New Mexico Was Blue: 18,659 Missing E-Votes

[ignatzmouse]

(I just posted this to the 2004 Elections forum & thought it should be posted here as well -- forgive the repost.)

In New Mexico, the election was very close. The official canvas at http://www.sos.state.nm.us/PDF/Gensumm_04.pdf shows just a 5988 vote win for Bush over Kerry. But also in the canvas is evidence of 18,997 missing votes. If one takes the 775,301 total voters at the top of the canvas and subtracts the presidential totals of all candidates (Kerry 370,942; Bush 376,930; Cobb 1226; Peroutka 771; Badnarik 2382; Nader 4053), one will find a nearly 19,000 vote discrepancy. It has been known. The question is from where and how did the discrepancy occur.

The good thing about New Mexico is that Democrats are running the show and have nothing to hide. They are likely as perplexed by the data as anyone else. Try getting some of these numbers from Ohio and Florida, for example, and you will get a royal runaround. I know -- I've asked. But here in New Mexico we have a full canvass posted with county figures broken down by absentee, early voting, and election day precincts. It's a simple matter to simply take a county's total voters and subtract the presidential votes cast to discover exactly how many votes are missing in each county. My first guess was that it would be fairly uniform and undecipherable, just another dead-end.

I was wrong, and I was startled. There was a discrepancy, a big discrepancy, and it lay flatly at the feet of the counties using electronic voting technology. There are only 33 counties in New Mexico. In the eleven optical scan counties there were a total of only 338 missing votes, a miniscule percentage of 0.47 of the total voters. But in 22 the e-voting counties, there were an astonishing 18,659 missing votes, a 2.65 missing vote percentage. What is more, there is a strong correlation of missing votes to how strongly a county voted for Kerry. In general, the more people voted for Kerry, the more missing votes added up.

Only Danaher and Sequoia have e-voting contracts in the state and both faired poorly. Counties with predominant Sequoia e-voting returned a 3.09% missing vote rate, while predominant Danaher Controls counties came in at 2.55%. DeBaca is the lone optical scan county out of place. It only had just over 1000 votes, so either there is misplaced batch or one of their three scanners needs repair. Only two predominately e-voting counties rated below a 2% missing rate, Lea County with the highest percentage (79%) of Bush voters in the state and Valencia who went Bush (56%) and who se primary system is Sequoia's Edge rather than the AVC Advantage that dominates other e-voting counties.

Here are the full results ranked by percentage of missing votes:

County:......Kerry%:.no.miss:..%miss:..Voting System
DeBaca:......28%:.....91:......8.39%:..OpScan ES&S (3)
McKinley:....63%:.....1600:....7.20%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (115) & Edge (33), ES&S Optech (2)
Cibola:......52%:.....516:.....6.45%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (53), Sequoia AVC Edge (23)
Mora:........66%:.....175:.....5.83%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (20)
San Miguel:..72%:.....716:.....5.58%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (55)
Colfax:......47%:.....291:.....4.65%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (25), ES&S Optech (2) & Eagle (2)
Taos:........74%:.....647:.....4.18%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (52)
Rio Arriba:..65%:.....614:.....3.93%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (60)
Socorro:.....51%:.....307:.....3.76%:..E-Voting Danaher Shouptronic (45)
Guadalupe:...59%:.....87:......3.70%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (18)
Torrance:....37%:.....208:.....3.10%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (23), Seq. Edge (1), ES&S Optech (2)
Sandoval:....48%:.....1322:....2.88%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (150), Sequoia AVC Edge (25)
Dona Ana:....51%:.....1817:....2.85%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (200), Sequoia Edge (75)
Lincoln:.....31%:.....259:.....2.79%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (55), Sequoia Edge (1)
Otero:.......31%:.....562:.....2.64%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (100)
Grant:.......53%:.....359:.....2.61%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (64), Sequoia AVC Edge (26)
Sierra:......37%:.....129:.....2.44%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (20)
Santa Fe:....71%:.....1582:....2.33%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (238)
Bernalillo:..51%:.....5806:....2.21%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shoup. (1098), Seq. Edge (300), ES&S Op-Tech (16)
Chaves:......31%:.....451:.....2.04%:..E-Voting: Sequoia AVC (120), ES&S Optech (5)
San Juan:....33%:.....932:.....2.03%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (188), ES&S I-Votronic (25) & OpTech (1)
Harding:.....40%:.....5:.......0.77%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (3)
Lea:.........20%:.....136:.....0.74%:..E-Voting: Danaher Shouptronic (100), ES&S Optech (2)
Union:.......22%:.....13:......0.69%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (20)
Catron:......28%:.....13:......0.65%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (6)
Hidalgo:.....44%:.....11:......0.56%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (10)
Valencia:....43%:.....143:.....0.55%:..E-Voting: Sequoia Edge (115); Danaher Shoup. (97), ES&S Optech (6)
Luna:........44%:.....32:......0.42%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (16)
Eddy:........34%:.....70:......0.34%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (50)
Los Alamos:..46%:.....35:......0.31%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (18)
Quay:........35%:.....12:......0.29%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (15)
Roosevelt:...29%:.....19:......0.27%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (23)
Curry:.......25%:.....37:......0.26%:..OpScan: ES&S Optech (42)


