Post-post note about recounts, to date

Don't think I mentioned earlier, about the first day's recount - Though the Bedford Heights Charter Commission was mandated for an automatic recount, that whole process made no difference to the outcome. The race was to select 9 of 14 candidates. The margin between #9 and #10 was large. The automatic recount came between something like # 3 and #4 - making all that time and effort for no reason. All 9 stayed elected.

The North Olmsted recount, the question of two earlier board meetings, was held today. Don't know yet how that one went.

And God help us all- here is the list of recounts scheduled for NEXT week!



The first two on the list are mandated. The last four are requested, and requesters will have to pay max $50 (up from $10 last year, per HB3) per precinct for those counts. Though this could make recounts non-affordable to many, especially in a county-wide race, on a per hour basis, it could be quite a deal! (On a true usefulness basis to actually prove what voters wanted - via these Diebold machines, it could be $50 per precinct too much, though it does give access to poll books, etc.)

Film from first day's recounts 11/26 - Get out the caffiene and sugar, and learn...

Here are the films promised in http://citizensboe.blogspot.com/2007/11/recounts-other-thttpwwwbloggercomimggll.html
where it was stated:

"And I'm processing film from the day - only from the approximate 3 hours of reprinting procedures, not the counting itself. If you love watching paper being unrolled, you'll love the film. It will also serve as a good sleep aid.
But seriously, there are some interesting facts about the process mixed in."

Some of the scenes in the first film may have been slightly re-arranged, to no effect on the meaning. (Not wanting to subject viewers to the whole thing, I myself got lost in the paper unwinding, while editing. Hope I didn't leave out any good parts.) They still show the long tedium of the entire process of just the reprinting damaged Diebold ballots, showing and explaining everything they were doing to recount witnesses: the board's decision making, according to SoS Memo 7-21, etc. (And I missed when they showed witnesses that they had selected the matching memory cards to the yet-to -be printed tapes.)

The second film below, explains more of what they still had to do - just for the reprint process - again, not the hand count nor the final comparing to official results.

Further, as explained below, this whole closed-circle process of essentially machine to machine, with a lot of human care and counting in between, proves essentially NOTHING about the Diebold machines' actually tabulating the will of the voters!

What a mess that's been set up for us by HAVA, and now continued by Brunner!
What a waste! What false securities in elections meaning the majority will are being set up!

A few of the salient facts you'll find dotted amidst the unwinding VVPAT's, in the films include:

1.When there is a paper change in a Tsx machine, the machine does not record the machine ID on the second and possibly the third paper tape, making it nearly impossible to match up that partial tape with the right memory card/machine ( in case the poll workers forget. Remember, in the field when they get paper jams, and have lines of people, after only 4-5 hours of training weeks before, 1-day poll workers too get overwhelmed.)

2. The GEMS tabulating system cannot generate reports by certain precincts, as is done in recounts, making that necessary isolation process another hour-long manual step for BOE workers.

3. Damaged ballots go from mangled, to one vote not being able to be read- still necessitating the process of reprint.

4. HB3 demanded that the public is not allowed to see the machine serial numbers printed at the top of tape (the first only when there are multiples.) Now what's THAT about?
The only "privacy" such maintains is to keep private "evidence" of all kinds of potential unscrupulous behavior and "fixed" or unfixed (non-repaired) machines.
Even in a small county with only a few machines and few voters, if Sally X, were the only person to cast a vote on a machine, by the time it would get to recount, who would know that the one vote on a paper trail with machine serial number 123456, for instance, was Sally's. There needs to be a way to cross reference the cards and VVPATs, obviously. In Cuyahoga, they matched by card number and polling location printed at the top. It's ORC 3516.18 now.
5. And more...http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=916809716015280485&postID=1918774616179986626#

So get out the caffiene or stress ball ...and learn for yourself - some facts, and how bad it is, for essentially no good reason but false securities.

The board members you see in the videos are (R) Chairman Jeff Hastings, and (D) Sandy McNair, who are trying to follow SoS Memo 07-21. You also see Matt Jaffe, head of the CCBOE Ballot Dept. and Brian Cleary of same. In background are Ed Monroe regional rep for Sec. Brunner; Jane Platten, Director; Pat McDonald Assist. Director, recount observers and others.

