ALERT: Kathy Nickolaus Threatens to Destroy Votes before Audit

While many county clerks have been open and transparent, county clerks all over Wisconsin are mysteriously trying to stop a non-partisan grassroots effort to verify the recall election for Scott Walker, and one clerk is taking things to a whole new level. Friday, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus informed the Wisconsin Wave and the "Hand Count the Votes Now!" coalition that she plans to illegally destroy all ballots in Waukesha County before her results can be verified with a hand count. According to the Wisconsin Wave, she "threatened" to begin the malfeasance "as early as noon today."

After the Walker recall election, discrepancies in the results prompted the non-partisan grassroots coalition to begin hand counting ballots throughout Wisconsin with open records requests. Even though the exit polls released at the beginning of election night had the race in a very tight 50/50, the official results were an unusual deviation of 53/46 for Walker. Then during the recount in Racine County, citizen-observers double-checked the gubernatorial results in the county and found "statistically significant discrepancies" that gave Walker more votes in the official GAB results than were actually cast for him. For the past month, volunteers have been working hard to verify the integrity of the recall election and uncover any more issues.

Unfortunately, "Hand Count the Votes Now!" and Wisconsin Wave volunteers have already uncovered many more "serious election integrity issues including lax ballot bag security, widespread use of [illegal] unverifiable touch screen voting machines, and most disturbingly, wards where the hand counts differ significantly from election night machine reported totals!"

Altering the results of an election and causing such discrepancies isn't as difficult as many people would have you believe. We saw many examples of these problems last year during the Wisconsin Supreme Court election of David Prosser. I've written many posts about the issues with Wisconsin's electronic election machines that allow one person to easily manipulate thousands of votes without detection. The only way we can be sure that something nefarious or accidental didn't happen to change the outcome of the recall election is to hand count the votes, something that is done in a very small number of Wisconsin counties.

Over the last two years, Wisconsin has been given many reasons to believe that some of our election equipment may have been circumvented. Unfortunately, we've been given very little to increase our confidence. Now, when we try to find answers for ourselves, public servants are standing in our way. County clerks who refuse to allow their ballots to be audited are failing their duty to their constituents.

Waukesha County itself has been an excellent demonstration of our failed policies, and the county continues to generate serious concerns. In July, an audit revealed that Kathy Nickolaus secretly changed the programming on the Waukesha County election equipment some time between certification and the April election, causing a failure in reporting during the election. Nickolaus confirmed she made a change but has refused to say what she changed, and it's not publicly known just how much of an involvement she had in the Walker recall election.

Now, Nickolaus is refusing to let Wisconsin know the true results of the recall election in Waukesha County. Not only is she refusing the legal open records request for access to the ballots, but she's threatening to destroy all evidence of the recall election in Waukesha County before the request process is even complete. While the law states that an appeal brought within 60 days of her refusal must be heard, she's making it clear how high the stakes are for her.

Nickolaus's threat only increases the justification for our concerns. If there is nothing to hide, why refuse the hand count? And what would bring someone to destroy records before an audit can take place? Kathy Nickolaus is definitely hiding something, and we must force her to show her cards before she destroys them!

The Wisconsin Wave is planning a rally today across the street from the Waukesha County government building from 11am-1pm to make it clear we mean business. If you're near Waukesha today, please consider joining the rally.

Call the GAB at (608) 266-8005 or email at gab@wi.gov to demand them to stop the destruction of ballots. If Nickolaus destroys the ballots, there is no way to find out what happened in Waukesha County.

Ballots from the recall election in at least 10 more counties will be counted over the next two weeks, but an additional 20-30 counties are in reach. Since this is a grassroots effort of people like you and me volunteering to count ballots, they really need volunteers and funds. While many county clerks are being reasonable, other county clerks are mysteriously charging unrealistically high fees in order to audit their ballots. So, the more funds the Wisconsin Wave can get, the better for the integrity of Wisconsin's elections.

For more information on the Hand Count the Votes Now! effort, see the Wisconsin Wave page.

