Voting Machine Verifications Show Walker Lost Recall Election

The required verification of Wisconsin's electronic voting equipment after elections has shown that election fraud occurred in several counties during Scott Walker's recall election. The corrected election results show that Barrett won with 51% of the vote, matching the percentage of voters that voted for Democratic Senator John Lehman and favoring President Obama in the exit polls as well as more closely matching the 50/50 split exit polls for Walker and Barrett. It turns out that it wasn't the exit polls that needed to be adjusted, it was the election results.

As one of the first steps in the canvassing process after an election, each electronic voting machine and ballot counting machine is verified for its integrity. The post-election verification process is the same as the pre-election verification process. First, the integrity of the software on each machine is verified, and if the verification fails, it's assumed the machine was tampered with. If the machine passes, the function of the machine is tested. For optical scanners, election officials run a number of randomly selected completed paper ballots through the scanner and match the totals against a hand-count. For touchscreen voting machines, election officials repeat a number of votes from a random position in the paper log and match the totals against a hand-count. The machine has been compromised if the totals don't match.

The verification of the open software installed on the equipment uncovered nearly 100 machines across Wisconsin that had been compromised. It's believed that at least one person, most likely two or three, compromised the optical scanners after the pre-election verification by connecting a small device to the diagnostic port on the machine which automatically downloaded the modified software. The software only affected the gubernatorial election, which explains Lehman's win.

All of the votes counted with the compromised machines were recounted by verified machines or hand count, and the recounts show that 110,805 Barrett votes had been wrongfully switched to Walker by the compromised machines. It appears as though the modified software flipped Barrett votes at random short durations of time, so the modified software changed vote totals differently across machines. Outagamie County had the largest percentage of switched votes with 7,741 votes, 10% of the total votes in the county, but Walker still won the county nearly as much as he did in 2010. Milwaukee County had the largest number of flipped votes with 31,154, followed by Dane County with 10,682 flipped votes. The other counties with modified software were Brown, Calumet, Dodge, Door, Kewaunee, Kenosha, Marathon, Manitowac, Oconto, Racine, Shawano, and Winnebago. Interestingly, nearly every county is along Highway 41 or very close.

Since we control the open software on the machines, we can quickly plug the security hole at no cost to taxpayers for both detection and the fix. Several Wisconsin software engineers wrote a fix for the problem within a few hours of the announcement by the Government Accountability Board, and the new software will go through a number of tests before it's certified. Rest assured, our voting machines will be fixed and certified long before the next election thanks to it being open source software.

As a truly bipartisan measure, Scott Walker reportedly asked Tom Barrett to attend the brats and beers today. Walker conceded, "We have yet to determine who tampered with the equipment, but I'll relinquish my command to the rightful Governor of Wisconsin, Tom Barrett." The person(s) responsible for tampering with election equipment and swinging the election are still being investigated.

Unfortunately, someone may have tampered with voting equipment during the recall election, but we'll never be able to find out. Nearly everything above is just a dream. Voting machines are not open and are not verified after elections, and so there is no way to detect such election fraud. None of the precautions listed above are actually done in Wisconsin, but the possibility of someone swinging an election by tampering with voting machines so easily is real. Barrett could really have won with 51%, but we'll never know.

I'm very sorry if that was painful, but I hope it was effective in convincing you how important this issue is. It's a far more critical issue than voter fraud. We have no proof whether or not Walker really survived his recall, but we could. The next time a Democrat wins a big election, you can bet the Republicans will be shouting election fraud, knowing the problem exists but refusing to do anything about it. Lets get this fixed now.

I wrote a blog post following the Prosser/Kloppenburg election detailing the issues with our elections and the solutions available. By fixing these issues, we could detect and compensate for election fraud, and the story above could be a reality. The following is a minor update to the post, putting it into the context of this election.


Our most pressing issues with elections in Wisconsin continue to be:

1. Ballot security and integrity
2. Antiquated unsupported voting equipment
3. Insecure and inaccurate voting equipment
4. Voting equipment hardware design and software not open, owned and controlled by the people of Wisconsin
5. The integrity of every voting machine isn't verified before and after every election
6. Various vote-tallying processes are not open
7. Ease and likelihood of errors in reporting
8. Voting equipment and software is not uniform across the state

(1) Ballot security and integrity. There were many unsealed and ripped ballot bags during the Prosser/Kloppenburg election. Nothing was done to prevent this from occurring in future elections. The only reason we knew about these issues was because of the recount and the ability to watch some online. There could be far more issues than we are aware of from other elections.

(2) Antiquated unsupported voting equipment. The Prosser/Kloppenburg recount showed us that at least one approved model of our voting equipment, the Optech Eagle, is antiquated and must be removed from service. The original vote tallies from that election had to be deleted, against the law, in order to carry out the recount with the machines, because there were not enough memory packs and those memory packs are no longer manufactured. Although, I will say that I believe it's good that the issue forced a hand recount in parts of the state instead of simply re-feeding the ballots back through the same machines for a recount. This model should be replaced quickly, though the following issues may warrant some delay. A full review of all our voting equipment should occur first.

(3) Insecure and inaccurate voting equipment. Our electronic voting equipment is insecure and inaccurate, but you're not supposed to know that. The very equipment we use to cast and count votes can be manipulated without detection in seconds, swinging the results by any number of votes. There's not a single computer or security expert that would argue with that. However, even if tampering doesn't occur, our vote-tallying machines rarely count the exact number of votes. These are inevitable consequences of using electronics to cast and count our votes. Unfortunately, the design of our electronic voting machines and their margins of error are secrets kept tightly by their manufacturers. So we have no way of knowing just how insecure and inaccurate our machines are (more on this in (4)).

Quite near anyone with the knowledge to write moderately sophisticated computer programs can manipulate a voting machine and its vote tally in literally seconds. That's well into the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in Wisconsin with that ability. Not at any other point in our country's history do so many people have such an ability to swing elections so dramatically. It really does take some time to stop and consider.

No one has any "bullet-proof" solutions to this problem, and it's likely we never will. If we want to count votes using electronic equipment, and I for one think it's a "good thing," we must have verifiable guarantees of voting machine security and accuracy. We don't have that now, and we almost certainly won't have that until we solve (4).

There are other issues regarding accuracy specific to the voting machines we use. A GAB memo from December 2009 shows that there were several issues with voting machines that we currently use in many parts of Wisconsin. An error message "error while printing" occurred 15% of the time during a test of the AutoMARK VAT. This was due to a malfunction in the system which required replacement, and the replacement had similar non-tallying related issues about 5% of the time. Such errors can cause inaccuracies, and they can also cause voter disenfranchisement as voters may be told to come back later or may have to wait for an excessive period of time.

The AutoMARK VAT is used as an option for voters with disabilities in many municipalities across Wisconsin. However, the GAB memo says that the testing by the GAB and testing by the Wisconsin Election Administration Council shows that

"The AutoMARK VAT does not provide full privacy and independence for voters with disabilities, especially voters with dexterity or motor disabilities, as voters may need assistance inserting the ballot, removing the ballot and placing the ballot in the ballot box or tabulator."

The Wisconsin Election Administration Council had even more to say. The memo notes several issues including vision-impaired voters won't be able to verify their vote, inadvertent steps that cause a cancellation of votes, the device doesn't meet 2005 US-EAC guidelines, "it takes longer to cast a ballot with the AutoMARK than manually marking the ballot with a marking device," and screen reading difficulties. Yet the AutoMARK VAT was approved by the GAB for Wisconsin voters with disabilities. The GAB said, "The ES&S voting system technically meets" the requirement of a voter to privately verify their votes. The GAB later notes in a bordered paragraph,

"The AutoMARK voting systems for which approval is being sought, do not change the degree of accessibility currently provided by previously approved AutoMARK systems."

I'm appalled that so many of our voting machines do "not provide full privacy and independence for voters with disabilities," and that the GAB would approve such a machine. Are we that desperate for voting equipment?

Another machine mentioned in the memo with issues regarding its ease of use is the intElect DS200. It may not be immediately clear that these issues are issues with accuracy. Any time a voter's intention doesn't get correctly included in the official results, the system is inaccurate. The more difficult a machine is to use, the less accurate it will be.