For a slicker, quicker view from media, here's WKYC, Channel 3's coverage from the second day.

Post note to recounts - Hard to explain

After the CCBOE board meeting yesterday, I went down to see how the Solon Board of Ed recount was proceeding. They have about 26 precincts in all. The board staff started by randomly selecting a 3% sample - with their resident lottery-like, ping-pong ball "air-blower," that vacuums into stasis, a few balls from all of them, each with a precinct number on it.

By the time I got down there at about 10:30 am, they had hand counted the entire 3% sample. Not one damaged ballot was found.

Now go explain. It seems IMPOSSIBLE for demographics or partisanship to play any role. They are truly pretty equal from the the areas considered during the two recount days. Hmm...

But the break outs ended up to be :
a total of 15 tapes that were unreadable. The breakdown is as follows:
8 Bedford Hts Recount (out of 57 canisters)
7 North Royalton Council Recount (out of 18 canisters)
0 Solon Recount (out of 125 canisters)

Here's the PD briefing about the latter: http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/1196329329129170.xml&coll=2

Recounts & Other Touchscreen Messes-the literal unwinding them to solve

Yesterday I wrote about the (yet unsourced) encoder problems in North Olmsted, and the mess that caused. The board began the day with yet another meeting - or resumption of - from the day before. ( They figuratively "stay in session" during the recounts.

All 3 candidates for Council, previously prepared for a recount yesterday, were there.
It was found and fully documented with copies of original 11/6 documents, that 19 regular voters had voted on paper, to access the school board race, and had ballots put into provisional envelopes that were then rejected for lack of information.
One of those voted said she voted half Tsx, and asked for a paper ballot for school board. Hers was the only one of the 19 not accepted, for it could not be known if she had voted a whole ballot on the Tsx, which would have made her paper ballot a second one. The school board race had a solid outcome.
All the other 18 were accepted and were to be included in the certified count. (That was after sorting out the fact that the poll worker had noted the wrong "Gary" as having voted provisionally. The two "Gary J.'s" (last names were given) were called, affirming the info of the Gary J on the envelope, and that the other, noted Gary had indeed voted on a touchscreen.) What a mess.
I actually worked today (!) so did not go to the board meeting at noon, (nor call, nor to any recounts, thank goodness - they are truly tedious with the VVPATS and very long - see below) to find out the new result of that council race to be certified, and to find out if a recount would still be mandated. All candidates by the way, even the winner, affirmed what the board was doing was the right thing - expressed that they wanted every voter's vote counted.

2. After the Candidate and Voter Services Dept. found the problem in North Olmsed, they went back to see if there had been any similar numerous provisional rejects, for missing information, from one polling location that demanded further study, in case something similar had happened - regular votes on paper at the polls, being misconstrued as and rejected as provisionals.

They found two other instances.
The board accepted 11 mistakenly rejected paper ballots in Lyndhurst 4D that were given to voters when early on 11/6 the Tsx machines were "having technical difficulty." These 11 would not affect the outcome of the race, but could make it close enough to trigger an automatic recount. At the time of this writing, I assume that question was answered when the board certified those new totals today.

They also moved yesterday to accept 14 ballots, previously rejected in Cleveland 16E for the same reason. Those paper at poll ballots were due to a "faulty encoder."

In all of the above cases, the board checked all notations, the poll book etc. to make sure that the ballots they accepted were from registered voters who had signed in at their voting location.

The Literal Unwinding of Paper Trail Mess of the First Recount Day - complete with 15 damaged (from DRE printer) of 70 paper trails total

Is this what a recount should look like?

Board members determine damaged ballots to reprinted per Memo 07-21

This is a copy of a message I sent to a few election integrity groups yesterday morning. (Too tired right now to create a new one about the lonnng, tedious one at the recount the day before.)
In a message dated 11/27/07 4:17:21 PM, a member of Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections wrote:

Why not print out a copy of the VVPAT, two observers canvisually spot check ballots to make sure they match, or else inspect all ballots side by side, (would be easy to do on a large long table).