Quite obviously, with the lone exception of DeBaca, we find all the op-scan counties (with a paper trail) bunched at the bottom with very few missing votes and correspondingly small missing percentage. All but two of the e-voting counties break well above them with the strongest Kerry counties generally settling near the top and the strongest Bush counties dropping near the bottom. If we break the e-voting counties down into county groups according to how strongly they voted Kerry, indeed we find a sliding scale:

Strong Kerry: (7 counties): 3.89% missing votes
Favor Kerry: (5 counties): 2.47% missing votes
Favor Bush: (3 counties): 2.24% missing votes
Strong Bush: (7 counties): 2.08% missing votes


The seven counties that were Strong Kerry look like this:

Taos: 74% Kerry 4.18% missing votes
San Miguel: 72% Kerry 5.58% missing votes
Santa Fe: 71% Kerry 2.33% missing votes
Mora: 66% Kerry 5.83% missing votes
Rio Arriba: 65% Kerry 3.93% missing votes
McKinley: 63% Kerry 7.20% missing votes
Guadalupe: 59% Kerry 3.70% missing votes

All but Santa Fe had an absurd amount of missing votes even for e-voting counties. Six of the seven round to a percentage of 4% or higher missing votes.

Now, here are the seven e-voting counties that were Strong Bush followed by the
amount of Bush's vote and the percentage of missing votes:

Torrance: 62% Bush 3.10% missing votes
Sierra: 61% Bush 2.44% missing votes
San Juan: 66% Bush 2.03% missing votes
Lincoln: 67% Bush 2.79% missing votes
Otero: 68% Bush 2.64% missing votes
Chaves: 68% Bush 2.04% missing votes
Lea: 79% Bush 0.74% missing votes

It's night and day. It is absolute proof that the higher the percentage of Bush votes, the fewer missing votes we find. I can only conclude that this is because there were fewer Kerry voters. If there is another explanation, I would like to hear it. I even thought perhaps it is an anomaly of high absentee votes that are counted differently, so I subtracted the absentee votes and recalculated the missing percentage without them. The results rank nearly identical except of course with higher values. Santa Fe, for instance, jumped to a 3.30%. Here is the breakdown of missing vote percentage for the same counties with the absentee vote subtracted:

Strong Kerry: 4.86% missing votes
Favor Kerry: 3.11% missing votes
Favor Bush: 2.84% missing votes
Strong Bush: 2.57% missing votes

Overall Kerry counties: 3.60%
Overall Bush counties: 2.67%

These results demand an explanation. The discrepancy between e-voting counties and op-scan counties is too great for it to be an aberration. The correlation of missing vote percentage to Kerry support is glaring. It strongly suggests a New Mexico win for Kerry if the votes hadn't vanished. If it is in New Mexico, county by county by county, it will doubtless be in other states as well.

[goclark]

1. Keep this kicked and get to Elorial

I have always felt their was something wrong about New Mexico.

[Gloria]

2. kicking....

[ignatzmouse]

6. Eloriel has it

and actually was the one who prompted me to look at New Mexico

[w4rma]

3. This lead is a very good one. It should be followed. (nt)

[goclark]

4. Important! kick and get to the right people

Should be placed in the Voter's Issues Forum

[Vincardog]

5. Keep up the good work KICK

[ignatzmouse]

7. EIRS E-Voting Incident Reports Confirm the Problem

Some compelling evidence that we have a problem. A slate of e-voting incidents in New Mexico as reported to EIRS https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapNation . Candidate switching, changing selection to "no vote," misalignment, and more...

033853 11/02/04, 8:09 AM PST Machine problem Longfellow Elelemntary School -- Edith Blvd., Bernalillo County, New Mexico Reported that voters tried to vote for Kerry and Peroutka's name was recorded.