Similar touch-screen machines continue to have worrisome issues in other states as well. In the 2010 election, a touch-screen voting machine in Pennsylvania began casting votes for the opposite candidate from the one selected by the voter, and the machine required "recalibration" to resolve. We don't use the same machine here, but the same manufacturer, ES&S. So there's good reason to suspect the same issues can and may have happened here. Luckily for us, all of our touch-screens mark or print a paper ballot, but most people expect the machines won't make a mistake. So they may not properly inspect the results before casting their vote and walking away.

The GAB incorrectly states on their website "Adminstrative(sp) Code Chapter 5 Ballot and Electronic Voting Equipment Security insures all electronic voting systems used in Wisconsin are accurate and reliable." This is plain false, and it provides a false sense of security to those voters who aren't aware of the issues. I don't believe we will ever fully be able to insure electronic voting systems are accurate and reliable, but I believe we could publicly guarantee much higher security, accuracy and reliability if we solved issue (4).

Wisconsin does have some of the best electronic voting machine laws in the country, but they're far from perfect. What's worse is that at any time the GAB can exempt a machine from complying with Wisconsin law. The GAB can exempt a voting machine from Wisconsin law if they choose, or as they say, "for good cause" GAB 7.03(5). I don't see how exempting a voting machine from Wisconsin law is a good idea at any time for any reason.

(4) Voting equipment design not owned by the people of Wisconsin. When I say that the people of Wisconsin should own the designs for our voting equipment I mean that the hardware designs and the software source code should be open, i.e., in the public domain. I'll elaborate more on this in the solutions section later, but I'll briefly cover some highlights and comparisons now.

The manufacturers of our voting machines will never provide us with the information and control we need to conduct our elections in the most fair, open and transparent way. The people who run our elections, like your county clerk, have no control or idea of what's going on inside our voting machines. (They can, but I'm not sure who's gone through the trouble s.5.905(5).) It doesn't appear as though anyone from the state government or the Wisconsin public has inspected the code or designs of these machines. We're just expected to have blind faith in these systems, but we know the manufacturers can't and/or won't solve all of their problems.

Currently, certain portions of the software for every electronic voting machine model approved for use in Wisconsin is stored in an escrow s.5.905(2). It's unclear if every software version in use is stored in the escrow, and we have no way of knowing how much of any particular software is stored. The GAB most likely knows the exact components, but they don't make the information available on their website as they should. This escrow provision is meant to make us feel better about the insecure proprietary software, but it does little or nothing to increase the security of our voting equipment. We need all of the software components at the very least, and even that won't provide us with the security, accuracy and reliability that we could achieve with open voting equipment.

Even if the manufacturers gave public access to the design and software of their voting machines, we won't get the full value of an open system if the hardware designs and software source code aren't in the public domain. We wouldn't necessarily be able to ensure the integrity of a voting machine simply because we have that information, because the machine itself may have certain vulnerabilities we would have very little ability to control. If all we can do is look at the designs and code, and we're not be given the ability to implement modifications, what happens if we want to make a change but the manufacturer wouldn't agree to it? That's unacceptable and completely avoidable.

There are many advantages to creating an open election system, and I'll defer talking in detail about those for the solutions section. One of the most beneficial advantages of using an open election system is the amount of people who can inspect the design and code to ensure the utmost security and accuracy, anyone who would want to could. This doesn't make the machine less secure, because there will always be ways to "hack" a machine. Instead, vulnerabilities and issues can be spotted and resolved more quickly, including right on the spot by county clerks or other officials (through appropriate processes of course). This openness has been shown to produce highly successful software many times, e.g. Linux, Firefox and WordPress to name just a few.

We can do better than these voting machine companies, and we must, because there's no better solution to many of our issues than using an open election system.

(5) Integrity of voting machines not verified before and after every election. The Government Accountability board conducts periodic audits of a random selection of machines, but that won't detect a singular instance of an issue. Nor will the audits detect widespread issues that were created and manifested between audits. Even still, the GAB doesn't post the results of the audits, just the municipalities in which the audits took place. The GAB should be required to post the results of their audits. These audits are helpful, but they aren't sufficient for detecting all likely issues with our voting machines.

The integrity of a machine can only be inspected during a recount if a candidate requests permission from the GAB, and as long as they sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement s.5.905(4). This process should be automatic for every machine for every election, regardless of the closeness, because that's the only way we can have any hope to guarantee any amount of security, accuracy and reliability. Simply "matching numbers" during canvassing will not uncover many possible issues with our voting machines. So we need a process to ensure every machine is counting votes as accurately as possible during an election.

Verifying the integrity of a voting machine after an election includes making sure that the software currently on the machine is the software that actually counted the votes. Wisconsin Statue 5.905(3) states that "the verification procedure shall include a determination that the software components correspond to the instructions actually used by the system to count votes." However, the GAB may not have enough information or there just may not be any possible way to determine if the software instructions in a particular machine were the actual instructions used to count the votes in an election. I can't find any details as to how the GAB would make such a determination. If we solve (4) this issue becomes much easier to solve.

There are several ways to determine the accuracy of a voting machine without verifying its integrity, although the integrity is the ultimate test. Municipalities employ a simple pre-election test of running a predetermined set of votes through a machine and verifying that the counts match. It wouldn't be difficult to write software to pass the pre-election test but still manipulate the vote counts later. At the very least, this same test must be run on every machine after an election as well as before. However, without verifying the integrity of a machine or running a hand recount, there's no way to guarantee that the results from a machine match the actual votes.

As for recounts, there's really no point to a recount if each machine isn't inspected for its integrity, because the device should give back very near the same results a second time whether the device was manipulated or not. Fortunately, there are some hand recounts occurring throughout the state, but not nearly enough to provide information beyond most glaring types of discrepancies. Since recounts are meant to try to determine the actual vote count, why don't we at least inspect every machine automatically before proceeding with a recount? Otherwise, we're just another example of the classic definition of insanity, continuing to do the same thing but expecting different results.

(6) Various vote-tallying processes are not open. I already mentioned the issues with the closed vote-tallying processes within our voting equipment in (4). Here, I'm referring to vote-tallying process outside of our voting equipment. This GAB manual for county clerks says, "The counting of votes is always done publicly after the polls close at 8:00 p.m." (their emphasis) If the counting of votes is always done publicly, we would have found out about the Waukesha County error much sooner. So, this law is clearly not being enforced properly, and the GAB felt it necessary to emphasize "publicly" to officials who presumably should know that very well.

As evidenced by my reporting on the ballot bag issues, the availability of information during the Prosser/Kloppenburg recount was scarce. Yes, there was a live stream of the Waukesha County recount, but they're not the only county in Wisconsin. And even with the live stream we couldn't figure out exactly how many ballot bags had discrepancies and where they're from. There was no mention of the issues with the ballot bags on the GAB website, even though at the very least the Journal Sentinel, The CapTimes and WisPolitics had reported the issues.

Every county in Wisconsin should have a live stream of vote-tallying and machine verification. Though, even then, few of us have time to intently watch a single county. So, there should be a live stream of each county with the ability to look back at previously streamed events. There would be very little cost but a huge increase in election transparency. The cost could be further reduced by using third-party sites such as YouTube.

Any disputed ballots during a recount should be scanned and posted online for everyone in Wisconsin to see as they were in 2008 during the Minnesota recount for the U.S. Senate election between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. We should see what causes errors, so that we can learn from those ballots. Also, it makes the process much more transparent with very little extra effort. In fact, some voting machines take "photos" of ballots, and those photos could be quickly cropped appropriately and posted for all to see. We have online banking, why not "online" recounts?

(7) Ease and likelihood of errors in reporting. This was thought to only pertain to Waukesha County, but it also happened (on a slightly smaller scale) in Winnebago County during the Prosser/Kloppenburg recount. Therefore, it's probably just as likely in the rest of Wisconsin. This issue is not as serious if the previous six issues are resolved. However, until then, errors in reporting will continue to exacerbate the concerns we have.

(8) Voting equipment and software is not uniform across Wisconsin. We should have a standard set of strict vote-tallying processes and one standard set of voting machines, i.e., at most a few touch-screen machines and one paper ballot-tallying machine. Variation creates unnecessary complexity and cost, and complexity increases the chances of an error. We could reduce a lot of the learning curve involved in voting as well as the cost to train staff, volunteers and maintain the equipment. Obviously, I believe that we should standardize around a set of open voting machines.


