94,000 "Decline-to-State" votes in Los Angeles County rejected

[rumpel]

according to e-mail from Courage Campaign

In what the media is now calling "Double Bubble Trouble," 94,000 "Decline-to-State" votes in Los Angeles County -- 50% of the total DTS ballots cast -- are being rejected due to a ballot design flaw, despite the Courage Campaign's discovery of the "double bubble" problem and official notification to the Registrar prior to Election Day.

Last weekend, lawyers for the Courage Campaign uncovered the "double bubble" problem -- a shocking requirement that "Decline-to-State" voters fill in a redundant "Democratic" bubble (on a ballot clearly marked "Democratic Party") as well as a bubble next to their preferred presidential candidate. Our legal team realized that -- without the "Democratic" bubble filled in -- the county's optical scanners would void votes for "President of the United States," regardless of voter intent.

Unfortunately, Dean Logan, the Registrar in charge of Los Angeles County, is refusing to conduct a physical hand-count of every "Decline-to-State" vote before the official vote is certified in just a few weeks.

more at:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/counteveryvote

[msongs]

1. amazing how many voters CANNOT read well enough to vote nt

[wtmusic]

3. So anyone who doesn't know what the word "nonpartisan" means

should have their vote disqualified?

That'll go over great in South Central LA. :eyes:

[mod mom]

18. I guess it's like the old "tests" that were administered to Af Am in the Jim Crow south.

Not everyone knows what nonpartisan means.

[Usrename]

21. 94,000 must be close to half of the indie vote in LA!

Yeah, half of all the folks must just be too dumb to vote. :sarcasm:

I hate this kind of response to intentional voter disenfranchisment. It really pisses me off! :grr:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

33. CLINTON CAMPAIGN SAYS "EVERYTING IS GOING SMOOTHLY IN LA."

But Hillary's campaign says there were no election problems in LA County.

In a note to the press, Hillary Clinton's campaign says: "False reports about voting problems in LA are being drudged up -- Everything is going smoothly in LA."

http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/02/05/la_voting/

Maybe everything IS going smoothly, or going just the way the Clinton campaign wanted it too.

[Usrename]

19. How would you fill out this ballot if you were not a Democrat?

[islandmkl]

2. ahh yes...does anyone believe these ballot designs are just a result of poor planning?

The amazing thing is the bureaucrats involved know that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN...no matter how obvious the sham. I guess you gotta practice stealing an election in the primaries...wouldn't want to fuck it up in the GE and actually COUNT EVERY VOTE. Once again, if you get the chance, vote more than once...maybe one of your votes will count.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

40. I think the ballot design was very well planned

after all, the Clinton Campaign said that everything was going smoothly in Los Angeles County, right?
Going just perfect.

[Botany]

4. Just guessing those would be indie voters going for Obama?

These glitches are not mistakes but are designed into "the product"
errors.

The U.S. needs 1 standard paper ballot that gives the voter a receipt and
is 100% verifiable. No more secret source codes, glitches in the ballot,
lost memory cards, problems with the central tabulating system, or
what have you.

[kestrel91316]

5. I smell a big lawsuit about the fundamental legality of that extra bubble.

[rumpel]

6. guess who subcontracts....

Subtask 2.1 -Define and Develop Interface Software for Automated Ballot Layout (ABL) System The Automated Ballot Layout (hereinafter "ABL") System consists of processes that define ballot styles, vote recorder assembly sequences, and political contest rules and descriptions. The ABL System programmatically produces the layout of official and sample ballot pages. The ABL System is currently hosted on a mainframe and the County is transitioning to Windows/Intel. A transaction process that shall send and receive data to and from the ABL System and VIMS in the same format and the same frequency as the existing interface process or a future process defined by County shall be developed by the Contractor. Contractor shall also build and document processing logic and map transaction files to RR/CC’s existing interface or future files. Contractor shall perform an internal quality control check and certify that all components of this Interface have been completed and are performing according to its specifications.

Deliverables:
2.1.1 Report of processing logic specifications and map of transaction file
2.1.2 Report of Initial and Integrated System Component Tested software for the ABL System Interface

(page 77)

01/30/2007 RegRec1234 APPROVE SOLE SOURCE AGREEMENT WITH DATA INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS...

.... Data Information Systems, Inc. DIMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Diebold Election Systems, Inc.

available here
http://search2.co.la.ca.us/omd/
and
http://www.lavote.net/GENERAL/Board_Correspondence.cfm?br_year=2007

btw, AB (Absentee) also is contracted with Diebold in a separate agreement.

