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Possible Recount in Questionable NY-23 Contest
Source: Washingtontimes.com
EXCLUSIVE:
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman said on Friday he is considering filing a recount claim in light of computer irregularities that have been reported. He has until Monday to make that decision.
Mr. Hoffman conceded the New York's 23rd Congressional District race to winner Democrat Bill Owens on Election Night, but has had second thoughts.
Three voting computers were shown to have had a virus and had to be reprogrammed, Mr. Hoffman told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show.
"If I had this information on Election Night, I would not have conceded," he said
Mr. Owens, a Plattburgh lawyer, won over Mr. Hoffman, a CPA, in a race that captured national headlines after Republican candidate and one-time frontrunner Dede Scozzafava bowed out of the race and threw her support behind Mr. Owens.
"What your listeners need to know is that on Election Night, we're shown to be down by 6,000 votes and through recanvassing, they discovered computers that were giving the wrong information and polling sites that reported the wrong information -- and that lead dropped down to less than 3,000 votes by this week," Mr. Hoffman said, referring to Election Board officials who are investigating.
"And now they are counting the absentee ballots that were scheduled to come in no later than Monday of this week."
Mr. Hoffman said he doesn't think the three voting machines were tampered. He does, however, ask: "Why didn't they look at all of the machines when they knew the three had a particular computer problem."
The WatertownDailyTimes.com reported Friday that with just 3,072 votes left uncounted, Mr. Owens' win is mathematically insurmountable.
"It's a long shot, but we're waiting for every vote to be counted," Mr. Hoffman told The Washington Times.
"We have people that are looking into this and we have until Monday to make that determination and file a recount claim," he said. "At this point, we're still anxiously waiting to find out what the final count comes down to be and, at that point, what the gap is."
Hoffman Considering Recount Claim
By Maria StainerEXCLUSIVE:
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman said on Friday he is considering filing a recount claim in light of computer irregularities that have been reported. He has until Monday to make that decision.
Mr. Hoffman conceded the New York's 23rd Congressional District race to winner Democrat Bill Owens on Election Night, but has had second thoughts.
Three voting computers were shown to have had a virus and had to be reprogrammed, Mr. Hoffman told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show.
"If I had this information on Election Night, I would not have conceded," he said
Mr. Owens, a Plattburgh lawyer, won over Mr. Hoffman, a CPA, in a race that captured national headlines after Republican candidate and one-time frontrunner Dede Scozzafava bowed out of the race and threw her support behind Mr. Owens.
"What your listeners need to know is that on Election Night, we're shown to be down by 6,000 votes and through recanvassing, they discovered computers that were giving the wrong information and polling sites that reported the wrong information -- and that lead dropped down to less than 3,000 votes by this week," Mr. Hoffman said, referring to Election Board officials who are investigating.
"And now they are counting the absentee ballots that were scheduled to come in no later than Monday of this week."
Mr. Hoffman said he doesn't think the three voting machines were tampered. He does, however, ask: "Why didn't they look at all of the machines when they knew the three had a particular computer problem."
The WatertownDailyTimes.com reported Friday that with just 3,072 votes left uncounted, Mr. Owens' win is mathematically insurmountable.
"It's a long shot, but we're waiting for every vote to be counted," Mr. Hoffman told The Washington Times.
"We have people that are looking into this and we have until Monday to make that determination and file a recount claim," he said. "At this point, we're still anxiously waiting to find out what the final count comes down to be and, at that point, what the gap is."
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Virus in the Voting Machines: Tainted Results in NY-23
Source: Gouverneurtimes.com
Northern NY News
Written by Nathan Barker
Thursday, 19 November 2009 12:44
GOUVERNEUR, NY - The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus - tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.
Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the "virus" was fixed by a Technical Support representative from Dominion, the manufacturer. The Dominion/Sequoia Voting Systems representative "reprogrammed" their machines in time for them to use in the Nov. 3rd Special Election. None of the machines (from the same manufacturer) used in the other counties within the 23rd district were looked at nor were they recertified after the "reprogramming" that occurred in Hamilton County.