We must seek real solutions to relevant issues by determining the best way to solve these issues. I for one won't be able to trust an election in Wisconsin until issues 1-6 are fixed, and I hope you feel just as worried.

Are There Real Solutions?

So what are some possible solutions? There's at least one very beneficial and realistic solution to many of these issues. Voting equipment whose hardware design and software is owned and controlled by the people of Wisconsin, i.e., open source, would be much more secure and instill much more voter confidence than any proprietary equipment ever could. We asked for nearly this back in 2005 via AB 627, but the bill was amended to remove the half-hearted provision before the bill was passed. Those who control our elections want desperately for it to stay that way, but it's not what's good for us. We will end up choosing this option at some point. So why not now?

Standardizing open voting equipment across the entire state of Wisconsin would provide greater benefits over those from standardizing over proprietary equipment. The learning curve for voters would be reduced, because everyone would use the same user-friendly and accessible system. Reporting of votes would be faster and less prone to error. The cost of maintaining and approving voting equipment would be drastically reduced. Many other costs at both the state and municipality level would be reduced. We would know exactly how secure and accurate our voting equipment is. There would be no doubt, because anyone could inspect the code. That also means that more people can help improve the system. There are valid reasons against complete homogeneous standardization, but that debate is for a later time.

I realize that I'm glossing over quite a few major details here. It's not guaranteed that the first, or even tenth..., version will be user-friendly and accessible. Over time it will no doubt improve, but by beginning with effective guidelines and true experts, the first version could easily be much more user-friendly and accessible than we've come to expect from our voting machines. This also applies to the costs of developing such a set of systems. Successful open source projects gain momentum quickly when they're driven by knowledgeable and thoughtful leaders. The more knowledgeable people who contribute to the project the less taxpayers will end up having to pay. I have no doubt that such a project would create more than enough enthusiasm from capable people in Wisconsin. We can do it, other less wealthy countries have successfully done this.

I also realize that converting to an open system can't happen overnight, but a deadline should have been set a long time ago and needs to be set now. I don't know how much it would cost the state to implement and convert to such a system, but it's clear we need to replace at the very least the unmaintainable equipment, and it's quite possible the conversion would cost less than the full cost of implementing and enforcing voter suppression with photo ID.

There's a very good chance we could partner with other states to share the burden of development. There would be no reason not to. These tough economic times add to the value of governments working together and sharing the software code they run on. Also, various other municipalities, states, organizations and countries have either begun or completed open source election systems that we could implement as is or modify to our desires. So, I believe converting to an open election system should be one of the top priorities in fixing our elections (if not the top priority).

I'd like to have a discussion about the relevant issues with our elections and possible real solutions. Any other suggestions for solving some of these issues? Any other issues I'm not listing? Is there anything I could clarify? Did I increase your concern?

Please, contact your state representatives and tell them why you're concerned with the security and accuracy of our voting equipment, not voter fraud. They won't do anything unless we demand it.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Recount Complete Except Waukesha County

Every county in Wisconsin has completed their recount except Waukesha County. Now, I'm not going to complain that they're taking too much time, because I think it's reprehensible that people want our officials to conduct such an important recount quickly. Mistakes will happen when you try to rush things, so why rush this recount? Of course we don't want them to drag on without reason either, which is why an extension must be sought through the courts.

Still, as I've explained before, we don't have enough information to believe most of the vote counts that have been submitted to the GAB. Since our officials have made it clear that they're not concerned with our confidence, we need a proper and thorough investigation.

We shouldn't be hearing about unsealed ballot bags from bloggers or anyone else. It's absolutely ridiculous that some people are simply shrugging these issues off saying that they happen all the time and probably happen in other counties. What?! Ballot bags are ripped open all over Wisconsin, and no one seems to care? Not only could votes be added, but they could be lost. How does anyone know that votes didn't fall out of the bags at some point? We don't.

It's not as if our officials haven't been given enough time to clarify unresolved issues. We expected every county in Wisconsin to finish their recount yesterday. Why are we, today, still fighting to get clarification on simple issues such as how a computer can lose election results? This all feels so surreal.

We must seek out the issues in our elections, because such issues are inherently buried by their perpetrators, and then we must fix them.

So, I'll say it again, if the recount ends (May 26th) without the start of a proper investigation, I will rightly denounce the validity of the winner's victory every chance I can.

Proper Investigation Required in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

Regardless of who wins, we can't believe most of the vote counts provided to the GAB for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, because there are so many unresolved and unexplained issues. There's no certainty in any of the counts from vote counting machines, because we know they rarely count votes correctly and are easily manipulated. Once one begins to also consider the issues with insecure ballot bags, one realizes just how unclear the results of the recount are.

The Kloppenburg campaign has the burden of showing that something improper occurred, but with very little information, and officials refusing to provide further information*, that will be very difficult to show. Unfortunately, there isn't much proof that something improper didn't occur. So, unless a thorough investigation is conducted, we won't know what to believe.

I wrote more on this here, including how Minnesota properly conducted a statewide recount in 2008.

However, I want to be sure this point is heard loud and clear: Unless we get more clarity, there's no reason to believe the results of this election and its recount.

If the recount ends (May 26th) without the start of a proper investigation, I will rightly denounce the validity of the winner's victory every chance I can. I vow to do this whether the winner is Prosser or Kloppenburg, because I just want to know the truth, and I will have no qualms congratulating the winner once the true winner is determined.

*This has gotten so bad that it's really starting to beg the questions: Why aren't we getting clarity from the officials responsible for doing so? What possible motives could someone have for withholding such information?

Alarming Lack of Clarity in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Recount

I hammered away for days if not weeks after the election, demanding a recount, so that we could have some confidence in the election results. Given the issues with our computer election equipment, which were brought to light by the fiasco in Waukesha County, there's not a single person who can say all of the vote counts throughout Wisconsin are correct. The only counts we can say are correct are those that were hand counted, but that occurred in only parts of 31 of our 72 counties (and a few that don't have machines). Even then, with unresolved ballot bag issues, there may be reason to suspect some hand recounts.

So many questions have gone unanswered (which causes more questions given this is all supposed to be transparent) from why election software can lose votes to why ballot bags are left so insecurely. Some issues get explained, but such issues never seem to be the ones we're concerned about. I don't understand why the people who are supposed to be explaining these things to us continue to refuse to do so. There's no reason they can't quickly address the issues to increase our confidence, especially given all of the suspicions. This recount isn't giving us any confirmation that the election was open, fair and clean, but that's what recounts are supposed to be for.

In 2008, the nation witnessed how a recount is properly conducted. The Minnesota recount in Senator Al Franken's election was entirely a hand recount and issues were resolved out in the open. In fact, the recount was broadly reported on, and they even posted all disputed ballots online for all to see. No one could say at the end of that recount that Franken didn't win.

Unfortunately, we won't have the same confidence in this recount. What's worse, whoever wins sits for ten years. With so much at stake, and so many questions, why the heck aren't we properly and transparently conducting this recount for all to see?

I'm grateful that Waukesha County is live streaming their recount, but I don't understand why this wasn't setup for every county. There's little time and expense in setting up such a live stream, but it provides a large increase in transparency and confidence in our elections. For example, the public knows about most of the ballot bag issues simply because one concerned Wisconsinite has been watching the live stream quite intently. How many other counties had issues with ballot bags that we don't know about because those counties' recounts weren't streamed online? It's a shame that we use computers to count votes, but still live in the dark ages when it comes to recounts.

Sure the issues with ballot bags are great for news stories and conspiracy theories, and there really may be lost or improper votes from those bags, but the real problems lie with the fact that our vote counting machines could very well be counting our votes incorrectly. It doesn't take a conspiracy for thousands of votes somewhere in Wisconsin to have been incorrectly counted. This issue hasn't been addressed or resolved.

By the way, the new tally from the recount brings more suspicion by itself. I bring this up again because we have so little information to work with. Since we presume Prosser has more votes than Kloppenburg, he should also have a majority of new votes from the recount. However, so far, Kloppenburg is leading the new votes by quite a large margin (548-296). It's not proof of issues with the vote count, but it can be a red flag. Unless this wide margin doesn't hold or is explained, it's additional cause for concern that the vote counts somewhere are incorrect.