[Melissa G]

7. Diebold...vote theft that just keeps stealing and stealing and stealing....

[Bill Bored]

8. This is the Ink-a-Vote System. Not Diebold. nt

[Wilms]

9. It's the ballot layout, actually.

And if I understand, it's done with Diebold equipment.

That doesn't say thet it's Diebold doing the layout. It doesn't say the county wasn't the entity doing it.

For all I know it's the Dem Party doing something as benign as trying to find out who Decline To State voters preferred (as compared to registered Dems) and screwing up.

I can't discount the rigging of the primary just because I don't have enough info to support the idea.

I wouldn't assume it was rigged, either.

[Melissa G]

10. Is post 6 inaccurate? n/t

[Bill Bored]

15. It's the first time I've heard of Diebold running an ES&S election.

DIMS is the registration database. Doesn't count the votes.

[Melissa G]

17. Yes, but blocking registration is the easiest way to steal votes

by precluding even letting those voters register. Likely D vote struck from data base = 1 less D vote. I forget to check if I'm registered because I have no reason to doubt it. I come down to the polls and can't vote, you stole my vote.

[Bill Bored]

27. I thought we were talking about the LA County BALLOT STYLE. nt

[rumpel]

12. In conjunction wit the sole source contract to develop and

maintain the software of the voter database, Diebold under the same contract is assigned to develop a software system to design the ballots.

Whether it can be called rigging, I do not know.

But I can assure you now, we can call it shoddy, and the fact that McCormack agrees to a Diebold "an internal quality control" is telling. No oversight, milk the county budget - just like all those contractors, including Halliburton and Blackwater.

Having Diebold certify something mean zilch to me.

[Bill Bored]

14. LA had Diebold DREs. These are paper ballots.

Connie McCormack is no longer there.

These ballots were Ink-a-Vote. Ink-a-Vote is now an ES&S product that uses THEIR EMS, known as Unity -- not GEMS.

Besides, who gives a shit who the vendor was? Do you think any one is any better than the others?

What matters is whether these votes for President, if the Dem bubble was unmarked, were still counted as cast, and THAT is purely a function of the Ink-a-Vote system and its ballot definition programming.

[rumpel]

25. InkaVote:

It does not matter that Connie is gone, she has contracted with Diebold for long term.
And I agree - all current vendors can not be trusted.
Diebold was tasked not only with the voter registration database programming, maintenance and modification, which shows a large discrepancy between County & SOS, but also with the design of the ballot, as well as to tweak the current - on edit: perhaps, then -tallying system. and on edit: for clarification: for the VIMS software to work with a vendor supplied tallying system, which, as Peace Patriot says could as well be GEMS.

Here is an excerpt from the 132 page document from C.McCormack to the Board of County Supervisors
Page 1 & 2 portion of the cover letter:

January 30, 2007

The Honorable Board of Supervisors
County of Los Angeles
383 Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, California 90012

Dear Supervisors:

APPROVE SOLE SOURCE AGREEMENT WITH
DATA INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR
CONTINUATION OF EXISTING SYSTEM
MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT SERVICES OF THE COUNTY'S
VOTER INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

(ALL DISTRICTS) (3 VOTES)
CIO RECOMMENDATION: APPROVE (n APPROVE WITH MODIFICATIONS ( )
DISAPPROVE ( )

IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOUR BOARD:

Approve and instruct the Chairman to sign the attached sole source Agreement
(Agreement) with Data Information Management Systems (DIMS), a wholly
owned subsidiary of Diebold Election Systems, lnc., for continuation of existing
system maintenance and support services of the County's Voter Information
Management System (VIMS) and provide for any future system enhancements
legally mandated by the Federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and/or State of
California law, regulation, or statute, for a Contract Sum of $4,1161250 over an
initial five-year contract period with three one-year extension options effective
February 10, 2007 or upon Board approval whichever is later. The Agreement is
fully funded in the Department of the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's (RWCC)
operating budget.

2. Authorize the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, or her designee, to amend the
Agreement to exercise the extension options under the terms of the Agreement if needed and incorporate into the Agreement any new or revised Board-mandated
provisions that may become effective during the term of the Agreement.

3. Authorize the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk' or her designee, to amend the
Agreement to transfer up to twenty percent (20%) of the Contract Sum
($823,250) between the Agreement service components as needed to ensure
that all VIMS service components are available as needed for optimal
performance of VIMS.

4. Authorize the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, or her designee' to amend the
Agreement to increase the Contract Sum up to ten (10%) percent ($411,625) if
needed, providing approval from County Counsel and Chief Administrative
Officer is obtained' for a maximum Contract Sum not to exceed $4,527,875.

