Given the numerous reports of electronic vote switching reported in early voting for the 2008 Presidential election, it would behoove the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign to take a thorough look (if they haven’t already done so) at analyses of electronic vote switching reported during the 2004 Presidential election.
Why the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign? Because analyses of reported vote switching from 2004 showed a very large preponderance of votes switching from John Kerry to George W. Bush, compared to votes switching in the opposite direction. That probably did not account for the margin of victory in 2004 (in which
illegal purging of registered voters in Ohio was probably a much bigger factor). But electronic voting makes up a much larger percentage of the total vote in 2008 than it did in 2004, and therefore the potential for election theft by that means is probably much greater.
It is the
pattern of electronic vote switching demonstrated in the analyses of the 2004 election which should cause Democrats to take this very seriously. The strong preponderance of vote switching from Kerry to Bush, as well as the much greater frequency of that phenomenon in the swing states, strongly suggests that this was no accident, but rather that it was planned well ahead of time.
I posted this information on DU in bits and pieces following the 2004 election, and I posted a summary of my analyses at the
Election Defense Alliance (whose site contains a lot of information on how to protect our vote), for which I do volunteer work.
MethodsThe source of all data for this analysis is reports to the Election Incidence Reporting System
(EIRS), developed by the National Election Data Archive Project. All reports to this System involve the U.S. national election of November, 2004. The EIRS database includes 28,734 reported incidents, including 2,115 “machine problem” incidents. The material for this analysis was obtained by searching these “machine problem” incidents only in counties that used electronic voting machines, according to a database provided by
Voters Unite! A report was categorized as a presidential vote switching incident if and only if it met both of the following criteria: 1) The report specifically referred to the presidential vote (unless referring only to third party candidates) OR to one or both of the two major parties (unless referring specifically and only to non-presidential candidates), thus implying reference to the presidential vote; and 2) The report noted that the voting machine made it easier or more difficult to vote for one of the two major candidates OR difficult to vote for president in general. Typically these reports involved a voter attempting to register a vote for one candidate, and then the machine noting that another candidate had been selected. These “vote switches” involved switches from one to the other major party candidate, from a major party to a 3rd party candidate, or vice versa. Other problems involved such incidents as attempting to vote for a candidate and the vote not registering at all.
There were two exemptions from the above noted criteria: 1) Reports where the only problem noted was that one of the candidates was “pre-selected”. These were not included in this analysis because these cases likely involved a situation where the previous voter failed to register his/her vote, and the situation could be easily remedied by clearing the screen; and 2) Reports where I found it impossible to decipher what the complaint was referring to.
Having determined that a report met the criteria for “vote switching”, the next step was to categorize the report into one of three categories, according to which candidate the incident apparently potentially benefited: Kerry, Bush, or neither. The incident was categorized as potentially benefiting Bush if it indicated either that: 1) The voter attempted to vote for Kerry (or Democratic Party), but the machine registered Bush (or Republican Party) or another candidate; 2) The voter attempted to vote for a third party candidate, but the machine registered Bush; or 3) The voter’s attempts to vote for Kerry (or Democratic Party) were made difficult by any other machine related activity. By interposing the words “Bush” and “Kerry” in the above noted criteria, we obtain the criteria for categorizing an incident as apparently potentially benefiting Kerry. And if the report failed to meet either of the above two criteria, then it was categorized as potentially benefiting neither candidate.
ResultsOverall categorization of reportsAppendix A is a verbatim listing of all of the reports included or considered for inclusion in this analysis. Those highlighted in blue are those that were determined to apparently potentially favor Bush. Those highlighted in red are those that were determined to apparently potentially favor Kerry. Those highlighted in green are those that were determined to potentially favor neither Bush nor Kerry. And those highlighted in yellow were those that were excluded from this analysis on the basis of the exclusion criteria noted above. The following denotes how many reports were categorized in each category:
Apparently potentially favored Bush: 87
Apparently potentially favored Kerry: 7
Potentially favored neither: 52
Excluded from analysis: 8
The 87 reported incidents that favored Bush, compared to the 7 that favored Kerry represent
greater than a 12 to 1 ratio in favor of Bush for the U. S. as a whole. Comparison of swing states versus non-swing statesThe comparison of swing states assessed only the 87 cases of vote switches that favored Bush, since the number that favored Kerry was too small to analyze. The number of vote switches in both swing states and non-swing states was divided by the number of official votes from those states that were reported from counties that used electronic voting machines (rounded off to the nearest 1,000 for each county.) Swing states were considered to be CO, FL, IA, MN, MI, NH, NM, NV, OH, PA, and WI.
