Maine Miscounts and Strangeness
[From a message circulated Friday, Nov. 13 to election integrity lists]
After about 50 follow-up questions, the secretary of state's office finally conceded that someone
By Bev Harris
Maine has many of the best things in elections -- 200,000 votes are counted by hand, without the typical centralization of control that we're seeing nowadays; election administration is disbursed throughout 500 locations, and statewide hand counts are affordable.
Now for the bad news: I spoke with two different people in the Maine Secretary of State's office this morning. I was incredulous at some of the answers I received, which were both misleading and inappropriate. I wrote this quote down as she was saying it:
"We have not and do not give out results to anyone, we have 23 days to do this."
I spoke with Julie Flynn, deputy secretary of state, and Tracy Willett, who I had to push very hard to get a last name out of.
Both confirmed that the ONLY results avaible to date come from the Bangor Daily News, and that this newspaper does NOT get its results from the secretary of state, but rather, from a volunteer network that calls in on Election Night. In fact, this volunteer network is probably the AP or Voter News Service setup, going by various names but basically, the reporting network for the news media which consists of local poll workers or elections people getting paid by the press to call in their numbers.
I pointed out to the Sec. State's office that the 2nd and 11th biggest municipalities in Maine both appear to have miscounts . . . or something.
Augusta appears to have a 27% overvote in the marijuana issue and no, I do NOT believe this is just some random difference in how they vote. That's because the variation in that issue averages about 1 percent when looking at all 500 locations, and rarely varies much more than that except in Lewiston, another apparently miscounted location. In Lewiston, it appears that there is an 8.5% undervote in the marijuana issue.
Now, I realize that the most high profile issue is the gay marriage issue, but the Augusta and Lewiston anomalies may reflect on the overall vote counting. Both use ES&S Optech machines. The miscounts may be due to ballot stuffing, or to a typo by the Bangor Daily News, or to a voting machine miscount, or to voting machine tampering. The miscounts of the marijuana issue may affect only that issue, or may be symptomatic of a problem affecting other issues like Question 1 (repealing gay marriage) or even all the issues.
I have made a formal request for the Augusta and Lewiston results to the Maine Secretary of State's office.
In the meantime, after looking more closely at the Maine situation, I see holes big enough to drive a truck through. When you have preliminary results being withheld by the secretary of state for 23 days, someone can diddle away to their heart's content.
Can the delay in producing results be used to authorize an extension in the recount deadline (which has passed) or for some other challenge? No. After about 50 follow-up questions, the secretary of state's office finally conceded that someone could go in to their office and ask to see their results sheets, beginning 3 days after the election, or someone could traipse around to physically visit all 500 municipalities. And, they said, most candidates DO come in to the office.
When I asked if ANYONE came in to ask to look at results for this election, both persons I spoke with said "No."
Lots of Maine voter education is needed to educate Maine citizens about their rights, and their duties as citizens.
-------------------------------------------------
[The office of the secretary of state sent me their total numbers; not a single one matched the newspaper's numbers.]
My response:
For Augusta, the Bangor Daily News had these totals
Q1 7079
Q2 7000
Q3 6864
Q4 6996
Q5 9020
Q6 6952
Q7 6870
As you can see, there is a large discrepancy in Q5. Your numbers are:
Q1 - 7,164
Q2 - 7,081
Q3 - 6,944
Q4 - 7,080
Q5 - 7,102
Q6 - 7,031
Q7 - 6,949
As you can see, the Bangor Daily News is off by nearly 2,000 votes for Q5.
In Lewiston, the Bangor Daily News has:
Q1 12421
Q2 12144
Q3 11694
Q4 12058
Q5 11366
Q6 11047
Q7 10876
This compares with your numbers of:
Q1 - 12,613
Q2 - 12,325
Q3 - 11,868
Q4 - 12,243
Q5 - 12,384
Q6 - 12,097
Q7 - 11,906
As you can see, the Bangor Daily News's numbers for Q5 are off by over 1,000 votes.
This emphasizes the need for the Secretary of State's office to release its preliminary numbers. It is not at all unusual for newspapers to make significant errors. In one recent election, a Boston paper had candidate totals columns reversed.
It is particularly unconscionable that the office of the Secretary of State would expect the citizenry of the state of Maine to depend on unofficial numbers from some other entity [for a recount]; in view of the evidence of significant errors in the reporting from the Bangor Daily News, I expect to see the state of Maine step up to the plate to continue its tradition of good open government to publish publicly and promptly the preliminary results received by the Secretary of State, instead of expecting the public to learn results from a privately held non-governmental source.