PURPOSE/JUSTIFICATION OF RECOMMENDED ACTION:

The purpose of the recommended action is to ensure uninterrupted operation and
continuation of maintenance and support services of the County's successful Voter
Information Management System (VIMS) initially purchased and installed in 1998.
VIMS is a voter registration database which contains all information for the County's 5.5
million registered voters (4 million active and 1.5 million inactive voters). The VIMS
database forms the basis for establishing and maintaining the precincting of voters, the
absentee voting system, verifying petitions, and maintaining pollworkers and voting
location files. VIMS is not involved in tabulation of ballots.

TASK 2 – SYSTEM INTERFACE PROGRAMMING AND EXECUTION

Contractor shall provide the analysis, design, development, testing, installation and
installation testing, of software that will provide the Interfaces between VIMS and
external systems identified by County. In accordance with Paragraph 12.0 (System
Tests and Acceptance) of the Agreement, Contractor shall give County notice of each of
the installation test, and designated representatives of County may observe the
installation tests and verify the results as County deems necessary or appropriate.
Contractor shall deliver to County processing logic specifications and map of transaction
files for all Interfaces identified in this task. Upon satisfactory completion of each of the
installation test, Contractor shall deliver to County a written certification of completion of
the applicable installation test.
Each of the Interfaces is listed below along with a brief description. The County shall
review the draft specifications and identify any changes required. Contractor shall
incorporate the changes into the reports described below before County's Project
Director and County's Project Manager accept deliverables under this Task, and
County's Project Director and County's Project Manager will, if acceptable, approve
each of such reports.

Automated Ballot design, I already copied from the tasks definitions in my OP.
Subtask 2.1 -Define and Develop Interface Software for Automated Ballot Layout
(ABL) System

Subtask 2.3 - Define and Develop Interface Software for Election Tally System
(ETS)
The Election Tally System (ETS) programmatically tallies election results for an election.
The current ETS operates on a networked Intel client workstation platform using an
internally developed tally system called “InkaVote”. The County intends to replace it
with a vendor developed system. A transaction process that shall send and receive data
to and from ETS to VIMS in the same format and the same frequency as the existing
interface process or a future process identified by County shall be defined and
developed by Contractor. Contractor shall also build and document processing logic
and map transaction files according to County approved specifications. Contractor shall
perform an internal quality control check and certify that all components of this interface
have been completed and are performing according to its specifications.

Deliverables:
2.3.1 Report of processing logic specifications and map of transaction file for ETS
System
2.3.2 Report of Initial and Integrated System Component Tested software for the ETS
System Interface

Note: Who this "vendor" is, is not clarified in this document. As the doc seems to differentiate "contractor, sub contractor and vendor".

Other tasks title only:

Subtask 2.4 - Define and Develop Interface Software for both the interim and
permanent Statewide Voter Database

Subtask 2.5 - Implement Interfaces

TASK 3 - WIDE AREA NETWORK ACCESS PLAN SPECIFICATIONS

TASK 4 – CUSTOM PROGRAMMING MODIFICATIONS
Subtask 4.1 - System Design Report

Subtask 4.2 Custom Programming Modification Development, Testing,
Certification, Documentation and Installation

Subtask 4.3. Custom Programming Modification Training Plan and Updated
Training Materials


The Good News: The County appears to own the Software(?)
page 9 of 31 Exhibit F

1 6. PROPRIETARY CONSIDERATIONS AND CONFIDENTIALITY:

THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH 16 SHALL APPLY ONLY TO MATERIALS,
DATA AND INFORMATION, IF ANY, DEVELOPED UNDER THIS
AGREEMENT.

16.1 CONTRACTOR and SUBCONTRACTOR agree that all materials, data, plans,
reports, acceptance test criteria, acceptance test plans, departmental procedures
and processes, and information developed under this Agreement and all
copyrights, patent rights, trade secret rights, and other proprietary rights therein
shall become the sole property of COUNTY. SUBCONTRACTOR hereby
assigns and transfers to COUNTY all of SUBCONTRACTOR'S right, title, and
interest in and to all such materials, data, plans, reports, acceptance test criteria,
acceptance test plans, departmental procedures and processes, and information,
provided that SUBCONTRACTOR may retain possession of all working papers
prepared by SUBCONTRACTOR. During the term of this Agreement and for a
minimum of seven (7) years subsequent to such term, COUNTY shall have the
right to inspect any and all such working papers, make copies thereof, and use the
working papers and the information contained therein.

on edit: So technically, if the county owns the system, they should have no problem providing same for inspection to the SOS.