If you want to help make sure there are no more undiscovered issues and ensure the integrity of our elections, please volunteer or contribute to the non-partisan grassroots effort at Wisconsin Wave. If there are undiscovered security lapses in our elections, we need to know and fix them. If someone has manipulated our elections, we need to know and prosecute them.

Update: At the last minute, Waukesha County thankfully announced that they will not be destroying the ballots.

What's Wrong with Wisconsin's Electronic Voting Machines?

Tuesday, I wrote a blog post, "Voting Machine Verifications Show Walker Lost Recall Election," with a plausible story of how the recall election was stolen for Scott Walker by a malicious hacker. I wrote it in an effort to try to show how easily one or a few people can change hundreds of thousands of votes. The goal was to make you feel and then learn and take action to fix this incredibly scary problem.

The truth is that we have no way of knowing whether or not such election fraud occurred, because we don't use open source election equipment and don't have sufficient auditing and verification processes. We don't know for a fact that Walker won, as well as many Democrats, or any elected official for that mattter. The truth hurts, as can be seen from the comments at the end of that post.

All of the peer-reviewed computer security research agrees, no machine will ever be perfectly secure, and so we need to account for that. It's common knowledge to them and anyone with the equivalent knowledge of a bachelor's in computer science. It's time for it to become common knowledge in the general public.

The scarier thing, for all of us who currently have the knowledge to independently arrive at the same conclusions, we also have the knowledge and understanding to circumvent electronic voting equipment. That's thousands of Wisconsinites, including one Kathy Nickolaus. The likelihood that an election machine in Wisconsin has been compromised at some point is undeniably high.

A highly regarded computer security expert, Bruce Schneier, wrote an article about the problems with our electronic voting machines after the 2004 presidential election, but with the continued problems and lack of public awareness, the article deserves repeating. Schneier's article entitled "What's wrong with electronic voting machines?" is an overview with only a few technical details. It's written for broad consumption and reads well. If you want further information, follow his links embedded in the article, or visit his website or search Google for peer-reviewed computer security research.

Schneier's article follows as it appears here.

In the aftermath of the American presidential election on 2 November 2004, electronic voting machines are again in the news. Computerised machines lost votes, subtracted votes, and doubled some votes too.

And because many of these machines have no paper audit trails, a large number of votes will never be counted.

While it is unlikely that deliberate voting-machine fraud changed the result of this presidential election, the internet is buzzing ^↑ with rumours and allegations ^↑ in a number of different jurisdictions and races.

It is still too early to tell if any of these problems affected ^↑ any individual state’s election, but the next few weeks will reveal whether any of the information crystallises into something significant.

The US has been here before. After the 2000 election, voting-machine problems made international headlines. The government appropriated money to fix the problems nationwide. Unfortunately, electronic voting machines – although presented as the solution – have largely made the problem worse.

This doesn’t mean that these machines should be abandoned, but they need to be designed ^↑ to increase both their accuracy, and peoples’ trust in their accuracy.

This is difficult, but not impossible.

Before I discuss electronic voting machines, I need to explain why voting is so difficult. In my view, a voting system has four required characteristics:

1. Accuracy. The goal of any voting system is to establish the intent of each individual voter, and translate those intents into a final tally. To the extent that a voting system fails to do this, it is undesirable. This characteristic also includes security: It should be impossible to change someone else’s vote, stuff ballots, destroy votes, or otherwise affect the accuracy of the final tally.


2. Anonymity. Secret ballots are fundamental to democracy, and voting systems must be designed to facilitate voter anonymity.


3. Scalability. Voting systems need to be able to handle very large elections. Nearly 120 million people voted in the US presidential election. About 372 million people voted in India’s May 2004 national elections, and over 115 million in Brazil’s October 2004 local elections. The complexity of an election is another issue. Unlike in many countries where the national election is a single vote for a person or a party, a United States voter is faced with dozens of individual election decisions: national, local, and everything in between.
4. Speed. Voting systems should produce results quickly. This is particularly important in the United States, where people expect to learn the results of the day’s election before bedtime.

