"There are always glitches" - Deputy Director for Administration of the N.C. BOE Johnnie McLean - November 4, 2004
North Carolina Electronic Voting News -Miscounts, Mishaps & Crashes
November 4, 2008 Long Lines, Machine Problems Greet Virginia and North Carolina... MarketWatch - USA In North Carolina, power outages and wet ballots due to heavy rain are being reported. The top caller complaints today in North Carolina involve voter registration and poll access. Registration issues include voters not being on the registration rolls and not having received confirmation of their registration. Poll access issues include polls opening late.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Rain in parts of North Carolina caused some early problems for voters using optical scanner ballots Tuesday, but a memo about using paper towels seemed to dry up the problem, according to North Carolina officials.
Voters were coming into voting locations early Tuesday morning and getting the paper ballots wet as they handled them, according to Gary Bartlett, Executive Director of the North Carolina Election Board.
"We sent out a memo to the county election boards asking them to hand out paper towels to voters before they were given a ballot," Bartlett said.
November 4, 2008 Straw Polling and Turnout in NC AOL News Newsbloggers - Dulles,VA,USA North Carolina conducted early voting this year. It is estimated that 40% of registered voters cast their ballots during early voting, meaning the polls ...
Voters take cameras into booths, testing laws The Associated Press - 14 minutes ago Some states prohibit all recording inside polling places, including Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina and Texas. ...
McCain campaign alleges voter intimidation Irish Times, Ireland - 1 hour ago In Charlotte, North Carolina, approximately a dozen of the nearly 2000 voting machines pressed into service today have malfunctioned, and the problems have ...
Long Lines, Machine Problems Greet Virginia and North Carolina... MarketWatch - USA ...In North Carolina, power outages and wet ballots due to heavy rain are being reported. The top caller complaints today in North Carolina involve voter registration and poll access. Registration issues include voters not being on the registration rolls and not having received confirmation of their registration. Poll access issues include polls opening late.
State's straight-ticket ballots does not count for president Asheville Citizen-Times, NC - Nov 3, 2008 North Carolina's quirky straight-ticket law was passed in the 1960s to protect local Democratic politicians from increasingly GOP-oriented Southern voters.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Rain in parts of North Carolina caused some early problems for voters using optical scanner ballots Tuesday, but a memo about using paper towels seemed to dry up the problem, according to North Carolina officials.
Voters were coming into voting locations early Tuesday morning and getting the paper ballots wet as they handled them, according to Gary Bartlett, Executive Director of the North Carolina Election Board.
"We sent out a memo to the county election boards asking them to hand out paper towels to voters before they were given a ballot," Bartlett said.
Bartlett was not sure how many calls his office received Tuesday, but he said it was very few before he recognized the potential problem and sent out the message
NC uses bar codes to match voters with ballots GCN.com, DC - Nov 3, 2008 Guilford County has 99 ballots in this year’s general election, and multiple ballots are used at many polling places. Each voter must be given the ...
October 18, 2008 Parties picket malls over literatureThose at the picket were both republicans and democrats. CARY – Various signs, such as: "Vote here, don't shop here," and "Poll workers are shoppers too," can be seen at Cary Town Center as more than a dozen Cary residents picket over political literature. Some democrats and republicans are upset that the mall, along with the Triangle Town Center, will not allow literature to be handed out at the locations, which are early voting sites. (video)
Octoboer 17,2008 A look at the process for one-stop voting North Carolina residents can register to vote and vote at the same time during one-stop voting through Nov. 1. Residents already registered do not have to register for the election.
October 16, 2008 States Get Mixed Reviews on Readiness for Voting Machine ProblemsCiting Improvements, Election Experts Call for Backup Measures to Secure the Vote on Nov 4th Out of 50 states, North Carolina was among the 6 most prepared for the November 2008 election according to a 50 state report card issued by the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and Verified Voting.
Instant runoff voting poses problemsJun. 24, 2008 Point of View:Today's runoff election for state labor commissioner will be a costly, low-turnout contest. One proposed remedy is "instant runoff voting" at the primary election, ending the need for separate runoffs. But that would be a drastic change in our way of voting and could prove worse than the problem it tries to solve.