[Bill Bored]

28. Great research! Can we count the undervotes now? nt

[Peace Patriot]

16. L.A. election activists say that the central tabulator is Diebold GEMS.

The county (under McCormack) has been secretive about it. They call it the Micro Tally System (MTS), but nobody's seen the thing. It's Top Secret. And well-informed election integrity activists have reason to believe it's Diebold. McCormack, who resigned in Dec 07, amidst a storm of controversy about her coziness with the corporate vendors, was/is a special advocate of Diebold. She did a sales brochure for them! She tried to segue their voting machines into L.A.'s system, via her "early voting" plan--touchscreens in the shopping malls! Bowen nixed that one.

The InkaVote system is just the voting. It's on punchcard type voting cards. But the real action is in Norwalk, where some 4 million voting cards are all trucked in, to be centrally tabulated.

See "California Election Integrity Assessment 2008"--detail on CA's election system, and a prognosis on the reliability of its election results. Very poor, because of years of "bad actor," anti-transparency, pro-corporate county election officials like McCormack. SoS Bowen's only been in office a year. She has a veritable rat's nest to clean out. Really bad actors. Like Deborah Seiler, now San Diego Registrar, formerly Diebold's chief salesperson in California. I'm not kidding. Seiler is best friends with McCormack. And it was Seiler/San Diego who just sued SoS Bowen to stop modest reforms of the auditing rules! Riverside and San Bernardino (two other "bad actors") joined the suit. They lost. But that's their attitude--anything to further non-transparency.

InkaVote is just a little piece of the story. Secrecy, non-transparency, collusion with the corporate vendors, advocacy FOR the corporate vendors, advocacy of paperless (utterly unverifiable) voting, corruption, perks like a week of fun, sun and high-end shopping at the Beverly Hilton, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia--these things are endemic in CA's election system, and most apparent in certain counties, L.A. prime among them.

Diebold got the entire concession for Absentee Ballots in L.A. And apparently they also had this concession--creating the "bubbles" to disenfranchise independent voters. Diebold's brethren corporation, ES&S, also got a nice piece of the L.A. action--a $25 million contract just to manufacture the little InkaVote-Plus scanners (all they do is check for over-votes, and provide "snap tallies"--unofficial totals--in 20 (of 4,000 precincts) for the benefit of corporate exit pollsters and reporters).

The CA election scene is just riddled with this kind of corruption. So, it is no surprise at all that, a) incompetence and malfeasance produced a ballot that disenfranchised 94,000 some voters, or b) it was deliberately done (and will be covered up as a mere "error").

Haven't we learned yet that corporations, when not subject to strict regulation in the public interest, produce crap, and can't be trusted not to deliberately poison us, or to loot us blind with no-bid war contracts? Put them in charge of elections, and fail to hold them to strict accountability and transparency, and they will not only royally fuck things up, they will steal them.

And if a reforming SoS like Bowen comes along and foils their nefarious scheme for paperless voting in the shopping malls, they will find another way to fiddle the vote, to further their own power-mad, profit-sick goals.

[Bill Bored]

29. The InkaVote system is NOT "just the voting."

The Ink-a-Vote system tallies the "punch cards" by optically scanning them. Then these totals can be fed into GEMS, or probably any other central tabulator.

All this is irrelevant because NO e-vote counting should ever be trusted, which is why you have your 1% manual tally, now with a ridiculously-close-margin expansion provision, and a more reasonable escalation provision in the event errors are found, by Bowen. Believe it or not, that can find large enough errors to swing a statewide race in most cases in CA because you have so many precincts and they have to hand count 250 of them.

However, THE PROBLEM in THIS case is whether the indy voters who didn't mark the Dem bubble had their votes counted or not, and this should be readily detectable by the number of undervotes, if it's reported. I think this may be another Bowen requirement, but can't swear to it. You folks in CA should check.

In any case, it's not rocket science. If NOT marking the Dem bubble results in an undervote, I think these ballots should be hand counted to check voter intent, regardless of the results of any audit.

How does that sound?

[Peace Patriot]

35. The InkaVote-PLUS "snap tallies" are UNOFFICIAL tallies. Voters can decline

to have their vote scanned, so the total is unofficial and unreliable. It cannot be used for any official reporting purpose. The main purpose of the InkaVote-PLUS scanners manufactured by ES&S is merely to check for over-votes. $25 million contract basically just for that. The "snap tallies" occur in only 20 of 4,000 counties! And they are for the convenience of corporate exit pollsters and reporters, who just gotta have that "snappy" line at eleven--who cares if all the votes are counted on the mysterious "Wizard of Oz" contraption in Norwalk, or in transit to it?