They actually kind of did that yesterday in the CCBOE recount, after reprinting the board-approved damaged tapes - as well as showing and explaining every step.
There were 2 recounts - one 5 precincts - but a race of picking 9 of 14 candidates!
The other - I think 8 precincts. Don't remember. Will get.
Since when I left at 7:30 pm - with one recount still going on - and other observer and all election workers still there - and I estimate still at least 3 hours to go... ( the problem is the VVPATs!) I was exhausted... and "looking forward to" another observer day today! The CCBOE was excellent in transparency.

BUT the absolute RIDICULOUSNESS of this whole messy, tedious, lonnnnggg, detailed day - and any future similar AUDITS, too - with the VVPATS - even if well done, and people can see every step, and they've demonstrated that cards and papers had originally been used together - as it was very well pointed out by Jason Parry, as below. All the process does is shows that the machines can add "SOMETHING" and that people can also add-up THE SOMETHING that the machine already added.

This closed-loop, circular summation however, completely leaves out the question of: do these duplicating messy, tedious, lonnnnggg, detailed "feats of addition" have anything to do with what VOTERS intended to cast?

The way they did it and the randomness of the appearance of the HIGH RATE of damaged tapes, along with poll worker signatures on the originals, would preclude any insider having secretely "recreated" cards and papers from them, along with new " numbered seals" on canisters - to "clean things up ahead of time for recount witnesses" - as was purported in past 2004 previously convicted Cuyahoga recount.

But with these machines - ALL of this - does still NOT affirm that they are recording votes as intended.
By the time it gets to recount/audit - the slippery slope attention is put to, not voter intention, but by then - the voter-disconnected question of only the addition ability of machine vs."man."

And from that, when they INEVITABLY match ( if the people are good detailed counters,) we're then told (not by the CCBOE on either of the below, but by most - even some of the candidate observers at the recount) it "proves the machines work." !!!!! ( I ask, for what???)

And from the messy, tedious, lonnnnggg, detailed day, we're also told, it also proves that machines are much "faster" than "man" at such addition - thus, to those people no reasonableness of hand marked, paper ballots!

Because of the invalid closed circularity - we get completely invalid conclusions - dangerously affirmed by some direct experience with "SOMETHING" !

Further, it's been shown that even the experience of today in Cuyahoga, would hardly be what some politically-patronaged (thus, falsely trusted) BOE's in Ohio would actually do.

It's much, much easier - and actually just as ultimately (in-)effective in checking voters unified intent - to spill coffee.....and if some BOE's really want to extend themselves to keep up a show..."just re-print the recount results from the tabulator computer and call it a day."

At least the CCBOE is following the laws...and going out of their way to do what they can do to show people they really care about them and their concerns too - while struggling long and hard with the machine limitations and the ridiculousness that they impose.

( Recounting punchcards would have been MUCH faster. AND the human counting of the paper ballots from today was also - MUCH faster, as well as being originally much easier to reconcile, including allowing the people there to UNDERSTAND what they were doing and why...only partly because that process has inherent meaning.)

BTW, though I don't yet know how many tapes were counted in total today - I estimate between 50 and 75 total between the two recounts. I do know that 14 (actually it ended up to be 15) of those tapes needed to be reprinted. Percentage facts will obviously have to wait.
But it seems today that an estimate of 15-30% would be correct.

Throw the junk back..after getting our money back!

I have pictures, but right now, have to "pack my tent" for today... Promised a candidate I would observe for her. A whole different story...

Per Jason Parry:

"I mean really let's just cancel any recount where tapes are
printed from memory cards. You have to be a complete
moron to think this is a valid idea. Why not just re-print
the recount results from the tabulator computer and call
it a day.

A recount is intended to count paper results by hand and
compare that to the computer tabulation results from the
memory cards. If you print the paper tape, to be counted
by hand, from memory cards then barring human error,
OF COURSE they match. And anyone who has read any
of the detailed reports on VVPAT and election tally results
realizes that they are not the same and in many cases the
tabulation results do not match the VVPAT."

This is the PD report from the first recount day. The reporter, Joe Guillen also was an all day survivor. In it, the man of famous name Chris Riggall, Diebold-Premier spokesman said again, Diebold-Premier needed to do "further investigation." In another film yet to be published here, you'll see that Jane Platten, Director reporting on election night and official count tabulator crashes, on 11/21, that Diebold-Premier, even had that "chutzpah" to suggest that their "investigations" be done in their own offices! Thankfully, she declined the offer. A sure bet that Premier's conclusions will point blame at the CCBOE, the poll workers and anyone but themselves, for their woeful (to us) failures.