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Virus in the Voting Machines: Tainted Results in NY-23
Northern NY NewsWritten by Nathan Barker
Thursday, 19 November 2009 12:44
GOUVERNEUR, NY - The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus - tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.
Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the "virus" was fixed by a Technical Support representative from Dominion, the manufacturer. The Dominion/Sequoia Voting Systems representative "reprogrammed" their machines in time for them to use in the Nov. 3rd Special Election. None of the machines (from the same manufacturer) used in the other counties within the 23rd district were looked at nor were they recertified after the "reprogramming" that occurred in Hamilton County.
ImageCast Scanner
Republican Commissioner Judith Peck refused to speculate on whether the code that governs the counts could have been tampered with. She indicated that "as far as I know, the machine in question was not functioning properly and was repaired" by the technician.
Commissioners in other counties have stated that they were not made aware of the virus issue in Hamilton County. In Jefferson County, inspectors from four districts claim that "human error" resulted in their "mistakenly" entering 0 votes for Hoffman in several districts, resulting in Owens leading Jefferson County on election night though the recanvas of the computer counts now show that Hoffman is leading. Jefferson County has not conducted a manual paper ballot recount.
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'Whether the erroneous results are computer error, or tampering,
significant doubt now exists with regard to the accuracy of the vote counts from November 3rd . . . A manual paper-ballot recount of the vote could resolve computer vote accuracy questions.'
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In St. Lawrence County, machines in Louisville, Waddington, Claire, and Rossie "broke" early in the voting process on election day. Republican Commissioner Deborah Pahler said that the machines kept "freezing up... like Windows does all the time," and that they experienced several paper jams as well. The voted ballots that could not be scanned were placed in an Emergency Lock Box and re-scanned later at the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections. Election officials in St. Lawrence County were given no advance knowledge of a potential virus in the system.
At least one County official thus far has raised concern that it's possible that ALL of the machines used in the NY-23 election had the 'virus' but only a few malfunctioned as a result. The counts from any district that used the ImageCast machines are suspect due to "the virus" discovered in Hamilton County, last-minute "reprogramming" by Dominion workers, and security flaws in the systems themselves. A manual paper-ballot recount of the vote could resolve computer vote accuracy questions.
Frank Hoar, an attorney for the Democratic Party, initially ordered the impound of malfunctioning machines but released the order on Nov. 5th so that Bill Owens could be sworn in to Congress in time to vote on the House Health bill on November 7th. Pahler said that once the impound order was released they opened the locked ballot box and had the ballots scanned. Pahler also stated that after they were able to get data from the malfunctioning machines, they did a hand-count of the ballots as well to ensure that the counts matched. Even though not required to, both commissioners in St. Lawrence County agreed that the manual count was necessary due to the malfunctions
The machines themselves are languishing at the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections until after the election results have been certified to the state on November 28th, 2009. Pahler indicated that they have not yet been able to examine the machines to determine why they malfunctioned. A qualified technician would be able to verify the presence of a virus in the computers, but, other than the infected machines, no security precautions were taken to ensure chain of custody on the remaining computerized voting machines utilized in the 23rd district.
At least one County official thus far has raised concern that it's possible that ALL of the machines used in the NY-23 election had the 'virus' but only a few malfunctioned as a result. The counts from any district that used the ImageCast machines are suspect due to "the virus" discovered in Hamilton County, last-minute "reprogramming" by Dominion workers, and security flaws in the systems themselves. A manual paper-ballot recount of the vote could resolve computer vote accuracy questions.