Through the centuries, different technologies have done their best. Stones and potshards dropped in Greek vases gave way to paper ballots dropped in sealed boxes. Mechanical voting booths, punch-cards, and then optical scan machines replaced hand-counted ballots. New computerised voting machines promise even more efficiency, and internet voting even more convenience.

But in the rush to improve speed and scalability, accuracy has been sacrificed. And to reiterate: accuracy is not how well the ballots are counted by, say, a punch-card reader. It’s not how the tabulating machine deals with hanging chads ^↑ , pregnant chads, or anything like that. Accuracy is how well the process translates voter intent into appropriately counted votes.


Trust a computer to be inaccurate

Technology gets in the way of accuracy by adding steps. Each additional step means more potential errors, simply because no technology is perfect. Consider an optical-scan voting system. The voter fills in ovals on a piece of paper, which is fed into an optical-scan reader. The reader senses the filled-in ovals and tabulates the votes. This system has several steps: voter to ballot, to ovals, to optical reader, to vote tabulator, to centralised total.

At each step, errors can occur. If the ballot is confusing, some voters will fill in the wrong ovals. If a voter doesn’t fill them in properly, or if the reader is malfunctioning, then the sensor won’t sense the ovals properly. Mistakes in tabulation – either in the machine or when machine totals get aggregated into larger totals – also cause errors.

A manual system of tallying the ballots by hand, and then doing it again to double-check, is more accurate simply because there are fewer steps.

The error rates in modern systems can be significant. Some voting technologies have a 5% error rate, which means one in twenty people who vote using the system don’t have their votes counted. A system like this operates under the assumption that most of the time the errors don’t matter. If you consider that the errors are uniformly distributed – in other words, that they affect each candidate with equal probability – then they won’t affect the final outcome except in very close races.

So we’re willing to sacrifice accuracy to get a voting system that will handle large and complicated elections more quickly.

In close races, errors can affect the outcome, and that’s the point of a recount. A recount is an alternate system of tabulating votes: one that is slower (because it’s manual), simpler (because it just focuses on one race), and therefore more accurate.

Note that this is only true if everyone votes using the same machines. If parts of a town that tend to support candidate A use a voting system with a higher error rate than the voting system used in parts of town that tend to support candidate B, then the results will be skewed against candidate A.

With this background, the problem with computerised voting machines becomes clear. Actually, “computerised voting machines” is a bad choice of words. Many of today’s mechanical voting technologies involve computers too. Computers tabulate both punch-card and optical-scan machines.

The current debate centres on all-computer voting systems, primarily touch-screen systems, called Direct Record Electronic (DRE) machines (the voting system used in India’s May 2004 election – a computer with a series of buttons – is subject to the same issues).

In these systems the voter is presented with a list of choices on a screen, perhaps multiple screens if there are multiple elections, and he indicates his choice by touching the screen. As Daniel Tokaji points out, these machines are easy to use, produce final tallies immediately after the polls close, and can handle very complicated elections. They can also display instructions in different languages and allow for the blind or otherwise handicapped to vote without assistance.

They’re also more error-prone. The very same software that makes touch-screen voting systems so friendly also makes them inaccurate in the worst possible way.

‘Bugs’ or errors in software are commonplace, as any computer user knows. Computer programs regularly malfunction, sometimes in surprising and subtle ways. This is true for all software, including the software in computerised voting machines.

For example:

In Fairfax County, Virginia in 2003, a programming error in the electronic-voting machines caused them to mysteriously subtract 100 votes from one candidate’s totals.

In a 2003 election in Boone County, Iowa the electronic vote-counting equipment showed that more than 140,000 votes had been cast in the municipal elections, even though only half of the county’s 50,000 residents were eligible to vote.

In San Bernardino County, California in 2001, a programming error caused the computer to look for votes in the wrong portion of the ballot in 33 local elections, which meant that no votes registered on those ballots for that election. A recount was done by hand.