034353 11/02/04, 8:35 AM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Danaher 1242 (#010494) malfunctioning. When selection is made for one office, previous selections are unintentionally de-selected.

035228 11/02/04, 9:08 AM PST Machine problem East Gate Church,12120 Copper Ave, NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter selection does not light up, other selections do. typically presidential candidaTES from Kerry to 3rd party. Voter persistence seems to help

035436 11/02/04, 9:16 AM PST Machine problem 400 Edith Blvd NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voting Kerry, Perotka (sp?) comes up. 2 reports made through moveon to hotline

035864 11/02/04, 9:32 AM PST Machine problem Armijo E.S., 1440 Gatewood, SW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine accepts vote, but undoes it when subsequent vote is made

042006 11/02/04, 1:19 PM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, bernalillo County, New Mexico Report from Voting Protection Personnel Mariln Brown who was assisting elderly man with voting. When Democrat President candidate selected (red dot with paper system), Libetarian candidate was highlighted. Poll worker instructed on how to correct. Vote was corrected. Same irregularities reported in other area precinct during early voting with touch screens: Democratic party selected, but libertarian candidates highlighted.

042338 11/02/04, 1:29 PM PST Machine problem Alameda Elementary, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter pressed button for one candidate; machine lit up for the other candidate. Voter had to re-press several times to get correct candidate to light up. Machine on far left in cafeteria.

042248 11/02/04, 1:35 PM PST Machine problem 412 Alameda Blvd. NW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Light showing selection not behind voter's choice; took multiple tries.

043872 11/02/04, 2:22 PM PST Machine problem #48 Cochiti Elem, Bernalillo County, New Mexico #10355 - Machine wouldn't properly register the desired vote -- voter would make one selection but machine would register another -- voter was finally able to make desired selection but w/ difficulty

044507 11/02/04, 2:44 PM PST Machine problem 420 General Somervell St. NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter tried to vote straight party ticket, all lit up except for president; poll worker said was known problem, would be OK. Machine 'C'.

044606 11/02/04, 2:48 PM PST Machine problem 420 General Somervell St. NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine reset itself after certain period of inactivity while voter thought about ballot propositions; voter revoted, believes vote counted.

044612 11/02/04, 2:47 PM PST Machine problem Hawthorn, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Had to fill out ballot twice because machine cleared all. After going through twice it accepted entries.

045322 11/02/04, 3:18 PM PST Machine problem Georgia O'Keefe Elementary School, 11701 San Victorio Ave. NE, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter pressed name box for Kerry/Edwards, Libertarian light came on. Reproducible problem, persistence by voter allowed correct vote; probably ballot misalignment. Machine Serial No. 010154

047355 11/02/04, 4:32 PM PST Machine problem Alameda Elementary, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine registered full slate of votes for the wrong party. Voter had to go back and manually change each category.

047522 11/02/04, 4:37 PM PST Machine problem Alameda Elementary Gymnasium, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Problem was with the machine on the left. The voter had to press button several times before machine would register the correct candidate

047570 11/02/04, 4:42 PM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico This caller used an electronic voting machine, and after selecting a democratic candidate, noticed that the republican light actually lit up. He had to select the democratic candidate again to cancel it out, and then select it again to make the correct selection. He had to do this for almost all of the people he voted for. Worried that others won't realize the problem. THIS WAS THE SECOND TIME THAT HE CALLED (but I forgot to get the first case #, so I'm not sure what the first issue was)

047678 11/02/04, 4:55 PM PST Machine problem Los Ranchos Elementary School, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Using machine "B" my buttons that I pushed would respond in the other area. Sometimes I would push buttons once and it wouldn't light up, so I'd have to push it again or two times. One-third of the way through my lightgs just went out. I asked the monitor what happened and she didn't know. They still kept letting other people use this machine anyway.

048599 11/02/04, 5:17 PM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Pressed "party" they lit up. Then went to props. By the time she finished the whole thing began blinking. Had to go back and recheck party. She does not feel confident vote was recorded. Had to repeat "party selection.ast her vote.

049286 11/02/04, 5:42 PM PST Machine problem Alameda ES, 412 Alameda Blvd. NW, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter tried to vote straight ticket, other party selected; voter was able to correct.

059157 11/30/04, 12:50 PM PST Machine problem ABQ, Bernalillo County, New Mexico When water hit one button another light came on. Was able to corect. Hit for Kerry and other candidate lit up (Green)

059286 12/01/04, 10:37 AM PST Machine problem Cochiti E.S.--3100 San Isidiro St. NW, 107, albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico 1 (perhaps 2?) machines broke down a total of 3 times--machine serial number 10353. Incident #1: voter had pressed button on rights side of machine but vote jumped to Nader. #2: All buttons recorded votes properly, except for one judicial race--voter needed to push 6 times. #3: inaccurately recorded vote for president--voter corrected.