Frank Hoar, an attorney for the Democratic Party, initially ordered the impound of malfunctioning machines but released the order on Nov. 5th so that Bill Owens could be sworn in to Congress in time to vote on the House Health bill on November 7th. Pahler said that once the impound order was released they opened the locked ballot box and had the ballots scanned. Pahler also stated that after they were able to get data from the malfunctioning machines, they did a hand-count of the ballots as well to ensure that the counts matched. Even though not required to, both commissioners in St. Lawrence County agreed that the manual count was necessary due to the malfunctions
The machines themselves are languishing at the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections until after the election results have been certified to the state on November 28th, 2009. Pahler indicated that they have not yet been able to examine the machines to determine why they malfunctioned. A qualified technician would be able to verify the presence of a virus in the computers, but, other than the infected machines, no security precautions were taken to ensure chain of custody on the remaining computerized voting machines utilized in the 23rd district.
Impossible Numbers in NY-23
Source: Gouverneurtimes.com
This article was based upon unofficial results provided to the author by the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections in a .pdf file on the same day that the election results were certified. These were not the certified results, and the author deeply regrets having said that they were.
Five days after the publication of this article, the Board of Elections provided an .xls spreadsheet of the certified results, district by district, in which only the numbers for ballots cast and blank ballots had been changed; and a .pdf file, dated Monday, November 30th, with numbers for blank ballots inserted, district by district. The changes in the numbers for ballots cast are duly noted in this revised article.
The Board of Elections has stated that only the numbers for “blank ballots” were computer generated in the original .pdf file, and that the “whole number” of ballots cast for each election district was entered manually. The data entry program then automatically subtracted the vote counts for each of the candidates and the remainder would appear in the final column as “blank ballots.” In these six election districts (and perhaps others), data entry errors were made in the first column, for “whole number” of ballots cast, which resulted in the erroneous numbers in the final column, for “blank ballots."
Impossible Numbers in NY-23
Northern NY Newsby Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
CANTON, NY – The election results certified by the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections for New York’s 23rd Congressional District did not contain the mathematically impossible numbers reported here last week. Those were not the certified results, and the author deeply regrets having said that they were.
For six election districts in St. Lawrence County (the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th districts in Canton, the 14th district in Massena, and the 2nd district in Oswegatchie) negative numbers had appeared in the unofficial results, in the column for “blank” ballots, known in other states as “undervotes.”
Blank vote counts are ballots in which the voter did not choose any candidate in a given election and are determined by subtracting the total number of votes cast for the candidates from the number of voters who completed ballots. The remaining number would be those voters who didn’t cast a vote for that election.
In Canton’s 7th district, the unofficial results showed a total of 148 ballots cast. The results of those votes were counted as 88 votes for Owens, 11 votes for Scozzafava, and 80 votes for Hoffman. The problem was that these numbers add up to 179 votes counted for the candidates, and the unofficial results reported only 148 ballots cast; so the number of ‘blank’ ballots appeared as -31.
Election analysts refer to this phenomenon as “phantom voters,” because they are apparitions. They do not actually exist. There can never be more votes counted for any office than the number of actual voters who cast ballots. There could be one or two, if on occasion an actual voter forgot to sign the poll book, but never 31.
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“Phantom votes” can be introduced into the system.
The computer can be programmed to add votes to one candidate’s total,
and the unsuspecting Board of Elections
will dutifully subtract all the candidates’ vote counts from the total ballots cast,
report the remainder as “blank votes,” all the numbers will add up perfectly,
and no one will be the wiser –
except, of course, if negative numbers turn up in the column for “blank votes.”
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In addition to the 31 “phantom votes” in Canton's 7th district, there were 16 more in Canton’s 2nd district, two in Canton's 4th district, 20 in the 7th, 22 in Massena 14th district, and 2 in Oswegatchie 2nd district.A “phantom vote,” which is a vote counted with no ballot cast, is the opposite of a “blank vote” or “undervote,” which is a ballot cast with no vote counted. They cancel each other out. Thus, if “phantom votes” are allowed into a vote counting system, they can be masked if there are fewer of them than the number of “blank votes” or “undervotes.”