And I'm processing film from the day - only from the approximate 3 hours of reprinting procedures, not the counting itself. If you love watching paper being unrolled, you'll love the film. It will also serve as a good sleep aid.
But seriously, there are some interesting facts mixed in. And you'll get to see some of how careful everyone was to make sure the witnesses could see everything they wanted to (though limited by the rolls of tiny print.)
Stay tuned.

BTW, in the end, after a few human errors, and much human addition on the very human-unfriendly VVPATS, as predicted, the North Royalton count did not change.

I also understand that the CCBOE decided after exhaustion set in at about 9pm. to get legal permission to pause "the continuous count," of the Bedford race which continued to have errors, especially on counting ballots with 9 candidates to be chosen, hone their process, and go home to rest for the next day's marathon. In the end, the outcome of the Bedford race will not make any difference! The margin between #9 and #10 candidate was large. The automatic recount was triggered between something like #3 and #4 candidates, which will not affect who gets on the Commission.

Olmsted Falls- 18 authentically new ballots. Recount today?

At yesterday's CCBOE meeting it was announced that because of an encoder problem in Olmsted Falls, 18 people who could not not access their school board race on their ballot had to be given paper ballots. AND those ballots also contained the race of for Olmsted Falls council - which is up for recount today. AND those paper ballots from REGULAR voters had been put into provisional envelopes at the polls, with no marking, but because the voters were in the poll book, also had no provisional ID info on the envelope. AND when those envelopes came into the manila-envelope "sea" of provisionals to be verified, they were rejected for lack of the envelope information.

AND one of the people from the council race, called about 18 rejected ballots from same location, and then with BOE also then questioning, checking the poll's incident sheet, where the happenings had been marked, and by calling the poll workers, the entire story was found out.

SO the CCBOE, in meeting recess, will reconvene this am to explain to already-called candidates They probably will accept the 18 ballots. The ballots after acceptance will allow the envelopes to be opened. They will then have be counted/scanned. The board will have to then re-certify the Olmsted Falls election. THEN, if still an automatic recount-qualifier, (for Council) the recount will begin, as scheduled for today.

It is not yet understood what all the sources of the problems were here - bad encoders? mistaken prep of them? poll workers missing a step? lack of policy and tools to keep regular paper ballots from polls visibly separate and different from true provisionals? more attention to "triggers" for checking oddities in the provisional verifying department ( it really is a SEA of manila envelopes....)?

The CCBOE is checking to isolate all sources and to correct. There are various, and pretty easy ways, now that they're aware of the series of problems. They are aware that this should mean checking for other such provisional anomalies in this race too. They are currently in the sea of VVPATs and recounts.

Bottom line, it is very important to keep provisional info public, so the public can work with such willing BOE's to help improve.

And bottom line, these 18 "suddenly appearing" ballots at the CCBOE should truly not be the subject of any rumors inferring insider "ballot-stuffing." This is actually because the CCBOE is truly trying to correct mistakes and to fix them.

Also BTW, as of Monday when Geauga County and Lorain County certified their races, those results determined that Cuyahoga ( the larger county in these sometimes split county contests) will have to hold an automatic recount for Hunting Valley, and for the Strongsville school board, respectively. That makes a total of 6 automatic recounts, and a yet to be determined number of requested recounts for Cuyahoga.

SoS "solutions" to unuseable VVPAT paper trails - Insufficient & Invalid?

The Cuyahoga County BOE will be holding a meeting tomorrow morning at 9.
A first item is consideration/acknowledgment of the memo dated 11/21/07 apparently authored by David Farrell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Director of Elections regarding how to proceed when almost certainly counties will come across un-whole, scrunched, torn, unreadable VVPAT tapes from DRE's - the voters' official ballots for recounts (the first time any of the sealed paper canisters are opened after the election in question.)

The memo is available for download here.

After the CCBOE was kind enough to to send me this memo, since I cannot access such items from the SoS website, I found it to be yet another step in memorializing that elections have little to do with voters, our rights, our voice, and our communal will; but instead wrongly memorializing that elections now are about candidates, (who wins and loses, and avoiding non-affordable to most but the few, law suits, that may follow in the political competitions;) about election officials; the private proprietary vendors; the media; etc.