This info is from Judy Alter, Director of Protect California Ballots, who is thickly involved in the details of L.A.'s system, and who gave me hours of her time on the phone explaining it. I used to live in L.A. (born there) but haven't voted there since the Reagan "revolution" began selling our country out on labor protections, the progressive tax, the environment, the war budget, unconstitutional war, upward mobility for the poor, and everything else that matters, to the global corporate predator overlords, and committed genocide in Guatemala (not to mention what he committed in El Salvador and Nicaragua). So I just remember the old punchcard system, which didn't seem to matter then either.

However, the worse these fascists have become, the more non-transparent the voting system has become, in order to shove one worse thing after another down our throats. Today in L.A., you may think you have something in your hand, with the non-electronic voting card--it is deceptive that way--but Norwalk produces the totals, in secret, and god only knows what happens to your voting card there. God and Conny McCormack.

[diva77]

50. InkaVotePlus is owned by ES&S; was originally owned by

Unisyn of Carlsbad

[Botany]

11. There was no mistake on the ballot .... It did what it was designed to do.

so DATA INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS... owned by Dielbold ....
helped w/ ballot lay out and then 90,000 + votes got pitched ... wow what are
the chances?

Almost like New Hampshire where Obama won the paper ballot counties but
lost the Diebold ones.

Or Ohio 2004 ..... from wiki

Walden "Wally" O'Dell was chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Diebold, a US-based security and financial products company.
He was an active fundraiser for George W. Bush's re-election campaign and wrote in a fund-raising letter dated August 13, 2003, that he was committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.

Or Georgia 2002

Where both the Democratic Governor and Senator lost despite double digit leads ....
after wards Diebold employees removed "patchs" that were on diebold machines

or Florida 2000

"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22

[wtmusic]

22. Registrar Dean Logan is a solid Dem

who was run out of Seattle by Republican activists who charged him with being partisan.

Although he has wide respect in the elections administration community for accuracy and fairness, he blew it with this ballot design -- and there should be a recount.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/273692_logan13.html

[Bill Bored]

30. Clinton and Obama are DEMS too. I don't think this is a "partisan" issue. nt

[rumpel]

43. I agree. n/t

[robinlynne]

51. Rumpel, pls email me offboard. I need to see this contract, and cannot find it at

the searches you linked to. LA COunty signed a 6 year contract with a diebold company called SOE Software yesterday to manage our elections. We protested; they ignored it completely!
We know all about the absentees, pls send me this info on the ballot design!!!!!!!!!!
Robin

[Bill Bored]

13. Our legal team realized...

"Our legal team realized that -- without the 'Democratic' bubble filled in -- the county's optical scanners would void votes for "President of the United States," regardless of voter intent."

Exactly how did they come to that realization? Did they SEE the ballot definition files? I'm just askin'.

If all those votes were uncounted, they'd be undervotes. What does our hero Debra Bowen think of this situation? Were there 94,000 undervotes in LA County, like there were in the whole State of Ohio in the 2004 General election?

I mean, sure there was an extra bubble. But how do we know that wasn't just put there by the Dems to find out how many independent voters they attracted to their primary?

Let's see how this story develops, in particular, what the Secretary of State says and does.

[Usrename]

20. Here's the best site I've found on the subject.

Excerpt from letter sent to the LA County Registrar:

...

We have reviewed sample Democratic and American Independent ballots that DTS voters will receive once they affirmatively request them. (See attached). DTS voters requesting partisan ballots and registered Democratic and American Independent voters will receive the exact same Ink-a-Vote ballot. However, contrary to statutory provisions set forth in the Election Code, Los Angeles County requires DTS voters to complete an additional hurdle by marking either box number 5 (for American Independent ballots) or box number 6 (for Democratic party ballots) or their vote for President of the United States will not be counted. Invalidating a ballot based solely upon the failure to mark a box, (box 5 or 6) even though the voter has cast his/her ballot for a candidate for president, constitutes an improper basis for rejection and a policy that violates the rights of DTS voters. (See Cal. Elec. Code § 15154(c).)

Furthermore, the Precinct Ballot Reader (PBR) equipment in place at every polling place will not notify DTS voters that they have failed to mark box numbers 5 or 6 when they have requested a Democratic or American Independent ballot. The PBRs will only notify voters if they have overvoted or left the ballot completely blank meaning that DTS voters will not know if their choice for President will count.

...

http://www.calitics.com:80/showDiary.do?diaryId=5032

[Wilms]

23. That's exactly where I have trouble understanding the bubble!

:D

It seems to be stated that the same exact ballot was given to voters registered as Dems, American Independants, or DTS, and that the DTS voters were to mark the Dem bubble.