In Volusia County, Florida in 2000, an electronic voting machine gave Al Gore a final vote count of negative 16,022 votes.

There are literally hundreds of similar stories.

What’s important about these problems is not that they resulted in a less accurate tally, but that the errors were not uniformly distributed; they affected one candidate more than the other. This is evidence that you can’t assume errors will cancel each other out; you have to assume that any error will skew the results significantly and affect the result of the election.


And then there’s security

Another issue is that software can be ‘hacked’. That is, someone can deliberately introduce an error that modifies the result in favour of his preferred candidate.

This has nothing to do with whether the voting machines are hooked up to the internet on election day, as Daniel Tokaji seems to believe. The threat is that the computer code could be modified while it is being developed and tested, either by one of the programmers or a hacker who gains access to the voting-machine company’s network. It’s much easier to surreptitiously modify a software system than a hardware system, and it’s much easier to make these modifications undetectable.

Malicious changes or errors in the software can have far-reaching effects. A problem with a manual machine just affects that machine. A software problem, whether accidental or intentional, can affect many thousands of machines and skew the results of an entire election.

Some have argued in favour of touch-screen voting systems, citing the millions of dollars that are handled every day by ATMs and other computerised financial systems. That argument ignores another vital characteristic of voting systems: anonymity.

Computerised financial systems get most of their security from audit. If a problem is suspected, auditors can go back through the records of the system and figure out what happened. And if the problem turns out to be real, the transaction can be unwound and fixed. Because elections are anonymous, that kind of security just isn’t possible.

None of this means that we should abandon touch-screen voting; the benefits of DRE machines are too great to throw away. But it does mean that we need to recognise the limitations, and design systems that can be accurate despite them.

Computer security experts are unanimous on what to do (some voting experts disagree, but it is the computer security experts who need to be listened to; the problems here are with the computer, not with the fact that the computer is being used in a voting application). They have two recommendations, echoed by Siva Vaidhyanathan:

1. DRE machines must have a voter-verifiable paper audit trails (sometimes called a voter-verified paper ballot). This is a paper ballot printed out by the voting machine, which the voter is allowed to look at and verify. He doesn’t take it home with him. Either he looks at it on the machine behind a glass screen, or he takes the paper and puts it into a ballot box. The point of this is twofold: it allows the voter to confirm that his vote was recorded in the manner he intended, and it provides the mechanism for a recount if there are problems with the machine.
2. Software used on DRE machines must be open ^↑ to public scrutiny. This also has two functions: it allows any interested party to examine the software and find bugs, which can then be corrected, a public analysis that improves security; and it increases public confidence in the voting process - if the software is public, no one can insinuate that the voting system has unfairness built into the code (companies that make these machines regularly argue that they need to keep their software secret for security reasons. Don’t believe ^↑ them. In this instance, secrecy has nothing to do with security).

Computerised systems with these characteristics won’t be perfect – no piece of software is – but they’ll be much better than what we have now. We need to treat voting software like we treat any other high-reliability system.
The auditing that is conducted on slot machine software in the US is significantly more meticulous ^↑ than that applied to voting software. The development process for mission-critical airplane software makes voting software look like a slapdash affair. If we care about the integrity of our elections, this has to change.

Proponents of DREs often point to successful elections as “proof” that the systems work. That completely misses the point. The fear is that errors in the software – either accidental or deliberately introduced – can undetectably alter the final tallies. An election without any detected problems is no more a proof that the system is reliable and secure, than a night that no one broke into your house is proof that your locks work. Maybe no one tried to break in, or maybe someone tried and succeeded – and you don’t know it.

Even if we get the technology right, we still won’t be finished. If the goal of a voting system is to accurately translate voter intent into a final tally, the voting machine itself is only one part of the overall system. In the 2004 US election, problems with voter registration, untrained poll workers, ballot design, and procedures for handling problems, resulted in far more votes being left uncounted than problems with technology.

If we’re going to spend money on new voting technology, it makes sense to spend it on technology that makes the problem easier instead of harder.

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.