Commissioner candidate asks for recount Jacksonville Daily News, NC -May 15, 2008 Jeff Jones, a Republican who lost a primary bid in the race for a seat on the Onslow County Board of Commissioners, has asked for a recount. ..."As the only candidate who qualifies for such a request, by statute, I was urged by supporters from both parties to do so due to the closeness of this race," Jones said...
Thousands of votes missed in Tuesday tallies Jacksonville Daily News, NC May 9, 2008. Thousands of votes were omitted from election-night tallies, election officials have determined, but new unofficial results do not change which candidates won....An estimated more than 4,000 votes were not counted when the Onslow County Board of Elections tabulated the results from Tuesday's election and one-stop voting....The rankings among the candidates for Onslow County Board of Commissioners did change, however, as 9,943 more votes from the ballots were added.
Mecklenburg, Wake find vote flaws News 14 Carolina, NC - May 8, 2008 In Wake County, early and absentee ballots were counted as part of the individual voters precincts and again as a whole. MECKLENBURG & WAKE COUNTIES -- Vote tallies are changing in the state’s two largest counties, after certain ballots were counted twice in Mecklenburg and Wake counties.
An estimated 182,236 illegal robo calls have been made in North Carolina during the April/May primary voting season. The NC Attorney General is investigating. information.
According to an April 30, 2008press release from the NC Attorney General's office, "The robo-calls told residents that they would be receiving a voter registration form in the mail that they needed to sign. But the deadline to register by mail has passed, and some call recipients already were registered, causing confusion...these robocalls appear to have been made in violation of N.C.G.S. § 75-104. Failure to comply with this statute subjects the offender to civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation, and individuals who receive these unlawful calls may separately recover statutory damages in the same amounts. N.C.G.S. § 75-105."
Do not trust robo calls telling you whether you can or should vote or where to vote. Verify. Voters without internet access should call their County Boards of Elections to find out if they are registered. For reliable voting information, go to the North Carolina State Board of Elections website to check your voter registration and polling place location. You can also get up to date election night reporting at the NC SBOE site .
North Carolina is one of 11 states targeted with misleading voter registration information. Chris Kromm Facing South ...The NAACP has filed a formal complaint. N.C. residents have reported receiving peculiar automated calls from someone claiming to be "Lamont Williams." The caller says that a "voter registration packet" is coming in the mail, and the recipient can sign it and mail it back to be registered to vote and then they can vote....Read more at the linkBut they seem to be targeting primarily African American voters, male and female
Women's Voices has been conducting a robo-call and mailing campaign in NC that the state Attorney General has confirmed is illegal, that has been secretive and deceptive, and will likely have the effect of confusing and discouraging North Carolina voters.....Women's Voices is made up of some of the most seasoned and sophisticated political operatives in Washington." "Facing South"also revealed that North Carolina wasn't an isolated incident; that Women's Voices had been charged with carrying out confusing, legally questionable, and deceptive voter registration tactics in 10 other states. It has since been reported that there were also concerns in Oregon.
Mar. 10, 08 Mark Johnson - McClatchy News. National primary scrambles NC races "North Carolina hasn't seen a competitive presidential primary in at least 20 years"
IRV "is as easy as 1-2-3"? So is Gutting "The Public Confidence in Elections Law"
Our paper ballot law, passed August 2005, is being chipped away piece by piece. If you review the history , we fought long and hard to get the law passed, and we had to defend it afterwards. Our law is at riskright now....read the rest here
State Fights Back Against Hackers NBC 17.com - Raleigh,NC,USA 9/28/2007 By NBC17 JOHNSTON COUNTY, NC--A new firewall is in place after hackers cracked into the State Board of Elections computer in Johnston County a month ago...The Board of Elections said the new firewall should prevent future hacks.