Overall, of the 87 vote switches that favored Bush, 67 were reported from swing states, and 20 were reported from non-swing states. Counties from swing states that used electronic voting machines accounted for 10.1 million votes, and counties from non-swing states that used electronic voting accounted for 27.7 million votes. The rate of reports per million voters in swing states was therefore 6.6 per million, and the rate in non-swing states was 0.72 per million voters. Therefore,
the rate of reports of electronic vote switching that favored Bush was more than 9 times greater in swing states than in non-swing states. Some specifics on breakdown by state and countyThe distribution of incidents by state and county was very uneven. Of the 67 vote switches reported from swing states, all were reported from four states:
FL: 47 incidents, rate = 11.5 per million
OH: 8 incidents, rate = 9.1 per million
NM: 8 incidents, rate = 11.7 per million
PA: 4 incidents, rate = 2.6 per million
Three swing states, WI, NH, and MN, had no reports because they did not use electronic voting machines. And the other four, IA, NV, MI, and CO, simply had no reports even though some counties in those states did use electronic voting machines.
Of the 24 non-swing states that used electronic voting machines in some counties, only Washington exhibited a rate of reports that equaled any of the swing states noted above. Washington County had 3 reports, all from Snohomish County, for a rate of 8.2 per million for the state.
Distribution of incidents also varied greatly by county. Five swing state counties accounted for 58 of the 67 swing state reports (87%) and much higher rates than any of the other counties:
Broward, FL ...... 23 incidents, rate = 32.5 per million
Miami-Dade, FL .. 8 incidents, rate = 10.3 per million
Palm Beach, FL .. 11 incidents, rate = 20.1 per million
Bernalillo, NM .... 8 incidents, rate = 31.4 per million
Mahoning, OH .... 8 incidents, rate = 60.2 per million
Categorization of reports by voting machine type and vendorFour voting machine vendors accounted for all but three of the 87 reported incidents that were favorable to Bush. These included Diebold (7 incidents, 8%), Danaher (14 incidents, 16%), Sequoia (19 incidents, 22%), and ESS (44 incidents, 51%). Although these percents were very different than the distribution of voting machine vendors throughout the United States, all four of these vendors were characterized by a significant excess of incidents favorable to Bush, compared with incidents favorable to Kerry.
The rate of reported incidents was much greater with touch screen machines than with other electronic voting machines. There were 74 reports out of 20,136 voters for touch screen machines, a rate of 3.7 per million. Other electronic voting machines were associated with 13 reports out of 17,681 voters, for a rate of 0.74 per million voters.
Candidates involved in the electronic Presidential vote switchingOf the 87 reports that favored Bush, here is a more specific description of how they favored him:
50 reports were switches from Kerry to Bush.
15 reports were switches from Kerry to another or unspecified candidate.
6 reports were of voters who attempted to vote for Kerry, and no vote was recorded.
9 reports were switches from Democrat to Republican, with no indication of the specific candidates involved.
4 reports noted switches to Bush, with no indication of whom they tried to vote for.
2 reports were of handicapped voters who tried to use an audio aid to vote, but Bush was the only choice that they were given.
1 report indicated that the machine wouldn’t allow the voter to vote Democrat.
Other candidatesOf the 87 reports that favored Bush, only 7 of these indicated difficulties in voting in races other than the Presidential one. However, as noted above, there were 52 reports of electronic vote switching which could not be said definitely to favor Kerry or Bush, and many of these involved other races. For example, there were several reports in Florida of vote switching from Castor to Martinez (none the other way around), but those reports are not the subject of this thread.
Number of attempts per voterMost of the reports did not mention the number of attempts that were made before the voter was able to vote for the candidate of his/her choice. Of those that did:
A single unsuccessful attempt was made by 7 voters.
Two unsuccessful attempts were made by 5 voters.
Three unsuccessful attempts were made by 4 voters
Four unsuccessful attempts were made by 1 voter
There were 18 voters who made 7 or more unsuccessful attempts or who characterized the number of attempts that they made with words such as “many” or “several”. Two of these noted that “persistence pays off”.
In addition, 3 voters ended up voting for Bush because they lost patience trying to change their vote.