Waukesha Poll Workers Illegally Turned Down Voters for No ID

Waukesha is at it again with Wisconsin elections. Poll workers in Waukesha illegally disenfranchised at least one elderly voter for not having her photo ID when photo IDs are not required to vote. An elderly woman and her daughter were asked by poll workers for their ID. When they didn't have one and were told they couldn't vote, they called the Wisconsin GAB. The GAB has confirmed the incident happened.

IDs haven't been required to vote since two judges found the law unconstitutional. There doesn't appear to be any legal reason that the rulings will be overturned. So, please make sure people know they don't need an ID. Maybe someone standing in line in Waukesha could have informed the poll workers of their illegal disenfranchisement.

From the way it sounds, these poll workers were asking everyone for an ID, and these two voters didn't try until near the closing of polls. How many people were illegally disenfranchised for not having IDs?

I guess we might find out tomorrow when the Waukesha Deputy City Clerk explains at least this incident. Why does it always take a day for Waukesha to explain incidents in elections that should be very easy to explain?

The voter suppression by far-right people in Wisconsin must end now! Bombing medical clinics, bringing guns to vote, and subs for votes. These guys will do whatever it takes.

Update: (4/4 12:17am) Thanks to O for pointing out that a polling place in Fitchburg was asking voters for IDs. However, I can't find any information as to whether any voters were actually turned away or left before they were allowed to vote. Was anyone unable to vote for not having an ID in Fitchburg or anywhere else?

Update: (4/4 8:24am) It also appears that Waukesha County is having problems counting votes AGAIN.

Recall is a Constitutional Right - Defend It!

The recent and increasing recall signature demonization and prohibition is an attack on our rights and democracy, and it must be called out and stopped. Recalling elected officials is a right defined in the Wisconsin Constitution. It's not "political activity" as Gannett recently tried to label it as an explanation for their outrage and reason for disciplining their employees for not following Gannett's political views. No one in Wisconsin should be denied the right to sign a recall petition, because not signing a recall petition is the same "political activity" as signing one.

See that's the problem. Gannett can cloak their political motives in "ethics," but it's the same as disciplining someone for voting or not voting for someone. Gannett could use the same reasoning to discipline everyone who didn't sign a recall petition, because signing or not signing a petition are answers to the same electoral question that is answered based on proportions of the electoral population.

As with elections, you're offered a choice. When you are informed that recall petitions are being circulated, you have the choice to either sign a petition or not sign a petition. You express your support for giving Wisconsin a chance to remove an elected officer by signing a petition, and you express your support for keeping an elected official in office by not signing a petition. And yes, people abstain from both for various reasons, that's the third answer to such an electoral question. Well over a million people in Wisconsin made this conscious decision this past winter. It's the same decision you make during an election with an incumbent. Prohibiting someone who wants to sign a recall petition is forcing them to take a stance they don't support.

As with elections, a recall requires the support of a certain proportion of the people. There are a finite number of eligible voters in Wisconsin. The proportions set forth in the Wisconsin Constitution recognize this and do not take into account citizens who are "prohibited" from signing a recall petition. Therefore, by prohibiting people from signing recall petitions, recalls become more difficult than intended, requiring a higher proportion of the electorate than specified in the Wisconsin Constitution. The increased demonization only seeks to increase the number of people who are "prohibited" from signing a recall petition in order to make it more difficult for citizens to recall their elected officials without going through the work of changing our constitution.

Recall petitions have less power than elections. Signing a petition does not mean that you want to remove an elected official, it just means that you want Wisconsin to be given that choice. Recalling an elected official doesn't remove them from office, it only allows for Wisconsin to hold an election to choose whether or not they want to remove the official. Signing a recall petition is not express support for or against any elected official or candidate. You may sign a recall petition but then later vote for the current elected official during the recall election.

However, not signing a recall petition is expressing support for an elected official, because you become part of the proportion that keeps the official in office. No matter how many people sign a recall petition and want an official removed, the official stays in office. The people in support of the elected official get what they want simply by getting enough people to not sign a petition. So, not signing a recall petition has more power than signing one. One answer is in clear support of an elected official, while the other answer is only support of a recall election.

