Frank Heindel – August 16, 2011
The State Election Commission has admitted that Lancaster County failed to keep any of their November 2010 election files for an audit. Below is the State Election Commission’s explanation as to why this happened in Lancaster County, which once again highlights our system is too complicated to operate.
“Under normal circumstances, one database would be used to prepare Personal Electronic Ballots (PEBs – devices used to load ballots on voting machines) and the central vote tabulating computer. If both are not prepared from the same database, the automated vote tabulation process will not work, and paper results tapes from each precinct must be used to manually enter votes into the system.
When the Lancaster database was originally created, it contained the names of all certified political parties. However, all parties did not nominate candidates in Lancaster County, and those that did not needed to be removed. read more »
Frank Heindel – August 16, 2011
“Voting device firm could face contempt charges”
The ES&S system in Colorado publishes the same type of EL 68 log files as our system in South Carolina. .
Frank Heindel – August 16, 2011
Sussex County, New Jersey uses the same complicated ES&S system as South Carolina. Please read this letter from ES&S describing how their technician caused precinct votes to double. ESS report
Frank Heindel – June 18, 2011
ES&S reps fail to show for ordered depositions, by Teresa L. Benns of the Center-Post dispatch, describes how the ES&S Unity EL68 computer log files are being scrutinized in Saguache County. South Carolina also uses the ES&S Unity system and we have been analyzing the EL68 files as well.
The November 2010 Saguache County EL68 audit log file has a few unexplained problems. You can view them highlighted in red at this link. Co EL68A_System Log_Run 20110118
In 2007, the Colorado Secretary of State found serious security problems with the Unity system. They discovered an unauthorized user could alter the audit log file and gave the system an “F”.2007 Colorado Secretary of State
This recent Denver Post op-ed by Vincent Carroll describes how Marilyn Marks has opened up the election process in Colorado.
Frank Heindel – June 17, 2011
Sussex County, New Jersey has unexplained problems with their ES&S iVotronic system.This June 9, 2011 NJHerald article by Jessica MIckley sounds similar to the problems encountered in Colleton County, SC in November 2010.
Initially on Tuesday night, election results appeared to be coming in smoothly. However, as charts displaying unofficial results flashed on the wall via a projector, watchers noticed the number of reporting districts change, and not always in an upward direction.
“I manually put in the votes in Franklin 1. And it showed up with 8,000 write-in votes,” Sussex County Board of Elections Administrator Marge McCabe said. “I absolutely cannot explain it.”
Frank Heindel – June 17, 2011
The State Election Commission has hired a contract programmer, Rick Wrigley, to audit the November 2010 election files of all 46 South Carolina counties. 34 counties are complete and 12 counties (Beaufort, Charleston, Florence, Horry, Lancaster, Marlboro, McCormick, Newberry, Orangeburg, Saluda, Spartanburg, Sumter) are in progress. The audit results should be available in the next couple of weeks.
Frank Heindel – April 20, 2011
Here is the Columbia Free Times story by Corey Hutchins
Charleston Republican Sen. Chip Campsen called the hearing “very enlightening.”
After a Senate panel heard testimony on April 14 from a handful of election watchdogs critical of the state’s system of electronic voting machines, a rather testy exchange took place in the hallway.
“You guys have a tough job,” said USC computer scientist Duncan Buell to Chris Whitmire, the spokesman for the South Carolina State Election Commission. “You have a really tough job, but you’re in deep denial about reality.”
Frank Heindel – April 19, 2011
The South Carolina Green Party has become the first political party in South Carolina to pass a resolution demanding our legislature to acquire a voting system with a verifiable paper trail, in addition to requesting our legislature to “direct the Legislative Audit Council to initiate a review of the iVotronic voting machines”.
I would like to thank Eugene Platt for all his hard work, persistence, and determination in helping pass this resolution. Eugene Platt was also instrumental in getting the James Island Public Service District to be the first group of elected officials to pass a resolution for a new voting system in South Carolina.
Below is the entire resolution.
A RESOLUTION BY THE SOUTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY
TOWARD RESTORING VOTER CONFIDENCE IN ELECTIONS
WHEREAS the South Carolina Green Party is a ballot-qualified political party affiliated with the Green Party of the United States; and read more »
Chip Moore – April 18, 2011
In the more than five months since the November 2nd general election, Colleton County has released three separate tabulations of the vote in that county.
The first unofficial results, published in local Colleton newspapers in the week following the election, did not include 1051 absentee ballots cast on three iVotronic voting terminals used in the election. The certified returns, accepted by the county and the State Election Commission, contained several contests in which the sum of the votes for the candidates exceeded the number of votes cast in the county, some by more than 10%. A third tabulation released by the Election Director in Colleton County at the end of December, 2010, repaired some problems but in several races the number of absentee votes still exceeded the number of absentee ballots. read more »