So how does the scanner tell the difference between ballots cast by Dems, and ones cast by the other two groups?

[Usrename]

24. I don't understand how it could be done, either.

This is really wild!@

Do you think the Registrar of Voters in LA did this on purpose, to illustrate some weakness or vulnerability in the system?

How does a scanner KNOW to ignore the vote for president?

It's making me wig out a little too!

:D

I have no idea how this was accomplished.

Link to LA site with sample ballots and instructions:

http://www.lavote.net/locator/poll.cfm?p=311972&c=INGLEWOOD&side=E&a=1126&pre=W&s=HILLCREST&t=BL&post=&z=90301&street_id=59692&ss=HILLCREST

It's identical?????

[Bill Bored]

32. Per your link, an independent has to fill in the bubble to GET the Presidential Ballot!

"NOTE: If you do not wish to request a ballot for the American
Independent or Democratic Party, no further action is required. You will
be provided with a ballot containing only nonpartisan contests and ballot
measures."

If you fill in that DEM bubble, the ballot you get is the same as the DEM ballot, and then according to the instructions "TO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES, NONPARTISAN VOTERS MUST FIRST SELECT PARTY IN THE BOX BELOW."

So, the question is: How does the system know which of these DEM ballots are cast by indy voters? There must be a link between the first selection in which you request the ballot, and the ballot itself. This is possible.

And according to the instructions, the vote won't count if the bubble isn't filled in.

This explains it, but I still think there should be a lot of undervotes if people didn't fill in the bubble and then voted for Pres. If this is not how the system is programmed, or there are a lot of undervotes, then a hand recount is needed!

And I agree, this system SUCKS!

It will be a good test of your SoS to see how she handles this fiasco.

[Usrename]

34. I don't live out there any more, I'm in FL.

Everything that I can find on the subject says that if the No Party voter doesn't say anything, they just get a ballot with the propositions on it. They must request to vote in the Democratic primary when they are registering and receiving their ballot.

If they do make the request, they are handed the exact same ballot as the Dems get.

<I don't understand it any better tonight>

The ballot, if you examine it, says something like:

If you are Democrat, skip down and mark your candidate.

If you are not a Democrat, you must first select a party from the box below.

So....

How does the scanner know your party affiliation?

It has to know, somehow, or it won't know how to read the ballot.

I am really stumped with this one, I'm not kidding.

[Bill Bored]

37. I feel your pain, but now you're in Florida! Nothing for you to worry about! ;)

[Bill Bored]

46. Minor correction....

It appears that no bubble is required to get the Dem ballot. That was just part of the instructions showing a sample ballot. The independent voter just asks for a Dem ballot, then fills in the Dem bubble on that ballot.

So the question remains, how does the system know who's an independent and who's a Dem, and which ballots to count if the Dem bubble is empty?

[Wilms]

39. I think we're missing information.

One idea I'm kicking around is that the bubble may have been intended by the party to track how the DTS voters who participated voted. A free poll, in effect.

But I still don't get how the scanner would know that a given ballot was required to have a mark without, at least, tying the serial numbers of the ballots or some schema as Rumpel wonders with the Ballot Header thing. And even then I'm imagining the ballots needing to be culled by hand.

I think we don't have the answer because I don't think we have asked the right question...yet.

():~|)

[Usrename]

41. Thanks for this post, even if it is useless.

:)

I don't mean that sarcastically, either. I really mean THANKS! You don't know how comforting it is to know I'm not THAT crazy.

[Wilms]

42. Thanks...but Bradblog fills in some of the blanks.

Bradblog reports that one of two different ballots wound up being given to DTS voters…a "non-partisan" (that is shared with the partisan "American Independent" party) as they were supposed to have received…and a Democratic ballot that they shouldn't have.

Ironically, he says the DTS voters incorrectly having received a Dem ballot are more likely to have had the vote counted.

See below as I think we now can consider why the machines would have been programmed to ignore votes cast if a voter failed to fill in this infamous bubble on the non-partisan ballot and why it may well be of no concern on the Dem ballot incorrectly given to some DTS voters.

snip

After speaking to poll workers and voters, and combing media reports, there may be just about as many "real clear" explanations for how those DTS voters were supposed to have a) asked for, and then perhaps have received, the correct ballots to vote in the Dem Primary and then b) filled in special bubbles at the top of the ballots, which supposedly instruct the optical-scan machines to read the ballots as Dem primary votes, on the premise that the machines will end up counting the votes accurately.