Thank you,
Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
After about 50 follow-up questions, the secretary of state's office finally conceded that someone
could go in to their office and ask to see their results sheets, beginning 3 days after the election. . .
When I asked if ANYONE came in to ask to look at results for this election,
both persons I spoke with said "No."
By Bev Harris
Maine has many of the best things in elections -- 200,000 votes are counted by hand, without the typical centralization of control that we're seeing nowadays; election administration is disbursed throughout 500 locations, and statewide hand counts are affordable.
Now for the bad news: I spoke with two different people in the Maine Secretary of State's office this morning. I was incredulous at some of the answers I received, which were both misleading and inappropriate. I wrote this quote down as she was saying it:
"We have not and do not give out results to anyone, we have 23 days to do this."
I spoke with Julie Flynn, deputy secretary of state, and Tracy Willett, who I had to push very hard to get a last name out of.
Both confirmed that the ONLY results avaible to date come from the Bangor Daily News, and that this newspaper does NOT get its results from the secretary of state, but rather, from a volunteer network that calls in on Election Night. In fact, this volunteer network is probably the AP or Voter News Service setup, going by various names but basically, the reporting network for the news media which consists of local poll workers or elections people getting paid by the press to call in their numbers.
I pointed out to the Sec. State's office that the 2nd and 11th biggest municipalities in Maine both appear to have miscounts . . . or something.
Augusta appears to have a 27% overvote in the marijuana issue and no, I do NOT believe this is just some random difference in how they vote. That's because the variation in that issue averages about 1 percent when looking at all 500 locations, and rarely varies much more than that except in Lewiston, another apparently miscounted location. In Lewiston, it appears that there is an 8.5% undervote in the marijuana issue.
Now, I realize that the most high profile issue is the gay marriage issue, but the Augusta and Lewiston anomalies may reflect on the overall vote counting. Both use ES&S Optech machines. The miscounts may be due to ballot stuffing, or to a typo by the Bangor Daily News, or to a voting machine miscount, or to voting machine tampering. The miscounts of the marijuana issue may affect only that issue, or may be symptomatic of a problem affecting other issues like Question 1 (repealing gay marriage) or even all the issues.
I have made a formal request for the Augusta and Lewiston results to the Maine Secretary of State's office.
In the meantime, after looking more closely at the Maine situation, I see holes big enough to drive a truck through. When you have preliminary results being withheld by the secretary of state for 23 days, someone can diddle away to their heart's content.
Can the delay in producing results be used to authorize an extension in the recount deadline (which has passed) or for some other challenge? No. After about 50 follow-up questions, the secretary of state's office finally conceded that someone could go in to their office and ask to see their results sheets, beginning 3 days after the election, or someone could traipse around to physically visit all 500 municipalities. And, they said, most candidates DO come in to the office.
When I asked if ANYONE came in to ask to look at results for this election, both persons I spoke with said "No."
Lots of Maine voter education is needed to educate Maine citizens about their rights, and their duties as citizens.
-------------------------------------------------
The Maine Numbers
[The office of the secretary of state sent me their total numbers; not a single one matched the newspaper's numbers.]
My response:
For Augusta, the Bangor Daily News had these totals
Q1 7079
Q2 7000
Q3 6864
Q4 6996
Q5 9020
Q6 6952
Q7 6870
As you can see, there is a large discrepancy in Q5. Your numbers are:
Q1 - 7,164
Q2 - 7,081
Q3 - 6,944
Q4 - 7,080
Q5 - 7,102
Q6 - 7,031
Q7 - 6,949
As you can see, the Bangor Daily News is off by nearly 2,000 votes for Q5.
In Lewiston, the Bangor Daily News has:
Q1 12421
Q2 12144
Q3 11694
Q4 12058
Q5 11366
Q6 11047
Q7 10876
This compares with your numbers of:
Q1 - 12,613
Q2 - 12,325
Q3 - 11,868
Q4 - 12,243
Q5 - 12,384
Q6 - 12,097
Q7 - 11,906
As you can see, the Bangor Daily News's numbers for Q5 are off by over 1,000 votes.
This emphasizes the need for the Secretary of State's office to release its preliminary numbers. It is not at all unusual for newspapers to make significant errors. In one recent election, a Boston paper had candidate totals columns reversed.
It is particularly unconscionable that the office of the Secretary of State would expect the citizenry of the state of Maine to depend on unofficial numbers from some other entity [for a recount]; in view of the evidence of significant errors in the reporting from the Bangor Daily News, I expect to see the state of Maine step up to the plate to continue its tradition of good open government to publish publicly and promptly the preliminary results received by the Secretary of State, instead of expecting the public to learn results from a privately held non-governmental source.
Thank you,
Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
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