Below is the letter I just sent to David Farrell, asking for quick and proper amendment to his proposed processes - putting voters at the top of the priorities, as we belong.


November 26, 2007

Sent via electronic mail

To:
Office of the Secretary of State
• David M. Farrell, Deputy Assistant SoS and Director of Elections
• cc Kellye Pinkelton, Director, Voting Rights Institute
• cc. SoS Attorneys
• cc. Ed Monroe, SoS Regional Liaison

Cuyahoga County Board of Elections
• cc. Members of the Board
• cc. Director, Jane Platten

From: Adele Eisner, Cuyahoga County voter and resident

RE: Insufficiency of solution to unuseable VVPAT tapes in a recount/ SoS Memo in response to Cuyahoga County's very salient inquiry


(Note 1: Lacking all necessary email addresses, I actually send this to only those listed in the send-to portion of this email. I request that those with easier access to those email addresses will distribute to others also listed in the header of this letter.)


Dear David, and others so concerned:

The matter of current DRE election machinery ruining the official ballots of voters for a recount (where presently such paper trails are first opened after the election) is a very serious one, about which I've voiced grave concern since May 2006, when the current machinery was introduced in Cuyahoga; and specifically in conversations with Kellye and others in your office, since March, 2007.

Before I continue with some background and the main point of my objection to your 11/21/07 Memo/ (possibly interim) "solutions" to the problem, which are misdirected in ignoring the rights of voters and taxpayers of Ohio, I want to express my deep appreciation to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and staff for their excellent diligence in listening to voters and detailed attempts to protect voters' rights and the sanctity of our elections, thus bringing this matter before you, for some necessary answers.

I begin by pointing out that both the ESI report from Cuyahoga's May '06 election, (http://bocc.cuyahogacounty.us/GSC/pdf/esi_cuyahoga_final.pdf) and the Cuyahoga "Collaborative Audit," done after the November '06 election, show, in these separate studies - that a full 9-plus% of all of Cuyahoga's VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails) tapes, unreliably produced by the machines, arrive at the CCBOE unwhole: overprinted, scrunched, torn, taped, smeared etc. - problems you noted in your above-stated memo.

As a recount observer since, I've noted the same vendor/machine problems continue -
• robbing a significant percentage of voters of their official ballots, which further, because of the secret, proprietary software and machinery claimed by these for-great-profit, private vendors, even when ballots are whole, originally prevent voters from the assurance that what is being tabulated are the voters' own choices;
• as well as causing even more obstructive headaches and extensive amounts of time and effort - taxpayer-paid/board staff extended - in those BOE's who are trying to "do the right things" for voters, while being greatly limited by the poor operation and lack of election security of the machines they're forced to use.

I remind you, these machine printers, which are now nationally recognized as unacceptably performing, were an add-on, later required in many states, because of the public outcry about the opacity of/"black-box-ness" and insider, undetectable manipulatability of citizens' election results, after DRE machines were forced around the nation with 2002 HAVA - the unthought-through, financial-boon-to-machine vendors, and power-boon-to-election-insiders. This required add-on happened in Ohio with HB 262.

Yet even our state codes and highly questionable HAVA required these forced-into-use machines and components/these billions of dollar "investment" to taxpayers, to be at least "reliable" in their operation.

From AG opinion, I believe, 2006-05:
"A vendor who desires to have equipment certified submits that equipment and pays a fee. R.C. 3506.05(C). The Board of Voting Machine Examiners examines the equipment and submits a report to the Secretary of State. R.C. 3506.05(D). “If the board finds that the equipment meets the criteria set forth in sections 3506.06, 3506.07 and 3506.104 of the Revised Code, can be used safely and can be depended upon to record and count accurately and continuously the votes of electors, and has the capacity to be warranted, maintained, and serviced, it shall approve the equipment and...recommend that the secretary of state certify the equipment."

and

from, I believe: 42 U.S.C.A. § 15481(a)(2):
"Thus, to satisfy HAVA, a voting system must produce a permanent
paper record with a manual audit capacity, and the paper record must be available as an official
record for purposes of any recount. For a DRE voting system, VVPAT constitutes the
permanent paper record that is available for recount. See R.C. 3506.18(A) (“[f]or any recount of
an election in which ballots are cast using a direct recording electronic voting machine with a verified paper audit trail, the VOTER VERIFIED paper audit trail shall serve as the official ballot to be recounted”). For a system that uses paper ballots, including a PCOS, the ballots themselves
serve this purpose."