059353 12/01/04, 12:33 PM PST Machine problem Bernalillo County, New Mexico One machine (B) was "touchy" and could indicate the wrong vote when a button was pushed.

059414 12/02/04, 8:40 AM PST Machine problem Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter was not given option to vote for president on the machine. The other offices were on the ballot.

059426 12/02/04, 8:54 AM PST Machine problem Emerson Elementary (23), Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter was not able to mark preference by touching area instructed by the machine (had to touch screen about 1/2 inch away to properly mark).

059464 12/02/04, 10:05 AM PST Machine problem San Jose Elem., Albequerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Voter pushed button to cast vote and it wouldnt register. Third to struggle w/ problem

059472 12/02/04, 10:26 AM PST Machine problem Sombrillo, Sautate County, New Mexico "Sticky Machine"; assistance was sought from Judge Pres. Garcia. and machine was cleared. 4 votes had not been sent. City Clerk was called to attend to the problem.

059509 12/02/04, 11:53 AM PST Machine problem 186, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Machine indicated vote for Nader - not voter's choice. He went back several times until machine registered correct vote. Voter told judge, who shrugged and told the voter he must have done it wrong.

059515 12/02/04, 11:52 AM PST Machine problem Albequerque HS, Bernalillo County, New Mexico When buttons were pressed on machine they didnt "take." He said he had to go back and press a few times - he notified the poll workers and they said they wer going to check the machine.

059202 11/30/04, 2:42 PM PST Machine problem Site 33 Alice Hoppes - State Fairgrounds, Albquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Lost selection twice $ blinking in reselected. Twice on 2 different candidates or ballot issues. Ultimately cast ballot OK.

059430 12/02/04, 9:27 AM PST Machine problem Emerson Elementary, Bernalillo County, New Mexico Problem w/ voting booth B. Voter selected presidential candidate, continued to vote for other offices and then presidential choice changed to "something and Dr. ..."

047596 11/02/04, 4:44 PM PST Machine problem 7th Precinct, Las Cruces, Dona Ana County, New Mexico Light by one presidential candidate burned out. Not indicating votes for that candidate.

014203 10/22/04, 3:08 PM PST Machine problem Otero County, New Mexico Voter stated that friend attempted to vote today at county clerk's office in Otero County and that "extraordinary efforts" were required to get voting machine properly to reflect his intended vote; apparently would default to Republican slate

052219 11/04/04, 8:25 AM PST Machine problem Sombrillo, Espanola, SantaFe County, New Mexico When the voter went into the voting booth all the Republican lights were lit. The Presiding Judge cleared the machine and indicated that it had gotten stuck and may had missed counted the votes. The machine was cleared and the voter was allowed to vote. The clerk was notified about the problem and sent a technicain to fix the machine.

054809 11/10/04, 6:12 AM PST Machine problem Dixon, Embudo, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico Voter noticed that she had voted on all issues and candidates but prior to pushing the "cast your vote" button she noticed that some of the items idicated "no vote".

059450 12/02/04, 9:44 AM PST Machine problem Dixon Elem. School, Dixon, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico She voted and before pressing the last button, checked back to see if the votes were recorded accurately and found that in some places "No Vote" appeared. She voted again and then pressed the final button.

059087 11/30/04, 6:25 AM PST Machine problem San Juan County, New Mexico Reported via e-mail to eirhelp: I had problems voting on the touch screen voting machine. Instructed on the use of the machine, I was told that I could vote straight ticket or for individual candidates and then review ballot. But when I pressed straight ticket and reviewed there was no vote cast. thinking this might be operator error I then went through the ballot and voted for each person on the ballot which seemed to show results. I can't help but wonder what happened at the polls for myself and perhaps millions other citizens.

052341 11/04/04, 9:52 AM PST Machine problem Sombrillo, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe County, New Mexico When voter went in the machine button on the Republican ticket was stuck. She hit the button three times before it cleared. This is related to the Shik problem reported as well.

[Vincardog]

8. Kick it again

[Bouvet_Island]

9. previous results

Previous election results can be found here:

http://web.state.nm.us/Election/Results.html

This story is very sourceable for foreign journalists.

Can someone make the relevant checks?

We should keep copies of all that information there is risk they might remove it to snail the effort.

The online numbers should be checked against a paper edition. Typos or hackers.