I'm going to say this completely factual statement now in the hopes that we get some more clarity. Unless we get more clarity, there's no reason to believe the results of this election and its recount.

If the recount ends (May 26th) without the start of a proper investigation, I will rightly denounce the validity of the winner's victory every chance I can.

Serious Questions In Supreme Court Election Recount

Some serious questions are being asked in Waukesha County during the recount for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. This morning, the Kloppenburg campaign objected to the counting of votes from six "improperly sealed" ballot bags from the City of Brookfield, the city whose votes were presumably not counted by Kathy Nickolaus on election night because of computer error. Unbelievable!

Even though the Kloppenburg campaign objected, those in charge pressed to count the votes. Amidst strong opposition, the retired judge appointed to temporarily take Nickolaus's place allowed the Kloppenburg campaign representative to question the Brookfield City Clerk on the record first. However, the judge abruptly stopped the questioning before the clerk had answered all of the questions.

If there were ballot bags in Wisconsin that needed to be handled with more care than others, it's the ballot bags from Brookfield. I'm absolutely shocked, and it's evident that a real investigation of Waukesha County must occur. What's worse, many people (including Prosser) say these issues are normal. Such carelessness with our elections is inexcusable!

There's video, transcript and more analysis written by the DailyKos's great Giles Goat Boy here. A copy of his transcript of the questioning follows:

JK Representative: To your knowledge were the bags secure while you, while they were in your possession?

Schmidt: Yes they were and…we keep them in a locked vault until they’re taken to the county. It’s always a problem with sealing these. They have one hole in the bag. Unfortunately when you just fold them over, if you have too many in there, you can see how they will tear when you pick them up like this.

JK Representative: These weren’t torn, Kris, they were open…

Schmidt: I understand, but they will also come apart. If you take a look at that. When you see the ones we do in the absentee canvas, I seal them and…I actually punch holes and weave something in there. This is a training experience for me to tell my co-workers. I guarantee you these ballots were put in and not tampered…with…until they left my…city hall and were taken to the county and I’m sure the same situation was there.

JK Representative: Can I ask, who other than you has access to the vault?

Schmidt: To the vault? My staff. Other people can go in but I guarantee you we are not friendly after an election. They don’t come and visit us.

(After some crosstalk, the Prosser reps ask a couple softball questions, then the judge continues)

Judge Mawdsley: Ok, all right why don’t you do this…you can ask the clerk questions on the side if...(unintelligible)

JK Representative: I’d like to get this on record, though. After you’ve taken them into your possession, they’re stored in the vault. There’s another step, though before they arrive here, is there not?

Schmidt: Yes

JK Representative: Would you go over those steps?

Schmidt: Essentially they usually put them – the fellows from the highway department, which most clerks use to transport things – put them in boxes and them bring them in to the county. And that’s done the next day. I think we left ours…(unintelligible)...we left ours about 3 o’clock in the afternoon to go to the county.

JK Representative: And do you know what happens to them when they arrive at the county?

Schmidt: Actually, not. I think they had to call… (waves her hand dismissively at the questioner) You can’t expect (unintelligible)…

Judge Mawdsley: OK. That’s enough for now, you can talk to the clerk on your own…(unintelligible)

Why Is Prosser Still Complaining About the Recount?

Even though there have been significant issues in Waukesha County and around the state including torn ballot bags and missing seals/labels, the Prosser campaign has set up a ridiculous website* which calls the recount a "disaster". The only thing that could be called a disaster in this recount is Wisconsin's elections.

They shouldn't be complaining about a very useful service to the people of Wisconsin, because they want to spend a lot more money yearly on the Voter Suppression Bill, which will absolutely not solve any problems.

The only reason to be against this recount is to prevent us from learning the true vote count and the truth about our elections. I find it really odd that only a few weeks ago, Prosser's campaign rightly said they were open to a recount. Only more issues have surfaced since then. Why question the recount now?

Not only that, but Prosser's website makes you believe that Kloppenburg's campaign has taken away 148 votes by displaying it as "-148". However, the number 148 doesn't reflect removed Prosser votes, it mostly reflects votes that weren't originally counted, just like the 7,000 some that Prosser claims gives him the lead. This website is not fitting of a local politician much less a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice.

The website asks you to "Preserve the Prosser Victory." See, that's where the problem lies. Kloppenburg isn't asking for a recount to take away Prosser's supposed lead. Kloppenburg's goal is to help us determine the true vote count, because we know the "official" count is not correct. Asking people to preserve your victory in an election recount is asking people to say you've won regardless of the truth.

Prosser's campaign should remove this website and start spending money to preserve our elections - not anyone's victory.

I'd like to have an effective discussion about the real issues in our elections. I've compiled a list of the significant issues that we've seen during this election as well as ideas for solving the issues here. I'll continue to add to the list if more issues come to light.

*This is the website: www.kloppenburgometer.com. Thanks to illusory tenant for spotting it!

What Can the Recount Tally Changes Tell Us?

There's one critical piece of information that I'm paying careful attention to in the recount for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, the updated vote tallies. The changes to the election results from the recount are not only important because they tell us who presumably is the winner, but they *should* also confirm the winner.

There appears to be at least 8 issues with the chain of custody of ballots in Waukesha County such as torn ballot bags and missing seals/labels. So there's definitely ways in which those ballots could have been modified. Of course, the media reported the issues with the ballot bags in the first few days of the recount, but there's been no mention of the more recent issues or how any of the issues were resolved. The GAB also hasn't explained the resolution of these ballot bag issues or even acknowledged many others. This is very concerning, because the whole idea behind the recount was to get to the bottom of issues, not to continue hiding them.

So, how can we tell if there are unresolved issues with the election results? Theoretically, and with a large enough amount of votes, the distribution of changes in results should match the final distribution of results. That is, if Prosser has a majority of the overall votes, he should also receive the majority of newly-counted votes. So if, say, Prosser retains the lead in the overall results when the recount is complete, but Kloppenburg received a majority of the newly-counted votes, then there is reasonable concern to doubt the vote tallies from one or more precincts.

This is particularly true if there is an unexplained wide gap between the two distributions and is a result of the mathematics of probability. If Prosser has a majority of the overall results when the recount is complete, but didn't receive a majority of the newly-counted votes, we could have a problem. It wouldn't be proof that an unresolved issue exists, but it would be a bright red flag.

So where do things stand now? Well, Kloppenburg is leading 437 to 140 in the newly-counted votes. That's 50% of the newly-counted votes going to Kloppenburg which is also 75% of the newly-counted votes cast between Kloppenburg and Prosser. If the recount were complete, these numbers would be cause for concern. However, I must stress that the latest numbers from the GAB are unofficial, and we can't make any judgements until almost all counties complete the recount (if we can at all before the full recount is complete). Also, this technique won't always uncover issues and it may imply issues when none exist, so we must carefully make judgements when using it.

Still, since we're getting very little information from the GAB and the news media, I thought I'd share this bit of helpful information now rather than later. If the distribution of results continue the way they are currently, we're going to want a strong argument for further investigation.

Kloppenburg Gains 148 Votes In Recount

Kloppenburg has gained 148 votes in the recount so far, but few people know it. There's been very little media coverage of the recount for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Which is odd given all of the issues, some potentially very serious, seen thus far. How are we the people of Wisconsin supposed to know everything has been handled correctly? The GAB hasn't specifically addressed any of the issues seen thus far, and no one seems to be asking them to.

Some people may want the media to stay silent, because they'd like us to continue feeling a false sense of security, but we already know how fragile our elections are. Now more issues have been exposed, and the GAB continues to stay silent?

Hopefully, Waukesha County isn't an indicator of how messed up our elections are in other counties, but I wonder how it couldn't be.

Thanks to Giles Goat Boy at DailyKos for watching the Waukesha County recount live stream so carefully and keeping us all up to date!

PolitiFact Wisconsin Barking Up The Wrong Tree

So, PolitiFact Wisconsin has gotten into the "recount is not warranted" mix by again writing an article that doesn't belong on such a website. You can't claim something is "Barely True" just because the person saying it doesn't cite enough convincing evidence for you.