If independent, non-partisan, DTS voters were lucky enough to not be auto-registered with the "American Independent" party instead; and if they knew to ask to vote in the open Democratic Primary; and if the poll workers knew to give them non-partisan ballots anyway; and if they were properly instructed to vote on that ballot in one of the booths marked as "DEM," with the Dem candidate InkaVote machine template booklet in it; and if they were told by the pollworker to be sure to fill in the bubble above the Presidential candidates' names to specify that this ballot should be counted in the Democratic Primary; and if they remembered to do it; and if their ballots were accurately counted by the optical-scan tabulators, then chances are good they may have successfully voted in the election.

If, on the other hand, as we're hearing from many voters and pollworkers, those voters were incorrectly handed Democratic ballots, as opposed to non-partisan ones, then it sounds like they will also stand a good chance of having their vote, counted (accurately, or otherwise) in the Dem Primary.

snip

Brad is also citing the LA Times citing the Acting County Registrar saying he'll review the ballots in question.

Brad also quotes Rick Jacobs of California's Courage Campaign saying that even hand counts won't be able to figure out the non-partisan as the "non-partisan" ballot was to be used for DTS voters participating in the Dems Primary, and American Independent Party members voting for one of their three candidates. I'd like to hear an explanation for that arrangement, in fact.

From the LA Times piece Brad cites this:

snip

In the American Independent contest, there were three candidates running, while the Democratic Party had eight. The bubbles for the first three candidates in each party were in the same position on the ballot, making it impossible to tell after the fact if a voter was voting Democratic or American Independent --- unless that person also filled in the bubble indicating party preference.

snip

All this still leaves open the questions…

Why did DTS and American Independant Party voters have to share the same bubbles on their supposedly non-partisan ballot?

Why these special bubbles were used on the Democratic ballot first place...even if they aren't causing tabulation issues?

Why the individual campaigns didn't catch this problem much earlier?

What poll workers, who incorrectly gave Dem ballots to DTS voters, thought the non-partisan ballots were for? (even though they did those voters a favor)

[Usrename]

44. I don't see how this can be right, either. Let me see.

The there appear to be three different ballots in the mix here.


The Declined to State (DTS) ballot does not have any candidates on it at all, there are no boxes either, it's blank except for the propositions.

The American Independent (AIP) ballot has a bottom section with 3 named candidates, and above it there is a box where you can select bubble 5 to choose the American Independent Party.

The Democratic Party (DP) ballot has a bottom section with 9 named candidates, and above it there is a box where you can select bubble 6 to choose the Democratic Party.

I have a headache from this.

I think what I'm hearing is that a DTS voter could insert his blank ballot into the machine and vote in the Dem primary, but ONLY if he also selected the bubble 6 Democratic Party option.

Ahhh.. I think I finally see what happened.

Thanks again!

They should be able to sort those by hand, unless the AI party used the same scheme to allow DTS voters into their primary too. Then it gets awfuly sticky pretty quickly.

[Wilms]

45. You're right. There are errors I couldn't edit in time. There isn't a shared ballot.

Here's the ballot sample with the American Independent party

pdf: http://www.lavote.net/locator/BALLOT/549/AI/AI084E.pdf

But I think the "Non-Partisan" ballot is what is given to everyone who is registered...regardless of party. It would be the only one given to people register.

- on edit -

This is from the SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR NONPARTISAN VOTERS

Voting at the Polls – Tell the pollworker you are a nonpartisan registered
voter who wishes to vote for one of the two parties listed above. The
pollworker will issue you a ballot and direct you to the correct voting booth
for the selected political party.

http://www.lavote.net/locator/sbframe.cfm?&ballot_type=88&election_id=549

That's a bit different.

So they should have recieved a Dem, or an American Independant, or Neither...plus the ballot for the initiatives, which is referred to as "non-partisan".

[eomer]

47. Sample ballot vs. paper ballot vs. ballot template

I think that the confusion is coming from not making a distinction between the sample ballot, the paper ballot, and the ballot template. The sample ballot you link to is, as best I can gather, more of an abstract ballot layout. I believe the actual ballot template that is afixed to each booth is very similar to the sample ballot but that the minor differences between the ballot sample and the ballot template are in exactly the areas that make a difference in this whole mess.

By the way, much of this is reading between the lines on my part so I welcome any correction, clarification, or confirmation. That said, following is my theory about the way this is set up.

There are three different ballot templates for DTS voters that depend on the choice they make just before they vote:

• to vote in the American Independent primary
  
• to vote in the Democratic primary
  
• to vote in none of the partisan primaries

The voter would be directed to a voting booth based on that choice and then the ballot template will be one of those three.