State Foils Attempt To Access Voting Records Unauthorized person tried to hack into Johnston County voter registration data. 9/14/2007 Steve Reed Reporter. The state Board of Elections foiled an unauthorized attempt to hack into the Johnston County voter data. According to a letter mailed to Johnston County voters, Executive Director Gary O. Bartlett said, "As soon as the Board of Elections staff learned of these attempts, steps were taken to implement additional safeguards for the data." Mr. Bartlett said no evidence was found that data had been accessed. The voter information in the database consists of public information including the voter's name, address, gender and party affiliation. More information about privacy breaches at http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm
NC: Printers Fail on Touch-screens - 9% Failure Rate in the Nov 2006 General Election: "The system meant to produce a paper backup of votes cast on Guilford County’s electronic voting machines failed in many cases during the election Nov. 7. .. "He (Gilbert)knew that there would be problems,"said Joyce McCloy,a voting advocate who has been critical of Gilbert on the paper record issue."He asked his county to buy these machines when he himself testified to the state that there would be problems with the paper backups.
May 4, 2006 Few Voting Glitches Pop Up 10 touchcreen machines failed to print voter verified ballots in Mecklenburg County NC. Workers put paper in wrong way.
Kissell concedes defeat News 14 Carolina, NC - CHARLOTTE - With defeat appearing inevitable, Larry Kissell conceded Wednesday to GOP Rep. Robin Hayes in the state's 8th Congressional District, ending one of the nation's last unresolved races for a seat in the U.S. House. 5 of the remaining counties had not done a recount yet...... Kissell trailed Hayes by just 329 votes out of 121,523 cast following a machine recount last week..
June 27, 2006: The Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security, just issued a report citing at least 120 security issues with voting machines made by the top 3 largest voting machine companies. The full Brennan report is here and executive summary here .
*Wake rejects touch-screen voting* February 13 News and Observer"Why spend extra money for a dubious and experimental technology?" said Andrew Silver, 64, a Cary epidemiologist... Commissioner Phil Jeffreys, a retired postal worker, said he was not concerned about the difficult of hand-sorting an estimated 90,000 ballots after next fall's Election Day... "I worked in a post office for 30 years and it's not a lot (to sort)," he said.
12/22/05 Diebold withdraws from North Carolina's voting machine RFP! Diebold Says can't turn over all third party software...like their operating system (see below) and other requirements. Article
12.22/2005 VoteTrustUSA:
In a surprising reversal, Diebold has notified the North Carolina State Board of Elections that they are withdrawing from the procurement process in the state. They also offered their assistance in "revising" the state's recently passed election laws to better suit their product. Article
20% Failure of Diebold TSX in California in July 2005 caused officials to say that: the testing performed during the federal qualification process is apparently inadequate to ensure that voting machines will be reliable enough for use in elections. " Included 2% loss of paper ballots. SOS Report
Previous headlines regarding Diebold and also the Certification process, including former Diebold employee's part here Diebold News
Why is the testing and review of source code so important? Voting Systems expert believes that "10 percent of systems are failing on Election Day." - 12/05/2005 article
Carteret County chooses optical scan and ballot marking devices for the disabled. story
01/16/2005
Ballot design/machine malfunction suspected
NC
Burke County, NC. 1 out of 10 voters did not cast vote for president. 10% Undervote overall, with 8% undervotes on paper ballots mailed in to the BOE. "More than 8 percent of absentee voters who mailed in ballots in Burke also did not vote for president, Wright said." This is from the News and Observer, in an article dated January 16, 2005. Story*Did anyone visually inspect the mail in ballots?