Number of voters mentioned in the reportMost reports were confined to a single voter. However, there were 9 reports that mentioned one or two additional voters having a similar problem, and 24 reports noted in various ways that there were numerous additional occurrences of similar incidents in the same polling place, using phrases such as “multiple occurrences”, “several reports”, “common occurrence” or “happening all day”.
Type of vote switchMost of the reports did not specify precisely how the vote switch took place, although one gets the impression from reading many of these reports that the vote switch often took place immediately after the voter registered his/her vote, and that it was immediately apparent.
On the other hand, 15 reports specifically noted that they were not aware of the switch until the end, when they checked the “review” or “summary” screen, or when they tried to “confirm” their vote. One of these voters noted that the switch on the summary screen took place right before her eyes as she was registering her vote, which meant that she accidentally voted for Bush. Several voters noted that the vote switch was difficult to identify, and only their watchfulness prior to registering their vote prevented them from voting for Bush.
DiscussionHow to explain the great preponderance of incidents that favored BushThe most striking finding of this analysis was that there were far more reports of electronic voting machine switches favorable to Bush, compared to incidents favorable to Kerry, with a ratio of greater than 12 to 1. This poses the question: What is the meaning of this finding?
As with any study which demonstrates an uneven distribution of a variable, there are three possible alternatives: chance, bias, or causal connection. Let’s examine each of these possibilities:
ChanceThe likelihood of such an uneven distribution of Bush vs. Kerry favorable incidents is similar to the likelihood of flipping a coin 94 times and coming up with 87 or more heads or tails. The odds against that exceed ten million to one.
BiasBias would explain the uneven distribution if in reality the Bush and Kerry favorable incidents occurred with approximately the same frequency, but the Bush favorable incidents were more likely to be reported. This possibility is similar to the hypothesis posed by Warren Mitofsky to explain the discrepancy between his November 2004 Presidential exit poll (which had Kerry winning by 3 %) and the official election results (which had Bush winning by 2.5%). Mitofsky’s hypothesis is that Bush voters were less likely to participate in the exit poll than Kerry voters. Similarly, the findings of this analysis could be explained if Bush voters were much less likely than Kerry voters to report incidents where an electronic voting machine appeared to make it difficult to vote for their candidate or appeared to switch their vote to the other major party candidate.
Although I don’t find it difficult to believe that such a bias could exist, I do find it very difficult to believe that the magnitude of such a bias could be so great as to result in a 12 to one ratio. I can’t say it’s not possible. But it seems to me to be a very unlikely explanation.
Causal connectionThe remaining possibility is that there were many voting machines throughout the country for which it was more difficult to vote for Kerry than for Bush, or which switched or attempted to switch votes from Kerry to Bush, and that these machines were concentrated in certain areas of the country. This could have been accidental. But if it was accidental, then why would the vast majority of these incidents tend to favor one candidate over the other? And furthermore, why would the incidents be concentrated so heavily in swing states. I cannot think of an explanation for how this could have happened accidentally.
If the tendency of these voting machines to favor Bush was not accidental, that means that someone programmed them to act this way. Depending on the magnitude of this phenomenon, that could have compromised the integrity of the election. This is especially true given the fact that Florida and Ohio were the two states where this problem was reported with the greatest frequency, and the fact that if either if these states had gone for Kerry, he would have won the election.
What is the magnitude and significance of the problem? – Is this the tip of an iceberg?If voting machines used in the 2004 Presidential election were in fact programmed to make it more difficult to vote for Kerry than for Bush, or to switch votes from Kerry to Bush, what significance could that have had to the integrity or outcome of the election? 87 individual incidents in an election where Kerry lost Ohio by over a hundred thousand votes and Florida by a few hundred thousand votes doesn’t seem like very much. But what if these 87 incidents represent only the tip of an iceberg – the known part of a much larger problem? Let’s consider some possibilities that would suggest that a much larger problem exists than these 87 reports:
Perhaps only a minute fraction of problems discovered by voters were reported to EIRSNo one knows what fraction of problems discovered by voters at the polls in November 2004 were reported to the EIRS. It could be that the great majority of voters weren’t even aware that the system existed. Or if they were aware of it, they may not have felt the necessity of taking the time to report it.
Most voters may not have noticed the problemA typical report noted that a voter would attempt to register a choice for President (or other candidate), and then prior to finalizing their choice would note that the screen registered a vote for the other candidate. How many voters would have noticed this, and how many voters would have failed to notice it, and therefore cast their vote for the other candidate?