(All above emphases my own.)

Since those times, however, further studies, such as those from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the recommending agency to the federal EAC for states' machine "Voluntary Guidelines" and the University of Connecticut most recently, have proved that such "paper trails" offer voters only what scientific studies call only "fools' gold,"/completely false assurances. They too are driven by secret software that can manipulate what is printed, even when it is different from what is tabulated (even when the voters check them, and can see and read them.)

It is thus, hard to comprehend all the reasons why the Secretary of State's office has not de-certified these machines already, upon such already proven causes, instead of:
- spending another $1.8 million of taxpayer money for more "testing,"
- over this year, forcing immediate vendor-paid, compliance for at least of "reliability" (as opposed to currently happening, hundreds of thousands of dollars for county-paid vendor "maintenance" and "tech help")
- and instead of taking us all farther from the necessary accountability and transparency to voters and taxpayers that elections must provide, as suggested in your memo.

Which brings me to the point of this letter: that in your memo, you have completely missed the point of who the damaged parties are when the printers so often mal-perform; and the entire point of the essence of elections, and even these laws, requiring a Voter VeriFIED , paper trail.

It is THE VOTERS. It is not only potentially interested recount candidates and their observers, who need to be notified, to be able to see our own votes being recreated from some memory card or machine archive.

Elections are about the citizens' right to voice their opinions/select or throw out those "leaders" we want and not.

The main stakeholders of U.S. elections, in this supposed democracy, are thus, not the candidates (i.e. who wins and loses the political "competition," though voters are increasingly being made to think so, and to go away;) nor are they about the media getting fast results on election night.

Thus, at this juncture, and though your memo of 7/21/07 was thought out in detail, while it missed the main point, I respectfully request that you immediately amend it, to require that should a board of elections find one of these un-whole paper trails in a recount (the first opening of any sealed paper canisters after the election to be recounted,) that before they do any recreation of paper ballots, they must provide a minimum of a 24 hour, effectively-wide notice to all voters whose ballots may be being re-created, so that all voters interested in the re-creation of THEIR original ballots and their verifications, can observe that process.

I certainly understand the further burdens and time constraints this places on the local boards.

But since the tragic forcing of these hackable, poorly performing machines was introduced, citizens' elections - for which citizens have paid dearly at every step, and still pay (including your own salary;) and which determine our own futures - the very essence and concept of elections have been gradually chipped away at - completely non-sensically - to accommodate unreliable vendors and their unreliable machines!
It seems we've all been led to a place, sometimes by intent and sometimes by non-aware habit, of totally forgetting democracy's elections' original purpose, bosses, and stakeholders - the voters.

It's beyond time to remember.

If we can spend $1.8 million for more testing, when so may proven answers were already in front of us all, including the California study now yielding law suits against one vendor at least; if for instance, Cuyahoga can spend time and thus, more taxpayer money working with Diebold-Premier, to do their R&D which should have been done before they sold anything to anyone, (like to find the sources of their tabulators crashing; their insufficient computer memory; their misprepresented Election Media Processors; to engage in weekly conversations to get them to fix other problems, such as in their voter registration systems and reporting mechanisms, etc.) for Premier to hold in secret because of their proprietary claims, but to then probably write more reports about that, to most likely again shift responsibility to anyone but themselves - we must certainly give time (/money) back to voters who've paid for all this mess, so we can at least observe our very own ballots being recreated.

I also want to remind you, that the above-stated ESI report was also one of the first to report that in their audit, they found that Diebold's paper trails, memory cards, and hard-drive archives did not always match as they are purported to.

This fact additionally makes your processes for solution further invalid.

Unfortunately, until your office has these machines recalled, insists on financial liability from vendors for replacement election systems, and transparently includes citizens in the determination of how our votes are to be gathered and counted, I can offer no feasible suggestions for arighting that invalidity.