The paper ballot that each DTS voter is given is apparently the same regardless of which of the three party primary options they choose. When they insert this ballot into the template then the ballot template directs them to fill in the correct bubble for the option represented by that booth:

• bubble 5 for American Independent primary
  
• bubble 6 for Democratic primary
  
• no bubble for no party primary

If a DTS voter chooses to vote in the Democratic primary booth but doesn't fill in bubble number 6 as directed by the ballot template at the booth and then votes for one of the first three Democratic candidates then there will be no way to distinguish this ballot from one where a voter chooses to vote in the American Independent primary booth and neglects to fill in bubble number 5.

If a DTS voter chooses to vote in the Democratic primary booth but doesn't fill in bubble number 6 as directed by the ballot template at the booth and then votes for a Democratic candidate that is not one of the first three then a manual count would be able to determine the voter's intent since neither the American Independent ballot template nor the non-partisan DTS ballot template give the voter the ability to fill in any of the respective bubbles for primary candidates beyond the first three. A machine count, on the other hand, would miss these votes since bubble 6 is missing and therefore it doesn't know how to count them.

I don't know how the ballot rotation works in LA County. The sample Democratic ballot shows Clinton and Obama as bubbles 8 and 10 respectively, which are among the first three and therefore would be indistinguishable from an American Independent candidate when the party bubble 6 was omitted. If there are ballots where Clinton and Obama are rotated to positions other than 8, 9, or 10 (the first three) then you could distinguish them. Perhaps there can be cases where Clinton is outside the first three but Obama is not and vice versa.

Apparently the paper ballot given to a voter registered as a Democrat is different than the one given to a DTS voter, already has bubble 6 pre-filled, and therefore the ballot template at the booth does not require the voter to fill that bubble (or give them an opportunity to). Therefore the scanner will always know that these ballots should be counted in the Democratic primary.

Edit to add: I'm not sure whether there were special booths for DTS voters who chose to vote in the Democratic primary that were different from the booths for voters registered as Democrats. If these two sets of voters shared the same booths then the ballot template for that booth would have to have given access to bubble 6 and also would have had the instructions for DTS voters to fill it in. Then perhaps the paper ballots given to registered Democrats would have already had that bubble filled in and they would have had to ignore the DTS instructions.

I'm inclined more toward the other alternative that there were separate booths for DTS voters voting in the Democratic primary that were different from those for registered Democrats. That way a registered Democrat would have never seen anything about the DTS instructions, would not have had access in the ballot template to bubble 6 and bubble 6 on the paper ballot would have been pre-filled.

Second edit: if there were different booths for DTS voters voting in the Democratic primary that were different from the booths for registered Democrats and then some of those DTS voters were directed incorrectly to the booth for registered Democrats then they would have not gotten the bubble 6 instructions, would have had no access to fill it in, and would have had their votes uncounted through no fault of theirs but rather through fault of pollworkers.

Hopefully some actual LA County voters can tell us what they remember about the ballot template and the paper ballot.

[rumpel]

26. political party affilliation is printed on ballot header it seems

I can not copy and paste it here but here is the link to a training manual

"What if"

INKAVOTE PLUS

During set-up, 9 Ballot Header Cards must be inserted into the Reader. After each Ballot Header Card is inserted, a Zero Report will print. Check the party box for each Zero Report. (See page 11 in the InkaVote Plus manual for further instructions.) If there are fewer than 9 Zero Reports when checking off on Ballot Header Card Checklist: 1. Retrieve all Ballot Header Cards. 2. Identify which party boxes have not been check on the Ballot Header Card Checklist. 3. Find the political party abbreviation printed across the top of the Ballot Header Card.

http://lavote.net/VOTER/POLLWORKER/Pollworker_Only.cfm

[Wilms]

38. Those Ballot Header Cards seem to be for Zero Reports prior to voting.

They don't strike me as what's on a voter's ballot.

I didn't notice a party designation along the top (after the stub was removed) of my ballot, and certainly there's none on the stub I took home.

[Bill Bored]

31. Then there should still be undervotes for President. nt

[robinlynne]

52. The secretary of state says it was the worst ballot design she ever saw.

I told the Registrar's office in january this was going to happen when I saw the ballot design. They were forewarned.

[sonias]

36. What a damn shame

I agree with an earlier post on this thread, this sounds like a case for a lawsuit. And I hope any people who had to go through this double bubble nonsense and now find themselves disenfranchised sue. Their legally cast votes did not count. That's not the way our elections should be run.

Damn them!

Sonia

[Wilms]

48. Update: Up to 100K Los Angeles voters likely won't have ballots counted

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3177894#top


Also, please sign a petition:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/counteveryvote

[EFerrari]

49. Also posted here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4537731&mesg_id=4537731