They aren't convinced that the Kloppenburg campaign gave enough evidence of "legitimate and widespread anomalies." Did they even think to consider that the Kloppenburg campaign wouldn't necessarily release information related to possible criminal activity? If you're going to state whether something is true or not, you have to do the research.

When will we get a legitimate PolitiFact Wisconsin that includes at least one other organization?

I've assembled a list of the issues we've encountered during this election which are reasons to demand a recount and an impartial investigation. I will continue to add to the list as more legitimate issues come to light. Anyone who claims these don't warrant a recount in such a close election, or really any election, wants to keep secrets from the people of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Elections Demand Real Solutions

Over the last few weeks we've has seen how easily large amounts of our votes can be manipulated or inadvertently changed. We've seen how the one agency in charge of ensuring our elections are fair, the Government Accountability Board, is just as involved in the issues as Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus. Experts agree that it doesn't take a conspiracy to swing thousands of votes, just one person. We must demand to know how our votes are counted and that they're counted accurately and securely. Even many conservatives are questioning the integrity of our system. It's time we get a real investigation and real solutions.

Instead, the Republicans are planning to rush through what can be described as a Voter Suppression Bill (AB 7) in May. It will require everyone to show only certain types of ID and reduce the number of people who can actually vote in our elections. They want to pass this before the recall elections. I really don't want to know why, because the truth is too gruesome in this case. Not only that, but the bill will cost Wisconsin taxpayers yearly more than the current recount will.

Many conservatives are furious over the cost of the recount, but they should be furious over this bill which attempts to solve a problem that has added at most 20 improper votes to the last few elections. Voter fraud is not a major issue. The fact that Kathy Nickolaus or nearly anyone else could easily add 14,000 or more improper votes is the real issue that we all should be furious over.

These are the issues that we've seen so far in this election:

• Large discrepancies in reporting from Waukesha and Winnebago counties
• Some of our voting equipment is antiquated and can no longer be maintained
• The GAB wrote the software that caused the reporting error in Waukesha County, and that software isn't publicly available
• There have now been at least five ballot bags with discrepancies: four from Waukesha County (DailyKos: 2 from Delafield and 1 from Brookfield and 1 from Genesee) and one from Dane County. Whether these are a real issue or not remains to be seen.
• The official Waukesha County tally missed five absentee ballots - only four have been accounted for
• There are now reports of torn ballot bags in Waukesha County.
• Other posts on Brad Blog and DailyKos have documented other issues. (I don't have time to dig through all of those issues yet, but when I do, I'll update my list here.)

Note that the most likely reason why we know of more issues in Waukesha County is because we actually have a live stream of the recount in Waukesha County.


Our most pressing problems contributing to the above issues or their concerns:

1. Ballot security and integrity
2. Antiquated voting equipment
3. Insecure and inaccurate voting equipment
4. Voting equipment hardware design and software not owned and controlled by the people of Wisconsin
5. The integrity of every voting machine isn't verified before and after every election
6. Various vote-tallying processes are not open
7. Ease and likelihood of errors in reporting
8. Voting equipment and software is not uniform across the state

(1) Ballot security and integrity. Up until now, I thought this stuff was pretty well straightened out. So I haven't had much time to learn about the process and the potential ramifications of our current issues, but one thing is for sure, we can't get anything else right until we can be sure our paper ballots are secure. I'll post more on this as I learn more and as events unfold.

(2) Antiquated voting equipment. It's clear that at least one approved model of our voting equipment, the Optech Eagle, is antiquated and must be removed from service. Although, I will say that I believe it's good that the issue forced a hand recount in parts of the state instead of simply re-feeding the ballots back through the same machines for a recount. This model should be replaced quickly, though the following issues may warrant some delay. A full review of all our voting equipment should occur first.

(3) Insecure and inaccurate voting equipment. Our electronic voting equipment is insecure and inaccurate, but you're not supposed to know that. The very equipment we use to cast and count votes can be manipulated without detection in seconds, swinging the results by any number of votes. There's not a single computer or security expert that would argue with that. However, even if we all were angels, our vote-tallying machines rarely count the exact number of votes. These are inevitable consequences of using electronics to cast and count our votes. Unfortunately, the design of our electronic voting machines and their margins of error are secrets kept tightly by their manufacturers. So we have no way of knowing just how insecure and inaccurate our machines are (more on this in (4)).

Quite near anyone with the knowledge to write moderately sophisticated computer programs can manipulate a voting machine and its vote tally in literally seconds. That's well into the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in Wisconsin with that ability. Not at any other point in our country's history do so many people have such an ability to swing elections so dramatically. It really does take some time to stop and consider.

No one has any "bullet-proof" solutions to this problem, and it's likely we never will. If we want to count votes using electronic equipment, and I for one think it's a "good thing," we must have verifiable guarantees of voting machine security and accuracy. We don't have that now, and we almost certainly won't have that until we solve (4).

There are other issues regarding accuracy specific to the voting machines we use. A GAB memo from December 2009 shows that there were several issues with voting machines that we currently use in many parts of Wisconsin. An error message "error while printing" occurred 15% of the time during a test of the AutoMARK VAT. This was due to a malfunction in the system which required replacement, and the replacement had similar non-tallying related issues about 5% of the time. Such errors can cause inaccuracies, and they can also cause voter disenfranchisement as voters may be told to come back later or may have to wait for an excessive period of time.

The AutoMARK VAT is used as an option for voters with disabilities in many municipalities across Wisconsin. However, the GAB memo says that the testing by the GAB and testing by the Wisconsin Election Administration Council shows that

"The AutoMARK VAT does not provide full privacy and independence for voters with disabilities, especially voters with dexterity or motor disabilities, as voters may need assistance inserting the ballot, removing the ballot and placing the ballot in the ballot box or tabulator."

The Wisconsin Election Administration Council had even more to say. The memo notes several issues including vision-impaired voters won't be able to verify their vote, inadvertent steps that cause a cancellation of votes, the device doesn't meet 2005 US-EAC guidelines, "it takes longer to cast a ballot with the AutoMARK than manually marking the ballot with a marking device," and screen reading difficulties. Yet the AutoMARK VAT was approved by the GAB for Wisconsin voters with disabilities. The GAB said, "The ES&S voting system technically meets" the requirement of a voter to privately verify their votes. The GAB later notes in a bordered paragraph,

"The AutoMARK voting systems for which approval is being sought, do not change the degree of accessibility currently provided by previously approved AutoMARK systems."

I'm appalled that so many of our voting machines do "not provide full privacy and independence for voters with disabilities," and that the GAB would approve such a machine. Are we that desperate for voting equipment?

Another machine mentioned in the memo with issues regarding its ease of use is the intElect DS200. It may not be immediately clear that these issues are issues with accuracy. Any time a voter's intention doesn't get correctly included in the official results, the system is inaccurate. The more difficult a machine is to use, the less accurate it will be.

Similar touch-screen machines continue to have worrisome issues in other states as well. In the midterm election this past November, a touch-screen voting machine in Pennsylvania began casting votes for the opposite candidate from the one selected by the voter, and the machine required "recalibration" to resolve. We don't use the same machine here, but the same manufacturer, ES&S. So there's good reason to suspect the same issues can and may have happened here. Luckily for us, all of our touch-screens mark or print a paper ballot, but most people expect the machines won't make a mistake. So they may not properly inspect the results before casting their vote and walking away.

The GAB incorrectly states on their website "Adminstrative(sp) Code Chapter 5 Ballot and Electronic Voting Equipment Security insures all electronic voting systems used in Wisconsin are accurate and reliable." This is plain false, and it provides a false sense of security to those voters who aren't aware of the issues. I don't believe we will ever fully be able to insure electronic voting systems are accurate and reliable, but I believe we could publicly guarantee much higher security, accuracy and reliability if we solved issue (4).

Wisconsin does have some of the best electronic voting machine laws in the country, but they're far from perfect. What's worse is that at any time the GAB can exempt a machine from complying with Wisconsin law. The GAB can exempt a voting machine from Wisconsin law if they choose, or as they say, "for good cause" GAB 7.03(5). I don't see how exempting a voting machine from Wisconsin law is a good idea at any time for any reason.

(4) Voting equipment design not owned by the people of Wisconsin. When I say that the people of Wisconsin should own the designs for our voting equipment I mean that the hardware designs and the software source code should be open, i.e., in the public domain. I'll elaborate more on this in the solutions section later, but I'll briefly cover some highlights and comparisons now.