For now, let's just get first things first for the voters of this state.

I will appreciate your immediate attention to this matter. To build voter confidence in the election process, the cornerstone of a democracy, we must first remember whom the process is mandated to serve. It is the voters - not your office, not the BOE's, not the candidates, and not the media.

Thank you,
Adele Eisner

(Note 2: So that you are aware, I am also posting this message to interested election reform advocacy listserves, so that others can also monitor your response.)

Cuyahoga Recounts Being Scheduled (from 11/6 election)

As gleaned from some statewide election reform advocates' recent email lists, some citizens are curious about observing election recounts - especially those that contain long, cash-register-like, fragile, DRE paper trails - some of which get damaged in the machines before they even hit the recount (leaving some voters without an official ballot for recount, and thus, leaving some BOE's in a fix of how to reconcile those votes.)

In that stead, and as gleaned from the 11/21/07 CCBOE Election Certification meeting of the 11/6 election, want to let people know that Cuyahoga will be holding 4, and possibly 5 "automatic" recounts in the upcoming week.
An "automatic" recount is mandated if the margin of victory is one half of 1%, or less. This is different from a "requested" recount, where one candidate or issue committee requests the process, and must pay a maximum of $50 per precinct (per last year's HB3, up from $10) of all precincts to be recounted - quite pricey for a countywide election. Cuyahoga has 1436 precincts. Don't know of any "requesteds" yet.

Candidates (and designees of issue committees) are allowed to observe, and bring another witness.
Though I certainly do not speak for the CCBOE, others who want to observe might try calling ahead of time to find the actual times of these recounts, and to seek permission to do so.
In recent past, they have been more than accommodating, and welcoming. But there may be space and/or other concerns they're dealing with. At very least, they need to know whom to expect and to allow an admittance badge into normally restricted counting areas.

I observed the recount of the Strongsville school levy from last August 7. That Sunday, the CCBOE started at about 8am. I left shortly before 6 and they were still finalizing the recount. There were 48 precincts to begin with, and this was this director's first recount. They had written procedures, and were improving them as they carefully worked through the process.

The staff stayed with it...And as the end of the day - things striking us funny - began to hit, Lou Irazarry, head of IT began joking that we needed t-shirts to say - "I Survived the Strongsville Recount."
I was shocked and delighted that at the next board meeting, they presented me with one!


These recounts are long, multi-stepped, tedious processes - if done accurately and well, and with necessary attention to detail, all which Cuyahoga employ.
That's because of the recount-unfriendly tapes for hand counting; the fact that they must upload all memory cards from all machines containing the 3% random selection for hand counting, and also must change to scanning of the paper ballots from that 3%; and they must gather and compare their hand-count totals to the certified vote totals in the tabulator.

In Cuyahoga, they start with a lottery-like, air/vacuum machine with blowing-around ping-pong balls with all included precinct numbers for the particular race. The precinct-balls pop into place in random order. The first "popped" precincts comprising 3% of votes cast in the named race, is what gets hand counted.

They then have to pull all the tapes from machines that could contain those 3% precincts, as well as those precincts' paper ballots and memory cards. Then teams of D's and R's have to go through one tape at a time, to find the race being recounted (if the election had more than one race on the ballot) - and they highlight those...and hand count the votes. Attention is given also to noting and not counting voided ballots; decisions are made how to ascertain the votes on torn, scrunched or otherwise machine-maimed ballots; etc. etc. etc.
In the end, they have to enter the hand-counts into the GEMS tabulator - a clumsy multi-stepped process with GEMS - and compare to tabulator counts, and find and correct discrepancies or do a full hand count.

Obviously, the fewer the precincts, generally, (barring unknowns) the faster the recount.


The dates below are highly approximate right now. Call CCBOE for date/time/necessary permissions: 216-443-3200

Bedford Heights Charter Review Commission -12 precincts - Tuesday, 11/27

N. Royalton Council Ward 6 - 5 precincts -Tuesday, 11/27

Olmsted Falls Council at large- 8 precincts -Wed. 11/28

Solon Bd of Ed -26 precincts -Wed. 11/28

Maybe -Strongsville Board of Ed - 48 precincts (awaiting certified results from Lorain county - split-county school district )