11/26/2004
Editorial
NC
North Carolina's Ballot Blues - Our key decision-makers are ignoring the seriousness of the problem:
"Except for the lost votes in Carteret County, Gary Bartlett, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, called the problems 'easily remedied and lessons learned.'" AP Newswire, Nov 13
North Carolina's election problems will not be that easily remedied. This year's disaster shows that many election workers are in over their heads. Story
11/22/2004
Call for probe
NC
A second issue for State Board of Elections to probe over Gaston County problems. Story (registration free) * get passwords to newsites at www.bugmenot.com
11/22/2004
11/13/2004
NC Elections 2004
Machine malfunction
NC
NC
North Carolina voting problems: 2004 edition Well done synopsis of trainwreck, goes too lightly on Guilford County's ignorance of limits of their 16 bit central tabulator that subtracted votes after count reached 32,767 Story
Gaston County. About 12,000 votes cast in Gaston County have not yet been counted, elections director Sandra Page said Tuesday. Page said most early and absentee votes were not included in the county's unofficial election results because of a procedural error. The inclusion of the votes in the county's results, expected Tuesday afternoon, could change the outcome of several local and statewide races. Story1Story2Story3Archive3
The county pays a technician from Diebold to operate its systems on Election Day. That person was in charge of transferring early votes from electronic storage to the counting computer. Diebold believes the transmission was interrupted, said spokesman David Bear. StoryArchive
11/13/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Gaston County. After data was transmitted from the precincts to the central station, it was discovered that there was no data for the Dallas precinct in the GEMS database. Office records from election night, kept by a staff member, showed that information was received, Gaston County Elections Director Sandra Page said. She believes the computer system recorded a successful transmission without receiving any data. StoryArchive
Gaston County Voting Equipment: Gaston has 340 Diebold AccuVote TS (touchscreen) NASED ID nr NO3060011717 aquired Jul-98 model 19rW-1990, programmed by Diebold. Central Tabulator is GEMS 1.17.17, installed in 2001. Has modem, does not use it.
11/10/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
In Guilford County, ES&S early voting machines had capacity problems, which affected anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 ballots. StoryArchive
The totals were so large, the tabulation computer threw some numbers away. Retallying changed two outcomes and gave an additional 22000 votes to Kerry. StoryArchive
ES&S explained that the Unity 2.2 tally software reached 32,767 (32K) and began subtracting from the totals (same as in Broward County). ES&S had known about the problem but not told its customers.
Guilford County BOE didn't know that its central tabulator could not add more than 32,767 votes? Why? Letter from ES&S explaining to Guilford County (603K)
Guilford County Voting Machines - ES&S touchscreen voting machines, purchased 1,186 from 1995-2002, Votronic Model 1, Firmware 5.28, installed 2002, Tabulating Software Unity 2.2 installed 2003, programmed by Guilford County, has modem, doesn't use.
11/10/2004
User-unfriendly design
NC
Buncombe County. Workers in one precinct activated the wrong option switch on the Sequoia Advantage touch screen machines in the morning. They have estimated that as many as 75 voters were not given the opportunity to vote in the school board race. Story
11/9/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Carteret County. More than 4,500 votes irretrievably lost in coastal Carteret County could trigger a new statewide election if the official margin of victory in two Council of State races is close enough, state election officials said Monday. StoryArchive
Carteret voting machines Unilect Direct Record (DREs) purchased May 96, 45 machines, Programmed by Connecting Points 252-240-2722 Firmware: Unilect Patriot model 2.54, Software: Unilect, model/version Intetilect 2.49 has modem capability. Website for Unilect Corporation: http://www.unilect.com/
11/09/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Craven County. Problems with Electronic Systems and Software Inc. iVotronic voting machines surfaced in one-stop early voting, requiring all screens to be replaced. Story
11/09/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Craven County. "A master terminal at the Vanceboro one-stop voting site did not require a password and resulted in an incorrect total in the presidential returns there." ES&S again. StoryArchive
11/09/2004
Provisional ballots
NC
Wake County (Raleigh). Reviewing and counting 15,000 may cause the county to miss the deadline for reporting totals. 75,000 ballots were cast statewide. Story
11/09/2004
Provisional ballots
NC
Elections officials approved 1,790 of Durham's 2,820 provisional ballots cast, or 63 percent. More than 1,000 ballots were rejected mainly because there was no record that the people had registered to vote. StoryArchive
11/04/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
More than 4,500 Carteret County votes have been lost on a Unilect electronic voting machine. The vendor said it would hold 10,500 ballots. It would only hold 3,005 and 7,530 people cast their ballots on it. StoryArchive
11/04/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Mecklenburg County. Before the election, the county election office said 102,109 people voted early or returned valid absentee ballots. Unofficial results from election night showed 106,064 of those votes. StoryArchive Machines mistallied.
Mecklenburg County. Early voting machines counted some totals twice affecting as many as 4,000 ballots. That problem has not yet been corrected. "There are always glitches," McLean said. Story
Early Voting Equipment: Owns 100 Microvote Carson Infinity, NASED ID nr 101302, aquired 2002, programmed by BOE staff, firmware 2.06, tabulating software MEMS 2.04 no modem capability.
