confident in the process we did election night," he said. "I'm never confident [in numbers] until we post the official results."

A recount could change results in the race for at-large seats on the county commission, where unofficial results showed Democrats pulled off a surprising sweep, ousting two Republican commissioners.

According to the unofficial tally, Republican Ruth Samuelson trailed third-place Democrat Jennifer Roberts by 1,921 votes. Republican Dan Ramirez was a distant fifth.

There are three at-large seats on the county commission.

In Craven County, vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled. The outcome of most races isn't expected to be affected.

But in close races, particularly the contest for the Craven County Board of Commissioners District 5 seat where candidates Leon Staton and Anthony Michalek are separated by a mere 35 votes, the outcome could change.

In Onslow County, a software error changed the order of finish in the county commissioners race. The error didn't change who won, just who finished first through fifth.

The error occurred when a floppy disk that compiles voting data from the counting machines was programmed incorrectly, said Kim Strach, a deputy director with the State Board of Elections, who was in Onslow County to assist with the election.

Bartlett said there are an estimated 72,469 provisional ballots still to be counted in the state, with four counties not yet reporting.

Until those ballots are added into Tuesday's unofficial results, it's hard to speculate what impact, if any, voting changes in individual counties might have, officials said.

---

Congressmen's Letter to Comptroller General

November 5, 2004

The Honorable David M. Walker

Comptroller General of the United States

U.S. General Accountability Office

441 G Street, NW

Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Walker:

We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.

In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:

In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5.

An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," Id.

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Id.

In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. Id.

In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms. http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm

The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. "Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5.

Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. "All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3, http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS...log/index.htm..

We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.     Jerrold Nadler       Robert Wexler

Ranking Member       Ranking Member    Member of Congress

House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution

---

 

View my Excel spreadsheets:

Florida
Ohio

View my Excel spreadsheets on the web (IE or Safari required, d'oh!)

Florida
Ohio

Links:

VerifiedVoting.org
Florida Department of State Election Results
blackboxvoting.org
Diebold Election Systems
Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S)
Sequoia Voting Systems