We might need more than one state, If the republicans own one of the democrats electors from Ohio it would be a draw, right?

This could be important IMO.

It would be sweet if this could be kept Kicked.

[Lost4words]

10. why are/were the dem not ready for this???????????

only a moron would think the GOP would not cheat this election in this manner. I knew it would go exactly this way. We should have hired investagators to watch all involved with theese machines prior to the fraudulent election. But happy to lose democrats didnt.

Fool us once shame on you

Steal elections 3 times, shame on us.

86 43

[L. Coyote]

11. Thanks. I've updated the New Mexico Spreadsheet sorted by ...

machine type and vendors. I'm ready to start some analysis. Here is how your data has been sorted in the spreadsheet:

Chaves		E-Voting	Sequoia
Dona Ana	E-Voting	Sequoia
Guadalupe	E-Voting	Sequoia
Lincoln		E-Voting	Sequoia
McKinley	E-Voting	Sequoia
Otero		E-Voting	Sequoia
Rio Arriba	E-Voting	Sequoia
Santa Fe	E-Voting	Sequoia
Sierra		E-Voting	Sequoia
Torrance	E-Voting	Sequoia
Valencia	E-Voting	Sequoia
Bernalillo	E-Voting	Danather
Cibola		E-Voting	Danather
Colfax		E-Voting	Danather
Grant		E-Voting	Danather
Lea		E-Voting	Danather
Mora		E-Voting	Danather
San Juan	E-Voting	Danather
San Miguel	E-Voting	Danather
Sandoval	E-Voting	Danather
Taos		E-Voting	Danather
Socorro		E-Voting 	Danather
Catron		OpScan		ES&S
Curry		OpScan		ES&S
Eddy		OpScan		ES&S
Harding		OpScan		ES&S
Hidalgo		OpScan		ES&S
Los Alamos	OpScan		ES&S
Luna		OpScan		ES&S
Quay		OpScan		ES&S
Roosevelt	OpScan		ES&S
Union		OpScan		ES&S
DeBaca		OpScan 		ES&S

You can download the spreadsheet and do your own analysis, pose questions, make graphs, or import into Access or Systat.

More latter. Back to your analysis.

PS. Columns created using pre and /pre tags bracketing paste from Excel.

[L. Coyote]

12. The "Some Observations of New Mexico Election Data" is updated

I notice the site Some Observations of New Mexico Election Data is updated. This site was my initial datasheet source. The author points to the same anomolies and more. Their Repub turnout percent seems to be the ratio of Bush votes to registered Repubs. I would prefer a different term to "a Republican turnout at an incredible 179%" I've seen this used elsewhere, and it confuses the number of independent voters and Dixiecrats. Only 100% of any group can vote!! or at least it used to be that way.

[L. Coyote]

13. New Mexico Statistical Summary with Voting Type Comparison

I've completed the statistical summary of ten stats for fifty-two variables (ya gotta luv computers!) and here is the comparison of non-votes in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races. I sorted to three voting machine categories with 11 counties each, plus both E-voting vendors in one category (22 conties) and, of course, statewide with all 33 counties.

2000		2004			
					
Average Deviation:					
0.226		1.313		OpScan	
0.789		1.478		E-Voting Danather	
1.441		1.084		E-Voting Sequoia	
1.242		1.371		E-Voting All	
1.672		1.709		Statewide	
					
Covariance					
30.362		112.067		OpScan	
24.882		39.717		E-Voting Danather	
30.176		36.242		E-Voting Sequoia	
31.261		40.844		E-Voting All	
57.710		65.030		Statewide	
					
Mean (average)					
0.745		1.172		OpScan	
3.171		3.721		E-Voting Danather	
4.776		2.991		E-Voting Sequoia	
3.973		3.356		E-Voting All	
2.897		2.628		Statewide	
					
Skew					
0.983		3.279		OpScan	
0.457		0.008		E-Voting Danather	
1.654		1.595		E-Voting Sequoia	
1.936		0.660		E-Voting All	
1.291		0.922		Statewide	
					
Population Standard Deviation:					
0.270		2.291		OpScan	
0.990		1.715		E-Voting Danather	
2.125		1.580		E-Voting Sequoia	
1.841		1.689		E-Voting All	
2.145		2.171		Statewide	
					{/pre]
I suspect that the 2000 comparison will have utility to thse who know what machines were used in 2000.  

For 2004, the mean of 3.721% E-Voting Danather really stands out.

Here is a comparison for what happened in Ohio with non-votes.

[Lenape85]

14. kick