Vendor Error Blamed For Missing Ballots

[clear eye]

Source: ABC 7 News - TheDenverChannel.com

DENVER -- Thousands of ballots that went missing were never prepared because of a technical problem, the Denver Clerk and Recorder said Saturday.

More than 11,000 ballots went missing when the vendor in charge of printing the ballots, Sequoia Voting Systems, reported delivering 21,450 ballots to a Denver mail processing facility on Oct. 16, but the U.S. Postal Service said they only received 10,364 ballots that day.

Stephanie O'Malley, Denver's clerk and recorder, led an investigation by the Denver Elections Division that discovered Sequoia Voting Systems didn't prepare the mail-in ballots because of a technical problem with a data file.


"Denver processed mail ballot applications in a timely manner and did not incur any problems transmitting its data file to Sequoia," the statement said. "Sequoia did not report any problems with the file to the Elections Division nor did they inform the Elections Division that they delivered only approximately half the requested ballots."

Read more: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/17802418/detail.html

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Sequoia admitted their culpability and is mailing them out Monday (Oct 27th), but voters have to get them postmarked by Oct 31st, or they can be dropped off at an early voting location or brought on Election Day to a polling place.

This timeframe obviously leaves no possibility for a voter who still does not receive a mail in ballot by the expected date of Wednesday or Thursday (Oct. 29th or 30th) to find out if they are on the rolls, correct an omission, and have a ballot made up in time to vote. Voting in person for someone who is on the Election Division's list of voters requesting a mail-in ballot, without handing in a ballot is not likely to be permitted.

[zeemike]

1. The dirty tricks continue....n/t

[dorkulon]

2. When are people going to WAKE UP to these charlatans?

The press needs to cover this shit, not some bullshit ACORN registrations.

[sickinohio]

3. Yes they do need to cover this

This is outrageous. Reading this on here is the first that I heard about this. Not one word heard from the M$M!! I am so afraid that another election could be stolen!!

[seafan]

4. If the record indicates that a person requesting absentee ballot has not yet voted,

why wouldn't the person be allowed to go vote in person on election day? That a person who requested absentee but didn't receive the ballot and therefore has not yet voted, to be refused a chance to vote in person after a check of the official data verifies that the person HAS NOT voted, seems counterintuitive.


It should not matter that the person wouldn't have a blank absentee ballot in hand to turn in, to be allowed to vote in person. After that person votes, his/her name would be then checked off as having voted. Why punish a voter who wants to vote, for not receiving an expected absentee ballot, for whatever reason?



If the absentee ballot arrives in the person's mail after the election (or if it NEVER arrives), it's irrelevant anyway. Why punish the voter by stripping away his right to vote in person?


This has to stop.

[underpants]

5. What if they are voting absentee because they can't vote ON the 4th

For instance my mother is going on a shopping trip with some friends out of town that day. They plan on voting (not for us) but what if they don't have time?

I already voted because I am volunteering for the campaign that day...hold it but wait what if I HAD to stop what I was planning on doing to go vote... hmmm wonder if...nah probably just a coincidence :sarcasm:


The point of this is that they were contracted to do this and failed. I doubt that this was just a happenstance-either that they got the contract or that they dropped the ball

[seafan]

13. Using the same logic, if your mom had not received her ballot, and she

KNEW she was going to be out of town on election day, she ought to be able to go to an early voting site in the last few days early voting was offered, thereby making a good faith effort to wait for the absentee ballot that never came.


Hope your mom can cast her vote.

[intheflow]

16. No can do.

I'm going to be a poll worker on election day, cannot leave my polling location from 6am to at least 7pm. I have not received my mail-inn ballot. If I go to an early voting location, they will hand me a provisional ballot, and the provisionals won't be counted unless the vote comes in so close it could be within the margin of error. Though I'm calling the election division tomorrow to see if I can go down there and sign an affidavit or something swearing I'm not voting twice and get them to let me vote in early voting.

The part of my story that really pisses me off is that I planned on going to an early voting site, but was strongly encouraged to vote by mail-in ballot during my poll worker training. :grr:

[seafan]

22. That really blows. What did you find out from the election division?

Hope you don't have to go provisional.

I can't see why a tardy absentee ballot should be allowed to trump being able to vote early or on election day. Shoving a provisional ballot at people in this situation is unconscionable.