Demonizing people for signing recall petitions, or prohibiting people from signing them, will make people think about whether or not they want to go through that next time a recall petition is circulated. No matter which party the elected official may belong to. The decision about whether or not to sign a recall petition will no longer be just about the elected official. It'll be about a job, a career, and even one's safety and the safety of their family. A right defined in the Wisconsin Constitution to receive proper representation shouldn't come with such heavy personal considerations. The demonization will force people to take stances that they don't support.

For these reasons, no one, not judges, not political appointees, not journalists, not anyone should be prohibited from or demonized or disciplined for signing a recall petition. In addition, judges shouldn't need to admit to signing a recall petition before or during any case, because recall decisions should be irrelevant to a judge's ability to be fair, just as their votes are. And if anyone wanted to know, it's public information. So, really, what's the point other than to demonize them?

A recall is not political activism, it's democracy, and Gannett may be violating the Wisconsin Constitution by disciplining their employees for signing recall petitions.

The next time someone attacks a recall petition signer, the attack should be redirected with a strong defense of democracy and the rights defined in the Wisconsin Constitution.

Permanent Injunction of Unconstitutional Voter Suppression Upheld

Two weeks ago, the Voter Suppression Law requiring an ID to vote that was passed by the far-right Republicans in Wisconsin was found unconstitutional by two judges, one from conservative Waukesha and one from liberal Dane. Both judges found the law to be unconstitutional, because the law goes "steps beyond the proper authority of the Legislature" to restrict voting by specific groups. Judge Richard Niess, the second judge said in his order, "The government may not disqualify an elector who possesses those qualifications not contained in Article III, such as a photo ID." The unconstitutional law was then halted by a temporary and a permanent injunction from the respective judges.

However, Governor Scott Walker, by demanding the injunctions be stayed, continued to insist upon suppressing the votes of the poor, the elderly, and minorities. Walker and the Republican leadership lit a fire under the normally slow-moving Attorney General Van Hollen's butt to appeal the decisions. Remember, Van Hollen refused to help the FBI in their criminal investigation of Walker and his aides as well as the election debacle in Waukesha last spring. Fortunately for the people of Wisconsin, our judges will have none of that.

Last week, Judge David T. Flanagan denied Walker's request to stay his temporary injunction, and yesterday, Judge Niess denied Walker's request to stay his permanent injunction. Niess said, "It is no law at all."

So, no more IDs to vote, and it doesn't sound like any judge would have a leg to stand on in support of the constitutionality of the law. Judge Niess said that would be a clear case of judicial activism. So, we likely will never need IDs to vote, as should have always been the case. Otherwise, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where Walker is trying to send both cases, is more than FUBAR.

For those of you worried about increased voter fraud, the Voter Suppression Law wouldn't stop any of Wisconsin's previous cases of voter fraud. So, our elections are protected as well with and without the Voter Suppression Law. This is one of the reasons it's unjustified and unconstitutional, it doesn't make any practical effort towards stopping voter fraud, but it makes great strides to limit the voting of certain groups.

No more IDs and no more asking for IDs to vote. Make sure everyone knows so they can save money by not purchasing one. The halting of free photo IDs is one reason the permanent injunction won't be lifted unless the Republicans can somehow prove the law is constitutional.

Injunction of Unconstitutional Voter Suppression Upheld

Last week, the far-right Republican Voter Suppression Law that adds the unjustified requirement of showing only certain types of photo ID to vote was stopped by a temporary injunction ordered from one Wisconsin judge, and then later in the week another Wisconsin judge issued a permanent injunction against the law. Both judges found the law to be unconstitutional, because the law goes "steps beyond the proper authority of the Legislature" to restrict voting by specific groups. Judge Richard Niess, the second judge said in his order, "The government may not disqualify an elector who possesses those qualifications not contained in Article III, such as a photo ID."