General Election Voting Equipment: Mecklenburg Voting Machines, Microvote 464, Purchased 1,400 in 1995 NASED nr 10301, Firmware version 4.31, Software - MEMS model/version 2.02 Programmed by Board of Elections, No modem capability service by Microvote, phone 317-257-4900
11/04/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
In Craven County, all vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled, increasing the totals for president by 11,283 more than the number of votes cast. Correcting the mistake changed the outcome of at least one race. ES&S Votronic machines used. Automatic warning of double-counting didn't work. StoryArchive
Craven County Voting Machines: ES&S Votronic Model 1 Purchased 206 machines from 1997-2003, Firmware model 5.28 installed 2002 Software tabulator ES&S Unity version 2.2, Programmed by ES&S ess 800-247-8683, has modem, does not use it
11/04/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
In Onslow County, a software error changed the order of finish in the race for seats on the county commission. The error didn't change who won the seats, just the order in which they finished. A floppy disk that compiles voting data from the counting machines was programmed incorrectly. StoryArchive
Onslow County uses punch-card machines. They have 28, purchased them in 1985 from
Business Records Corp. (now ES&S) and plan to replace them once federal standards are set.
11/04/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
In Yadkin County, about 1,000 ballots were accidentally counted twice. StoryArchive
Yadkin County Voting Machines - ES&S Optech 111 - P Eagle, Optical Scanners purchased 13 machines 1996, Firmware Optech III, Software, Data Packs programmed by ES&S
11/02/2004
Election law
NC
Voting a straight party ticket DOES NOT include a vote for president. This is by state law in North Carolina and South Carolina only. Voters must vote for a presidential candidate separately. Story
10/30/2004
Ballot secrecy violation
NC
North Carolina structured its early voting process with a retrievable ballot that is not counted until Election Day. So if election officials are notified that an early voter has died, that ballot can be removed. Story
10/27/2004
Voter challenges
NC
Both major parties in the Carolinas plan to have observers at polling places, making sure legal voters are not excluded and bogus voters don't sneak in. Some may challenge voters' eligibility, while others will be trying to block challenges. StoryArchive
10/27/2004
Voter challenges
NC
In Alamance County, N.C., earlier this month, the sheriff submitted a list of registered voters with Spanish surnames to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an attempt to determine whether or not they are U.S. citizens. StoryArchive
10/21/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Forsyth County. Kathy Cooper, director of elections, says problems with batteries dying on computers at early voting polls have already been resolved. Story: Early voting going brisklyArchive
One of the four machines at Reynolda Manor was not working early Tuesday afternoon, but it was soon fixed. Problems have mostly resulted from machines not being hooked up properly.
Forsyth County used DREs leased from Advanced Voting Solutions, the WINVote, a machine with wireless internet access.
10/21/2004
Test failure
NC
Forsyth County. Precinct chair says his ballot was not tallied correctly during a demonstration of the e-voting machines at an early voting site. Story: Early voting going brisklyArchive
10/15/2004
Machine malfunction
NC
Craven County. Voters' choices register incorrectly on the touch screen. The county official attempted to recalibrate the screens, but two machines had to be taken out of service. Story
10/13/2004
Election Monitors
NC
Groups prepare to monitor voting. The Duke Chronicle - Carolynn Carson, a senior data technician for Duke University Medical Center, has volunteered to be a poll monitor in the Raleigh-Durham area. I feel that this should be in the news in the same way that a threatening hurricane is because I think its that serious, or more serious, she said. A North Carolina congressman and Duke professor is also working on the legislative front to ensure elections are conducted fairly. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., authored and sponsored the Count Every Vote Act of 2004, which would provide additional time for carrying out recounts in presidential elections, if necessary. Story
09/29/2004
Tech Watch
NC
Greensboro a beta test says Jim Franz. Jim Franz, an independent iSeries consultant is one of more than 1,500 techies who've signed on with the Verified Voting Foundation to police electronic voting practices around the country. Franz signed on to the organization's TechWatch program, which will keep track of any issues that occur at electronic polling places around the country..."Our local elections official in Greensboro has been one of the leading proponents in the country of electronic voting," he says. "We feel like he's almost been a beta site for some of the manufacturers. We've been doing electronic voting for four or five years. Since the issue came up, he's taken a lot of hits for not having a secure system."