[clear eye]

15. I think the mail-in ballots are different from "absentee" ballots

but I'm not sure. Colorado has early voting that's already started so someone like your mother wouldn't have had to order a mail-in ballot to vote on a different day. The big loss is that the mail-in ballots are produced by hand and can be recounted by hand if there is a question. That's why so many people (180,000) in Denver ordered them.

The video, "How to Hack a Sequoia Touch-Screen Voting Machine" is edifying as to how easy it is to successfully tamper w/ the machines simply by substituting a key programmed w/malware for the normal one onto the table next to the machine when it's being tested or being set up.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0809/S00147.htm (Scroll down to view the video--in 2 parts.)

We've also heard Stephen Spoonamore (top cyber security expert) talking about past instances when the machine counts were diverted to an out-of-system, even out-of-state, computer before being sent to the official tabulating computer. He said there is no credible reason for this other than tampering. http://www.alternet.org/story/99337/?page=entire

Banning the electronic voting and tabulating machines needs to be a first order of business for the next Congress. Only hand-counted paper and mechanical lever machines should be permitted. Some Dems in Congress will inevitably want to allow electronic machines because manufacturers of those machines will say banning would cost jobs. The grassroots will need to create irresistible pressure. Supporting lawsuits that force Mike Connell to testify, and reveal criminal behavior involving those manufacturers, will also help.

[wildflowergardener]

9. ballot

Well wouldn't the absentee ballots be anonymous, so unfortunately they wouldn't know who had, and had not voted if that was the case?

Meg

[seafan]

12. On FL absentee ballots in Nov 04, the voter had to sign the "voter's certificate" on the outside of

the return envelope for the ballot, that affirmed he/she was a registered voter of that county, and was not trying to vote more than one ballot. I still have a copy of all the info from my absentee ballot from Nov '04, and just now reviewed it to answer your question.

There is a voter signature required on the absentee ballot return envelope in Florida. So, yes, a database would indicate that an absentee ballot from a particular person has been received by the elections office. Once the voter signature is verified from the outside ballot envelope, the inner ballot remains anonymous.

[cosmicone]

6. They should have been forced to send them FedEx n/t

[antimatter98]

7. This how corporatizing our vote works. n/t

[HuskiesHowls]

8. Sounds like a little fraud, too

If my company claimed they delivered 21,450 of anything, billed for same, and then it turns out we only sent 10,364 someone would be losing a job. Then we'd probably wind up talking with the police about this, too.

[bemildred]

10. That's a new one. "Vendor error." Almost sounds like an illness. nt

[elocs]

11. Its time for a major congressional investigation.

Voting and everything related to it, ballots and registration, should be treated with the highest security and respect instead of like junk mail and there should be dire consequences such as huge fines and prison time for violating the public's trust when it comes to one of the sacred pillars of democracy. Both Sequoia and Dieboldt should be sacked and then their officers should be put on trial for fraud and neglect in disenfranchising the American people.

[GardeningGal]

14. Just sent an e-mail to my state senator on this issue.

Here's the e-mail:

I read with anger that 11,000 ballots were unaccounted for and not mailed by Sequoia Voting Systems. According to this article, Denver election officials say “no one will be disenfranchised by this error”. Really, where’s their proof? Sorry, but there are going to be voters impacted by this and I’d like to know the party affiliation of those ballots that Sequoia did not send out. Was it really an error, or was it an attempt to influence the election by affecting our citizen’s right to vote?

I believe the legislature needs to make it a top priority to investigate this and Sequoia needs to be held accountable, as well as the Secretary of State’s office if appropriate. I work for a software company and there should be systems in place to validate file transmissions. Sequoia has been at the very least, lazy and unprofessional with such an important task and at the worst, willfully negligent in an effort to disenfranchise voters in Colorado. Either way, in this modern age it is completely unacceptable service from a vendor. And if the only way to get their attention is a fine, then make sure it’s a large enough fine to ensure they never do it again.

[Kip Humphrey]

17. COLORADO: Welcome to the gulag of corporate-run elections - from Houston, Texas..

[Zorra]

18. Let me guess...somehow, the missing ballots were all for registered Democrats.

Isn't that usually how these things work?

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. Charges of conspiracy to commit treason or pervert the course of justice?

the strongest circumstantiale evidence, including on the basis of the 2004 and 2000.

[annabanana]

20. Remember when "tampering with the U.S, Mail" was a serious offense?

Why is this not 1000 times more egregious?

[Doctor_J]

21. New DoJ needs to send these people to prison

real prison. This sort of behavior can be deterred.

[lonestarnot]

23. Bastards!