Walker and the Republican leadership lit a fire under the normally slow-moving Attorney General Van Hollen's butt to appeal the decisions. Remember, Van Hollen refused to help the FBI in their criminal investigation of Walker and his aides as well as the election debacle in Waukesha last spring. However, today, the first judge, David T. Flanagan in Waukesha, struck down the motion, finding that "based on careful scrutiny" the law "is in violation of the Wisconsin Constitution," and there doesn't seem to be any argument otherwise.

So, no more IDs to vote, and it doesn't sound like any judge would have a leg to stand on in support of the constitutionality of the law. Judge Niess said that would be a clear case of judicial activism. So, we likely will never need IDs to vote, as should have always been the case. Otherwise, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where Van Hollen is trying to send both cases, is more than FUBAR.

For those of you worried about increased voter fraud, the Voter Suppression Law wouldn't stop any of Wisconsin's previous cases of voter fraud. So, our elections are protected as well with and without the Voter Suppression Law. This is one of the reasons it's unjustified and unconstitutional, it doesn't make any practical effort towards stopping voter fraud, but it makes great strides to limit the voting of certain groups.

No more IDs and no more asking for IDs to vote. Make sure everyone knows so they can save money by not purchasing one. The halting of free photo IDs is one reason the permanent injunction won't be lifted unless the Republicans can prove the law is constitutional.

Voter Suppression Permanently Injuncted

Last week Tuesday, a Dane Country judge granted a temporary injunction halting the unconstitutional Voter Suppression Law that adds the historic and unjustified requirement of showing only certain types of photo ID to vote. Upset that they couldn't get their way, the far-right Republicans in control of Wisconsin ordered our Department of Justice to try to lift the injunction on Friday. Today, another judge told the Republicans, "The government may not disqualify an elector who possesses those qualifications not contained in Article III, such as a photo ID." The judge also granted a permanent injunction instead of a temporary injunction.

For those of you worried about increased voter fraud, the Voter Suppression Law wouldn't stop any of Wisconsin's previous cases of voter fraud. So, our elections are protected as well with and without the Voter Suppression Law.

No more IDs to vote, and probably never again! No more Republican voter suppression!

The Definition of a Super PAC

Super PAC: a frothy mix of lube and campaign funding that is sometimes the byproduct of politics.

You hear the term thrown around a lot, Super PAC or SuperPAC. But many people ask what is a Super PAC? A great visionary in Super PAC development, Stephen Colbert, provided this simple definition. He gave us this definition during his television program, The Colbert Report, on Thursday. A Super PAC is a frothy mix of lube and campaign funding that is sometimes the byproduct of politics.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

If you want to help change this, support the DISCLOSE Act.

In case you're interested, here's the real definition on Wikipedia.

We Were Right About Supreme Court Justice David Prosser

Prosser tried to deny it after he admitted it, but we were right about him when we believed he would rule against the rights of Wisconsinites. What we didn't expect is for his corporate loyalty to be so blatant and swift. It makes me think back to the recent election and the 14,000 votes that won Prosser the seat for another 10 years, and it begs the question, is Prosser paying someone back?

There were very serious issues with that election that aren't being properly investigated, particularly with the lack of publicly verifiable election machine integrity and accuracy, including, most troubling, ballot security issues. Given the closeness of the election, the seriousness of the issues, and now doubts as to Prosser's impartiality and prudence raised by Supreme Court Chief Justice Abrahamson, I believe the election deserves a proper and full investigation by a group unaffiliated with Wisconsin elections.

Yes, I realize I'm getting very close to tinfoil hat territory here, but what's important, whether something nefarious occurred in the election or not, is closing the wide gaps in the openness and security of our elections so there isn't a doubt in future elections. And this clearly won't happen unless we get serious about investigating and fixing these issues, as serious as the Republicans are about suppressing Wisconsin voters and stripping rights from Wisconsinites.