Franz, who has a background in security and has worked on accounting programs for numerous iSeries customers, would like to see the same security, accountability, and audit capabilities built into voting systems as are built into business systems. Story
07/20/2004
Machine Malfunction
NC
Mecklenburg County Problem: Around 9:40 PM Tuesday, officials with Vinroot's campaign claimed there were problems with the voting machines in Mecklenburg County. But those problems were resolved quickly.WRAL
This problem in more detail from a yahoo group message board: "WRAL has reported that Vinroot's campaign has reported the Mecklenburg's "vote processing center" (don't know what to make of that neologism) is "broken". Whatever *that* means. Message Board Mecklenburg uses the Microvote DRE. Also, see the NC VOTER page tab "Bribery" for more on these voting machines and their origion.
07/20/2004
Machine Malfunction
NC
Pender County Problem: All of Pender County votes electronically, and the county has 74 of these machines. But on Tuesday, one of them didn't work. "There was a machine that would not tally. We had the precinct workers bring in the machine for that and we had to extract those votes and count them manually," said Frances Pinion the Pender County Board of Elections Director. WWAYTV Pender uses the Microvote Infinity DRE voting machines.
07/21/2004
Machine Malfunction
NC
New Hanover County: election officials say it was a smooth day until they brought the results to the New Hanover County courthouse. "The server that the application runs on, that calculates the votes. I had a little problem with the server," said Jan Kavanaugh a programmer analyst with New Hanover County. http://www.wwaytv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=2071570
07/13/2004
Computer Ate My
Vote
NC
New Bern Sun Journal write up on Computer Ate My Vote - NCBOE again claims no prob with DREs that NC currently uses.... Warren Murphy presented 10,531 petitions by NC Citizens who want a voter verified paper ballot. Full Story , Rocky Mt. Telegram Cached: Winston Salem Journal Full Story Channel 11 ABC Full Story
2003. Guilford County.354 Blank Ballots. Records from Gilbert's office show that voters in mostly rural precincts - where the bond was the only item on the ballot - cast 354 blank ballots. The blanks amounted to only about half a percent of the total vote and could not have changed the outcome of the election. The bonds were approved by a 2-1 margin. http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=1155
2002. Wake County Disaster in 2002 E-Vote Machines Drop More Ballots By Kim Zetter Six electronic voting machines used in two North Carolina counties lost 436 absentee ballot votes in the 2002 general election because of a software problem, raising increasing doubts about the accuracy and integrity of voting equipment in a presidential election year. "...problems with the firmware of its iVotronic touch-screen machines, used in a trial run, lost ballots in two North Carolina precincts during the state's early voting in 2002. Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62206,00.htmlFeb. 09, 2004 Jackson County: Same problem as Wake, machines didn't work properly, happened a couple of days prior to Wake.