What if vote switching was usually not accompanied by any visual evidence?If the machines were programmed to switch votes, the person(s) behind this crime would not have wanted the machines to register any visual evidence to that effect, thus enabling the voter to have a chance to correct the problem, or bring it to the attention of election officials, and potentially a much wider audience. But what if it was not possible to program the machines in such a way that they wouldn’t occasionally provide this evidence, or what if doing so would have required a level of skill that many of the programmers didn’t have? In that case, the great majority of vote switching would have gone unnoticed and uncorrected – and therefore unreported. This is speculation on my part, since I do not have the computer expertise to know how feasible such a scenario would be.
Investigations have been conducted that strongly support the idea that the EIRS reports represent only the tip of an iceberg:
First there is a
report by Paul Lehto and Jeffrey Hoffman which identifies 19 reports of electronic vote switching in Snohomish County, Washington – all which favor Bush – from the Washington State auditor’s office, the Washington Secretary of State’s office, and a Snohomish County voter complaint hotline. This compares with only three reports made to EIRS.
Even more compelling is an investigation undertaken by the Washington Post regarding
electronic vote switching in Mahoning County, Ohio. This investigation identified 25 electronic voting machines in Youngstown, Mahoning County, which transferred an unknown number of votes from Kerry to Bush. The Post report goes on to state “Due to lack of cooperation from Secretary of State Blackwell, we have not been able to ascertain the number of votes that were impacted or whether the machines malfunctioned due to intentional manipulation or error.”
ConclusionNeither the 12 to 1 ratio of incidents favoring Bush to incidents favoring Kerry, nor the 9 to 1 greater frequency of the Bush favoring incidents in swing states (compared to non-swing states) could have occurred by chance. Reporting bias is a possibility, but it does not seem plausible that reporting bias could account for such high ratios. If neither chance nor reporting bias account for these anomalies, then the implication is that someone programmed the computers to act this way.
This study adds one more piece to the accumulated evidence of compromised integrity of the 2004 Presidential election. Much of the controversy over this election has centered on the fact that the
Mitofsky-Edison exit polls not only showed Kerry winning the national vote by 3%, but also showed Kerry winning Ohio by 4.2% (which official results showed him losing by 2.5%) and virtually tied in Florida (where official results showed him losing by 5.0%).
Supporting the supposition of election fraud as an explanation for the exit poll discrepancy,
Clint Curtis’ testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic staff suggests an intention on the part of Republican functionaries to utilize electronic vote switching software in the 2004 election. The
strange “suicide” death of the Florida investigator who was in the midst of investigating Curtis’ allegations (after telling Curtis that his investigation revealed corruption “all the way to the top”) provides additional reason to believe that the implications of Curtis’ revelations were very important indeed. The revelations on the
Brad Blog of a Diebold insider (Dieb Throat) suggest that it was quite important both to Diebold and to the Bush Administration that the capability for rigging the 2004 election remain intact.
Nobody knows how many votes the electronic vote switching described in this article cost John Kerry. Undoubtedly, the great majority of voters whose votes were electronically switched from John Kerry to George Bush did not report these incidents to EIRS. When the revelations of Clint Curtis and Dieb Throat are added to actual evidence of electronic vote switching such as described in this report – which overwhelmingly favored George Bush, especially in the critical swing states of Ohio and Florida – it seems evident that these are issues that should be thoroughly investigated and widely publicized to the American people.
What can be done about this now?I can’t precisely answer the question of what needs to be done at this point. Certainly the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign need to be well aware of the problem and vigilant about identifying incidents as they occur.
It seems to me that, as a minimum solution, voters should be warned about this potential problem, and machines that demonstrate the problem should immediately be taken out of service. If that causes excessively long voter lines to develop, then emergency paper ballots should be made available to voters in order to preclude voters having to leave before they vote, which occurred at least by the tens of thousands in 2004.
Voting machines should then be analyzed by the relevant experts in order to determine
why they malfunctioned. Attempts to do this since 2004 have been met with objections by the voting machine companies to the effect that their machines are “proprietary” and therefore legally immune to government confiscation and analysis. I don’t understand how that argument can be given any serious consideration in a democracy, where failure to ensure the integrity of our voting machines is tantamount to failure to ensure the integrity of our elections. That’s a matter that needs to be hashed out by the lawyers, since Congress has not seen fit to exercise any substantial oversight over this issue to date.
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