The manufacturers of our voting machines will never provide us with the information and control we need to conduct our elections in the most fair, open and transparent way. The people who run our elections, like your county clerk, have no control or idea of what's going on inside our voting machines. (They can, but I'm not sure who's gone through the trouble s.5.905(5).) It doesn't appear as though anyone from the state government or the Wisconsin public has inspected the code or designs of these machines. We're just expected to have blind faith in these systems, but we know the manufacturers can't and/or won't solve all of their problems.

Currently, certain portions of the software for every electronic voting machine model approved for use in Wisconsin is stored in an escrow s.5.905(2). It's unclear if every software version in use is stored in the escrow, and we have no way of knowing how much of any particular software is stored. The GAB most likely knows the exact components, but they don't make the information available on their website as they should. This escrow provision is meant to make us feel better about the insecure proprietary software, but it does little or nothing to increase the security of our voting equipment. We need all of the software components at the very least, and even that won't provide us with the security, accuracy and reliability that we could achieve with open voting equipment.

Even if the manufacturers gave public access to the design and software of their voting machines, we won't get the full value of an open system if the hardware designs and software source code aren't in the public domain. We wouldn't necessarily be able to ensure the integrity of a voting machine simply because we have that information, because the machine itself may have certain vulnerabilities we would have very little ability to control. If all we can do is look at the designs and code, and we're not be given the ability to implement modifications, what happens if we want to make a change but the manufacturer wouldn't agree to it? That's unacceptable and completely avoidable.

There are many advantages to creating an open election system, and I'll defer talking in detail about those for the solutions section. One of the most beneficial advantages of using an open election system is the amount of people who can inspect the design and code to ensure the utmost security and accuracy, anyone who would want to could. This doesn't make the machine less secure, because there will always be ways to "hack" a machine. Instead, vulnerabilities and issues can be spotted and resolved more quickly, including right on the spot by county clerks or other officials (through appropriate processes of course). This openness has been shown to produce highly successful software many times, e.g. Linux, Firefox and WordPress to name just a few.

We can do better than these companies, and we must, because there's no better solution to many of our issues than using an open election system.

(5) Integrity of voting machines not verified before and after every election. The Government Accountability board conducts periodic audits of a random selection of machines, but that won't detect a singular instance of an issue. Nor will the audits detect widespread issues that were created and manifested between audits. Even still, the GAB doesn't post the results of the audits, just the municipalities in which the audits took place. The GAB should be required to post the results of their audits. These audits are helpful, but they aren't sufficient for detecting all likely issues with our voting machines.

The integrity of a machine can only be inspected during a recount if a candidate requests permission from the GAB, and as long as they sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement s.5.905(4). This process should be automatic for every machine for every election, regardless of the closeness, because that's the only way we can have any hope to guarantee any amount of security, accuracy and reliability. Simply "matching numbers" during canvassing will not uncover many possible issues with our voting machines. So we need a process to ensure every machine is counting votes as accurately as possible during an election.

Verifying the integrity of a voting machine after an election includes making sure that the software currently on the machine is the software that actually counted the votes. Wisconsin Statue 5.905(3) states that "the verification procedure shall include a determination that the software components correspond to the instructions actually used by the system to count votes." However, the GAB may not have enough information or there just may not be any possible way to determine if the software instructions in a particular machine were the actual instructions used to count the votes in an election. I can't find any details as to how the GAB would make such a determination. If we solve (4) this issue becomes much easier to solve.

There are several ways to determine the accuracy of a voting machine without verifying its integrity, although the integrity is the ultimate test. Municipalities employ a simple pre-election test of running a predetermined set of votes through a machine and verifying that the counts match. It wouldn't be difficult to write software to pass the pre-election test but still manipulate the vote counts later. At the very least, this same test must be run on every machine after an election as well as before. However, without verifying the integrity of a machine or running a hand recount, there's no way to guarantee that the results from a machine match the actual votes.

As for recounts, there's really no point to a recount if each machine isn't inspected for its integrity, because the device should give back very near the same results a second time whether the device was manipulated or not. Fortunately, there are some hand recounts occurring throughout the state, but not nearly enough to provide information beyond most glaring types of discrepancies. Since recounts are meant to try to determine the actual vote count, why don't we at least inspect every machine automatically before proceeding with a recount? Otherwise, we're just another example of the classic definition of insanity, continuing to do the same thing but expecting different results.

(6) Various vote-tallying processes are not open. I already mentioned the issues with the closed vote-tallying processes within our voting equipment in (4). Here, I'm referring to vote-tallying process outside of our voting equipment. This GAB manual for county clerks says, "The counting of votes is always done publicly after the polls close at 8:00 p.m." (their emphasis) If the counting of votes is always done publicly, we would have found out about the Waukesha County error much sooner. So, this law is clearly not being enforced properly, and the GAB felt it necessary to emphasize publicly to officials who presumably should know that very well.

As evidenced by my reporting on the ballot bag issues, the availability of information during this recount is scarce. Yes, there is a live stream of the Waukesha County recount, but they're not the only county in Wisconsin. And even with the live stream we can't figure out exactly how many ballot bags have discrepancies and where they're from. There's no mention of the issues with the ballot bags on the GAB website, even though at the very least the Journal Sentinel, The CapTimes and WisPolitics have reported the issues.

Every county in Wisconsin should have a live stream, at least the counties doing hand recounts. Though, even then, few of us have time to intently watch the Waukesha County recount. So, there should be a live stream of each county with the ability to look back at previously streamed events. There would be very little cost but a huge increase in election transparency. The cost could be further reduced by using third-party sites such as YouTube.

Any disputed ballots should be scanned and posted online for everyone in Wisconsin to see as they were in 2008 during the Minnesota recount for the U.S. Senate election between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. We should see what causes errors, so that we can learn from those ballots. Also, it makes the process much more transparent with very little extra effort. In fact, some voting machines take "photos" of ballots, and those photos could be quickly cropped appropriately and posted for all to see. We have online banking, why not an "online" recount?

(7) Ease and likelihood of errors in reporting. This was thought to only pertain to Waukesha County, but it also happened (on a slightly smaller scale) in Winnebago County. Therefore, it's probably just as likely in the rest of Wisconsin. This issue is not as serious if the previous six issues are resolved. However, until then, errors in reporting will continue to exacerbate the concerns we have.

(8) Voting equipment and software is not uniform across Wisconsin. We should have a standard set of strict vote-tallying processes and one standard set of voting machines, i.e., at most a few touch-screen machines and one paper ballot-tallying machine. Variation creates unnecessary complexity and cost, and complexity increases the chances of an error. We could reduce a lot of the learning curve involved in voting as well as the cost to train staff, volunteers and maintain the equipment. Obviously, I believe that we should standardize around a set of open voting machines.


We must seek real solutions to relevant issues by determining the best way to solve these issues. I for one won't be able to trust an election in Wisconsin until issues 1-6 are fixed, and I hope you feel just as worried.

Are There Real Solutions?

So what are some possible solutions? There's at least one very beneficial and realistic solution to many of these issues. Voting equipment whose hardware design and software is owned and controlled by the people of Wisconsin, i.e., open source, would be much more secure and instill much more voter confidence than any proprietary equipment ever could. We asked for nearly this back in 2005 via AB 627, but the bill was amended to remove the half-hearted provision before the bill was passed. Those who control our elections want desperately for it to stay that way, but it's not what's good for us. We will end up choosing this option at some point. So why not now?

Standardizing open voting equipment across the entire state of Wisconsin would provide greater benefits over those from standardizing over proprietary equipment. The learning curve for voters would be reduced, because everyone would use the same user-friendly and accessible system. Reporting of votes would be faster and less prone to error. The cost of maintaining and approving voting equipment would be drastically reduced. Many other costs at both the state and municipality level would be reduced. We would know exactly how secure and accurate our voting equipment is. There would be no doubt, because anyone could inspect the code. That also means that more people can help improve the system. There are valid reasons against complete homogeneous standardization, but that debate is for a later time.