___
In the North Carolina case, a software glitch made the ES&S machines falsely sense that their memories were full and an error message displayed, said company spokeswoman Meghan McCormick in an e-mail to Wired News. "If this happened with one version of the firmware, how can we be sure that it didn't happen with other versions of the firmware?" asked Dill. "How can we be sure that other counties didn't lose votes that they didn't catch?" More at "Wake County Snafu"
2002/09/12-In Robeson County, ballot tabulating machines failed to work properly in 31 of 41 precincts Local election officials said the problem was the result of a software glitch, and ballots had to be recounted. http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/local/4056664.htm
2002/12/10 - WAYNE COUNTY - In the 2002 general election, a computer miscount overturned the House District 11 result in Wayne County, North Carolina. Incorrect programming caused machines to skip over several thousand party-line votes, both Republican and Democratic. Fixing the error turned up 5,500 more votes and reversed the election for state representative. http://thoughtcrimes.org/bbv/bbv_chapter-2.pdf Also see http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/A_Tale_of_Two_Election_Recounts.doc
2000, November. Davidson County: A computer error allowed election software to count about 5,000 early and absentee ballots twice. A reporter brought the discrepancy to light during the county election board's official canvass. The incorrect vote totals appeared only on the official report sent to the state Board of Elections in Raleigh". Link here:Davidson County
2000 Gaston County. Diebold Internal memo, referencing "end-running the database"
To: "support" Subject: RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access From: "Ken Clark" "...Jane (I think it was Jane) did some fancy footwork on the .mdb file in Gaston recently. I know our dealers do it. Also "the fact that Microsoft Access can be used in this way is fairly well known in election supervisor circles. "fancy footwork" being done in Gaston County, and to King County, Washington State, being "famous" for end-running the database - a phrase which on its face appears to mean hacking with the election tallying database." See Gaston County vulnerabilities and ScoopNZ:
2000 Guilford County. 36 votes lost by paperless machines. Paperless machines couldn't properly record 36 votes in 2000, but all but four managed to cast another ballot, county elections director George Gilbert said. ... www.nbc17.com/politics/3937982/detail.html
2000 Guilford County. Some of the new ES&S Votronic touchscreens machines had defective touch-screens. Caught in Early Voting, Director George Gilbert said he switched some screens out. The screens froze, stopped responding,. (From interview with George Gilbert, Director of Guilford County Elections)
1998 - MECKLENBERG COUNTY -Kickbacks and Bribes in Mecklenberg County, NC. Culp, who spent 28 years on the job, was indicted Tuesday on federal charges he accepted kickbacks and bribes from MicroVote vendor Ed O'Day of Columbia and election-machine repairman Gene Barnes of Stuarts Draft, Va.
Repeated attempts to reach Culp were unsuccessful.
Former Mecklenburg County Elections Supervisor Bill Culp was indicted by a federal grand jury July 7 on charges that he accepted more than $134,000 in kickbacks and bribes from a voting machine repairman and a salesman who won millions in county contracts. The indictment follows a six-month FBI investigation.
Federal sources say Culp and the two others charged -- Ed O'Day, president of Columbia-based United American Election Supply Co. and Gene Barnes, a self-employed repairman from Stuarts Draft, Va. -- will receive summonses and likely make their first court appearance this month. Culp retired in February as elections director after 28 years. http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/1998/07/13/weekinbiz.html
Culp knows it. He left a Maryland prison in September and lives in a Charlotte, N.C., halfway house, where he is ending a 30-month sentence for accepting 122 bribes and kickbacks worth more than $134,000 from January 1990 to March 1998.
Voting machines he bought from the salesman who paid him off had enough problems that he wrote four letters of complaint even as he was taking the bribes.
In Bill Culp's case, Mecklenburg County bought the newest technology: 1,200 MicroVote 464 electronic voting machines. Culp pushed hard for the purchase. It brought MicroVote $5.25 million.
It was reeling from setbacks in Montgomery County, Pa., north of Philadelphia, where its machines kept shutting down during a November 1995 election. The computers froze as voters scrolled through a three-page electronic ballot. The county even announced the wrong winners.
Glitches resurfaced the following spring. Montgomery County sued MicroVote and traded the machines to another company, which turned around and resold them. In 1997, Culp and his county bought 400 of Montgomery County's rejects from O'Day.
Publicly enthusiastic, Culp privately complained about the same defects that led to the chaos in Pennsylvania. "The obvious weakness in the scrolling mechanism concerns us," he wrote to the company on May 13, 1996 http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-vote-wares.story
See the "Bribery: page for more about the history of these machines and the bribery scandal.
2000 Election - Harnett County The Harnett County Board of Elections staff was forced to resign for failure to keep adequate records. An audit found that most of the voter information in the county database was incorrect, including many unauthorized changes to voter addresses. http://www.democracysouth.org/improving/rights-disenfranchisement.html
Top National Experts on E-Voting blog about election problems (archive only)-written by Adam Stubblefield, Aviel Rubin, Barbara Simons, Bruce Schneier, Dan Wallach, David Jefferson, David L. Dill, David Wagner, Edward W. Felten, and Joseph Lorenzo Hall. http://www.evoting-experts.com/