Kloppenburg enumerated some of the issues when she conceded the election. Of the most serious issues, more than 150 ballot bags were open or torn. Kloppenburg said,

"Waukesha County had twice as many torn, open or unsealed bags as every other county in the state combined. In many cases, municipal clerks in Waukesha testifed the bags weren't torn when they left cities, towns and villages. So the security breaches occurred sometime when the bags were in Waukesha County's custody."

However, there wasn't enough information to conclude whether something nefarious occurred or not. Hence the need for a full investigation and reform. We'll be in a lot more trouble if we're questioning the integrity of not just a Supreme Court election but also 9 Senate recall elections, which could likely happen if these serious issues aren't fixed before. Yet, there's been no response that I'm aware of to Kloppenburg's letter from the GAB.

The GAB can't properly investigate the election, because, at the very least, they wrote the software that caused Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus's "human error." Notice how everyone is being careful to not call it what it is, a computer error. They definitely want us to believe the software had nothing to do with it, but that's wrong.

Besides software, the GAB works with and trains the very same people they are supposed to investigate. The GAB doesn't have the outsider's perspective required of a proper investigation. Plus, how can the GAB be trusted to fully investigate when the fault of many possible issues rests in their hands?

Also, the GAB is notoriously secretive. They need to change that behavior now, and although they improved a bit during the recount, it's another reason why they're not the right entity for investigating the election. Any investigation must be open and transparent, so we know exactly what's being investigated and how the conclusions were drawn. We haven't gotten that from the GAB.

The Democrats are even questioning the GAB's certification of the recall petitions for the 3 Democrats by filing a complaint in Dane County court to challenge the certifications. So, there's definitely enough doubt surrounding the GAB that it's clear they need to do some clean up of themselves and they're not fit for investigating the April 5th election.

We need to know our elections are truly open, clean and fair, and we must know before any more elections.

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!

Assembly Republicans Advance Voter Suppression Bill - Full Assembly Vote Next Week

According to the Journal Sentinel, the Voter Suppression Bill (AB7) was passed out of committee on a party-line vote. The Republicans are trying to quickly ram this bill through before the recall elections, because the bill reduces the number of voters who can and will vote, particularly those who vote for Democrats and who already lack a voice in our communities. Read this post for more information about why the Voter Suppression Bill proposes a fake solution and is a very expensive distraction (it'll cost yearly more than the current recount) from our real issues.

The Voter Suppression Bill is a fake solution, because the bill (which is meant to prevent voter fraud) won't prevent any of the at most 20 improper votes in recent elections. So it doesn't even do what the Republicans say it will do, and it costs us much more of our time and money. This bill is a fraud.

The bill was amended to allow certain school IDs, but none of the UW schools include the necessary information for them to be used. I'm not sure about the status of IDs from other higher education institutions in Wisconsin, but it's likely the amendment allows the use of very few current student IDs. We will in one way or another pay for those IDs to be updated as well, otherwise it's called a poll tax. The amendment doesn't address those costs. So the amendment is just as careless as the rest of the bill.

By allowing only certain student IDs, the Republicans have shown how arbitrary the photo ID requirement is. People in Wisconsin haven't been voting in place of other people, and honestly it's very difficult to make any sort of impact by travelling around, waiting in line, and hoping to use just the right names. They could strengthen or loosen the requirement, and the only thing it would do is change the number of voters who can and will vote. It's a frivolous requirement.

To have any influence, voter fraud requires a true conspiracy on a level the United States has not seen. However, by manipulating voting machine tallies, one person can swing a statewide election. That doesn't require a conspiracy.

We must stop this horrific bill now or we may never have fair elections in Wisconsin again! The Republicans are planning to turn the bill into law in the next couple of weeks, and they plan to schedule a vote in the full Assembly as early as next week.

Please, contact your state representatives and tell them why you think the Voter Suppression Bill is detrimental to Wisconsin.

Instead of wasting millions of taxpayer money on a very expensive solution to a teeny tiny issue that won't even work, let's try to find real solutions to our election issues.

Note: I still have to read the actual language of the amendment instead of interpretations by the news media, but I will post any unexpected changes if necessary.