I realize that I'm glossing over quite a few major details here. It's not guaranteed that the first, or even tenth..., version will be user-friendly and accessible. Over time it will no doubt improve, but by beginning with effective guidelines and true experts, the first version could easily be much more user-friendly and accessible than we've come to expect from our voting machines. This also applies to the costs of developing such a set of systems. Successful open source projects gain momentum quickly when they're driven by knowledgeable and thoughtful leaders. The more knowledgeable people who contribute to the project the less tax payers will end up having to pay. I have no doubt that such a project would create more than enough enthusiasm from capable people in Wisconsin. We can do it, other less wealthy countries have successfully done this.

I also realize that converting to an open system can't happen overnight, but a deadline should have been set a long time ago and needs to be set now. I don't know how much it would cost the state to implement and convert to such a system, but it's clear we need to replace at the very least the unmaintainable equipment, and it's quite possible the conversion would cost less than the full cost of implementing and enforcing the Voter Suppression Bill.

There's a very good chance we could partner with other states to share the burden of development. There would be no reason not to. These tough economic times add to the value of governments working together and sharing the software code they run on. Also, various other municipalities, states, organizations and countries have either begun or completed open source election systems that we could implement as is or modify to our desires. So, I believe converting to an open election system should be one of the top priorities in fixing our elections (if not the top priority).

I'd like to have a discussion about the relevant issues with our elections and possible real solutions. Any other suggestions for solving some of these issues? Any other issues I'm not listing? Is there anything I could clarify? Did I increase your concern?

Please, contact your state representatives and tell them why you're concerned with the security and accuracy of our voting equipment. They won't do anything unless we demand it.

Updated: (April 29, 6:23am) Removed issue regarding a lack of paper trail for some machines, because the 2005 AB 627 bill was signed into law and requires a paper trail for all of our machines. I'm assuming for the moment that it covers machines that were already in service until I have more time to look into the law.

Update: (April 29, 5:31pm) I'm compiling a lot more information, including possible new discrepancies, and will be providing an update yet tonight.

Update: (April 30, 6:51am) Well it took a lot longer than I had hoped, but I finished the update. I was kindly shown by a few people how I wasn't clear on a few points, and with new information, I added a lot more to the post, clarifying and expanding upon my points. The post is quite a bit longer now, but I think it's necessary to be as clear as possible. I'll continue to work to make this post as clear and factual as possible, as well as including new issues if more come to light.

(Btw, this image in the right sidebar is now linked to this post.)

Update: (May 4, 5:38pm) Added information about torn ballot bags in Waukesha County from Giles Goat Boy.

Why Are Prosser Supporters Still Complaining About Recount

According to the Journal Sentinel, the Club for Growth has issued a statement against the recount for the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election. They say the Kloppenburg campaign wants "to invent reasons why Kloppenburg should be awarded thousands of phantom votes no one’s heard of yet; and to get in front of a judge willing to buy their arguments. Since a Dane County judge will likely decide, expecting this to work may not be stupid at all." They also posit if Kloppenburg can "steal a win."

It's as if they're trying to get ahead of some news they expect. The only reason to be against this recount is to prevent us from learning more. I find it really odd that only a few weeks ago, Prosser's campaign rightly said they were open to a recount. Nothing changed publicly since then. This all makes me quite confident that if anyone is trying to "steal this election" it's the Prosser campaign.

According to WisPolitics, there's already been two new discrepancies in Waukesha County. Wisconsin needs this recount, not just because of Kathy Nickolaus's suspicious behavior, not just because of the GAB's involvement in the Waukesha County error, not just because of other issues in the state, but also because Wisconsin hasn't seen a statewide recount in decades. Hopefully, a full investigation of our voting systems (if our leaders give us one) and a recount will give us some confidence.

You can watch a live stream of the recount in Waukesha County here.

Update: (April 29, 4:26pm) So, PolitiFact Wisconsin has gotten into the mix, again writing an article that doesn't belong on such a website. You can't claim something is "Barely True" just because the person saying it doesn't cite enough convincing evidence for you. Did they even think to consider that the Kloppenburg campaign wouldn't necessarily release information related to possible criminal activity? If you're going to state whether something is true or not, you have to do the research. When will we get a legitimate PolitiFact Wisconsin that includes at least one other organization?

STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote - Very Informative Documentary on Real Election System Issues

This week I learned of a very relevant, informative and entertaining documentary from 2008 that highlights many of the prominent issues with our modern election systems. I wanted to watch it before recommending it, but now that I have, I highly recommend this film, especially during this time when our knowledge can make a real difference. It's free to watch online. So why not make plans to watch the movie during the ugly weather this weekend, or watch it now. From the film, "It's time to wake up. What you stand to lose is everything."

The film has extraordinary reviews from many.

Some of the issues the documentary discusses are:

• Long lines
• Reporting irregularities
• Laws that are used to "rig elections"
• Silence of mainstream media on issues, leaving bloggers digging for information
• Voter disenfranchisement

But the documentary mainly focuses on issues with computer election systems. Most counties in Wisconsin have computers that, at a minimum, count our votes.

Some of the unresolved issues with computer election systems discussed:

• Errors inherit in computers and software, vote totals will nearly never match the true count exactly 
• Vote switching
• Secrecy by system producers
• Ease of changing vote counts without detection
• How computers make changing large amounts of votes much easier than changing large amounts of paper ballots

One of the key points I liked in the film came from a computer professional who works with banks and noted that we have much higher standards for software in banks than we do for the software that counts our votes.

The film then discusses many of the various anomalies with elections in the last decade and the need for hand recounts and paper trails. I believe that by law in Wisconsin all of our machines require a paper trail, but I'm not sure that the Optech Eagle (the machines that we lack memory for) does.

Election officials and computer security professionals are some of the experts whose testimony (some under oath) is included in the film.

There's clips from The Daily Show, and even a clip from Keith Olbermann. So progressives should find Stealing America even more entertaining.

The film contains some speculation, particularly with regard to the 2004 election, but the issues are real. The reason the speculation continues is because we don't get our relevant questions answered and the issues persist.

Here's the trailer:

Don't stop there. You can watch the film in its entirety for free at http://www.stealingamericathemovie.org/.

The more we know now, the better chance we have of actually fixing these issues for future elections. Some of these issues won't apply to us or everyone in Wisconsin, but most of them do.

I want to thank the film's producer Dorothy Fadiman for putting together such an informative documentary, making it available for free, and bringing it to my attention.


A world-renowned security expert, Bruce Schneier, has also written quite extensively on the issues with computer election systems. If you want more information, you will find his essays and op-eds on the subject very informative.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidates Agree To Hand Recount in 31 Counties

As I reported earlier, 31 Wisconsin counties don't have enough memory to run an electronic recount while preserving the data from the original count. The Government Accountability Board did in fact request permission to delete the data, which bewilders me. However, the candidates agreed in court to a hand recount in those 31 counties in order to preserve the vital original data. Only the parts of those counties that lack enough memory will undergo a hand recount.

The voting equipment in question is the Optech Eagle, and the needed memory cartridges are no longer manufactured. In the private sector, we get contracts that specify how long hardware will be manufactured, and we don't select hardware that can't be maintained for the desired length of time. The military also requires strict hardware contracts, stricter in most cases. So, it's not unusual to demand memory for the expected life of a machine, it's required in many situations. We definitely have some serious issues with our computer election systems in Wisconsin.

The Government Accountability Board lists very little information about our computer election systems on their website, but there doesn't appear to be any information on the Optech Eagle beyond which municipalities use it.

The candidates were right in agreeing to a hand recount, just as Kloppenburg was right for requesting a recount.

Kloppenburg Was Right To Request A Recount

Kloppenburg was right to request a recount. I don't know who wouldn't request a recount in such a close election. Wisconsin State law provides for a "free" recount when the result is this close. There's even a level in between "free" and having to fully finance a recount. Also, past elections do not necessarily predict future results. Just because most recounts in previous elections haven't changed the winner, it doesn't mean that there's any less of a chance of a recount unveiling a different winner. Mathematically, there's a much higher likelihood of the recount showing that Kloppenburg truly won than you winning the jackpot from that lottery ticket you bought earlier today.

However, as I've stated before, closeness shouldn't be the only reason to request a recount. There are many reasons that a reasonable person might think the official vote counts using tallies from the election computers are incorrect, because there are many ways for that to happen and the election computers in Waukesha County are extremely suspect. To my knowledge, the GAB didn't fully inspect their integrity - an example of the very little clarity in this situation. I'm not going to enumerate here all of the various questions and ways vote counts could be changed, because I've already posted more than enough times, and so have many other people. Kloppenburg shouldn't have been expected to make a decision to recount without more clarification about what happened in that county, and there are many reasons to think that a recount will uncover serious discrepancies in at least Waukesha County.

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus could have prevented a lot of criticism by simply telling the public about the error when she verified it occurred. It only hurt her by waiting, and I still can't understand why she did. Even still, Nickolaus had nearly two weeks to address the questions regarding her explanation, but she didn't once. Not only could Nickolaus have prevented criticism by offering further explanation, she may very well have prevented a recount by doing so. However, that isn't to say there aren't or may not be significant issues in other counties, but the lack of clarity in Waukesha and her refusal to offer any further details magnified the concerns that something could have happened there as well as other counties.

Republicans bring up issues with elections all of the time. Although they tend to focus on voter fraud. Voter fraud is easier to detect than computer errors and manipulations, but voter fraud hasn't been shown to be a factor. Republicans should be just as suspicious of what may have happened in Waukesha County and around the state, because any deliberate actions or incidental errors that change the count could easily be repeated in a Democratic controlled county unless we determine exactly what happened and put prevention measures in place. And who's to say something didn't happen in a Democratic controlled county? I argue that it's out of ignorance or selfishness that a Republican would deny there are real issues that require impartial investigation and a recount, because they yell so loudly about much smaller election issues.

Waukesha County was just one example of how computer errors can skew elections, and we don't even know exactly what happened there. People who say this recount is unwarranted and point to Waukesha County saying it's resolved are wrong, and you can tell by their weak statements. We don't know for sure the vote counts from any count match the actual vote counts. Nothing has been resolved in Waukesha County, and the Government Accountability Board (who may be suspect in this as well) is still not finished with their investigation.

In Kloppenburg's announcement of her request for a recount, she listed several other reasons to suspect that the official vote counts from other counties don't match the actual counts. From long lines to photo-copied ballots, we'll be given more details about these issues in the coming days. We must carefully examine the issues in all counties, because we want to ensure the integrity of our elections.

With the closeness of this election, the relevance of these anomalies increases. Every vote counts, but in wide elections, a few thousand votes don't change the outcome. They do in this election. We'd like to think anomalies always matter, and I argue they do, but people are reluctant to spend money to look into them unless they could potentially change the outcome. Since Kloppenburg requested a recount, we have a chance to determine what the issues are and hopefully fix them in future elections. This is how the recount can benefit the entire state of Wisconsin.

We need to know our elections are fair, accurate and secure, and the only way to determine that in this election is to do a statewide recount and investigate at the very least Waukesha County's system and processes. We need some clarity, we must ensure our elections are in fact fair, accurate and secure. Don't you want to be sure of that?

If Prosser is shown to be the true winner, I will be one of the first to congratulate him and his supporters. However, right now there's absolutely no proof that Prosser is the winner.

Update: (12:26pm) I just saw this at WisPolitics, and I didn't think to consider the recount wouldn't be a hand recount. At the very least, we need to inspect the way election computers are inspected and verified, but the only way we can know the true vote count is to do a hand count. There's no way around that fact.

Update: (3:32pm) Other people have noted that this recount will likely cost Kloppenburg a lot of money. However, she can accept donations for the recount to ensure the integrity of Wisconsin's elections on her website http://kloppenburgforjustice.com/.

Update: (4:10pm) The candidates have agreed to a hand recount in the 31 counties that didn't have the memory to run an electronic recount. This will go a long way in helping to ensure the vote-counting machines are accurate. Proving an electronic vote-counting machine can be inaccurate or potentially compromised is not difficult. If there are other suspicions, we must make them heard now.

JoAnne Kloppenburg Officially Requests A Recount and Full Investigation In Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

WisPolitics reports that the Government Accountability Board says the Kloppenburg campaign has officially requested a statewide recount.

Kloppenburg announced the request at about 4pm to very loud sustaining cheers and "thank you"s. She's also asking for a full investigation into Waukesha County.

Kloppenburg said there are "widespread anomalies and questions within Waukesha County and across the state." She listed the cities of Milwaukee and Racine as well as Waukesha County. She also mentioned issues with "long lines, photo-copied ballots" and the vote counts in the city of Fond du Lac and Winnebago County. Kloppenburg said these issues "necessitate a statewide recount," adding, "Wisconsin deserves to know the election was legitimate."

"A recount will have shined a necessary and appropriate light on an election that to so many people appears suspect."

Kloppenburg addressed the Prosser campaign saying that a recount is "frivolous" by saying, "My opponents don't want a recount and that surprises me. A recount benefits everybody." She later said, "It's called American democracy."

"If there is doubt we must remove it."

"Going forward we must make sure" there must be real change in the elections in Waukesha County. "We must have a full investigation by a trained independent investigator."

The Kloppenburg campaign is questioning certain communications between the GAB and the Waukesha County Clerk's office. They have submitted those communications to the GAB.

Kloppenburg responded to questions about the Prosser campaign saying a recount is "frivolous" by saying, "The Prosser campaign made threats."

To questions that the unions or anyone else has asked Kloppenburg to do this, she said it was "her decision" and "other people have tried to [stick] her with the unions." Kloppenburg reiterated that she has been an independent throughout the campaign and looks at the facts when making decisions. She said she "has been consistent throughout that we need to do what the law says. And the law says we need a recount."

The reactions and statements from the two campaigns in the last week clearly show who's the more careful, thoughtful, and reasoned candidate - qualities one looks for in a judge.

Thank you, JoAnne Kloppenburg, and everyone who worked to bring out the truth in this election!

You can donate to the Kloppenburg campaign's fund for recount efforts on their website.

Please forgive me if my quotes aren't exact.

Update: (5:34pm) Prosser has responded, and they're clearly afraid of the public finding out the truth, calling the recount a pursuit of a "nakedly political goal." I'm sorry, but "vigorously" preventing a recount in this situation, as Prosser says he plans to do, is a "nakedly political goal."

"Justice Prosser’s recount team will work diligently in the weeks and months ahead to protect the votes of Wisconsin citizens at the same time Ms. Kloppenburg’s campaign works to take them away." What do they mean by "take them away"? No one is looking to take any votes away, that is unless they aren't real votes.

"And now, ironically, less than 24 hours after the Government Accountability Board concluded that the April 5th canvass in Waukesha County was correct, she today insists that it needs further examination."

The GAB has NOT concluded their investigation! It appears they issued the early statement so that the deadline to request a recount wouldn't need to be extended. Their short statement shows how much more remains to be done.

Also, for those who don't think tax payer money should be spent to find out the truth, you had your chance to demand answers from Kathy Nickolaus and you declined. Now we have to find out the truth ourselves. This is on Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus.

Update: (5:50pm) The video of Kloppenburg's announcement is well worth your time and can be found at WISN and on YouTube.

Update: (April 21, 1:46am) There are reports that Prosser "sent a heckler and two fake reporters" to the Kloppenburg announcement to "challenge her with loaded questions." I'm not sure how factual the reports linking them to Prosser are at this point.

The Journal Sentinel is reporting that the Kloppenburg campaign believes Prosser met with Governor Scott Walker the day after the election.

"And in her complaint seeking a probe of Nickolaus, Kloppenburg alleges Prosser had a one-on-one meeting with Republican Gov. Scott Walker on the day after the election - an explosive charge in an officially nonpartisan race where the candidates questioned each other's claims of political independence.

The next day, Walker's administration asked the Supreme Court to quickly get involved in a Dane County case that has blocked implementation of Walker's controversial plan to sharply limit collective bargaining for public employees.

Melissa Mulliken, Kloppenburg's campaign manager, said she had been in touch with two or three people with knowledge of a Prosser-Walker meeting, including at least one who observed Prosser entering the meeting."

The article also states that the GAB is requesting "permission to clear the memory devices on some voting machines." Who in their right mind thinks this is a good idea?! No erasing! Get new memory devices or do a hand recount. We cannot erase evidence.

Update: (April 21, 10:23am) WisPolitics has published documents relating to Kloppenburg's request for a full investigation of Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus here.