Board of Elections: Voting machines missed votes  (OH)

Lynn Hulsey    Dayton Daily News    12 December 2008

DAYTON — Montgomery County's electronic voting machines failed to count five votes in Trotwood, an accuracy error that raises serious questions about the continued use of the machines.

"It is something that not only is Montgomery County going to have to consider, but the entire state," said Steve Harsman, director of the board of elections.

The missed votes did not show up in the original count or official recount, and would not have been discovered except that the precinct was one reviewed in a special statewide audit of electronic machine results ordered by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Harsman said.

It is the latest of several problems discovered with the electronic machines manufactured by Premier Election Solutions and used in 44 Ohio counties as well as other states.

"We have not seen this particular condition anywhere else in Ohio or anywhere else in the country," said company spokesman Chris Riggall.

Harsman said he is disheartened by the discovery that the electronic machine's memory card failed to tabulate the votes when it was placed into the tabulation server.

"I think it does validate Secretary of State Brunner's call for an audit," Harsman said. "And I think it does challenge us to ask some important questions with the touch-screen system. Is it as reliable as we initially thought?"

Montgomery County bought 2,500 of the machines at a cost of $6.2 million in 2005. The machines were among the few certified for use in the state by former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

"It validates the concerns people have expressed about these machines," said Ellis Jacobs, senior attorney for Advocates for Basic Legal Equality. "If the machines aren't reliable then they shouldn't be used."

Calibration problems that could have led to votes being inaccurately recorded in Montgomery County during the 2006 General Election were discovered by Ellis's organization last year. Earlier this year Montgomery and Butler counties discovered during the March primary that some votes did not properly upload to tabulation servers, but the problem was noted as an error so it was caught during counting.

The difference with the latest problem is the five lost votes would not have been discovered had the special audit not been performed, Harsman said.

"There is currently no checks and balances in the system to ensure that this didn't happen," Harsman said.

He said the memory card contained the votes, but it wasn't until it was put back into the original voting machine that is re-synced and the 5 missing votes appeared. There is no circumstance during a typical count where a memory card would be put back into the original voting machine, Harsman said.

Brunner ordered counties to look at results for 5 percent of the vote to determine if electronic votes matched the number recorded on the electronic machine's paper record. On one machine in Trotwood Precinct 2D the paper recorded 48 people voting and the machine said only 43 voted, Harsman said.

Harsman said the additional five votes do not change the results for Trotwood's street levy, which narrowly passed. However, because the problem occurred in Trotwood the board will on Monday recount by hand all ballots for Trotwood.

Harsman ran computer reports from all other electronic machine memory cards and summaries of paper results and found the total number of votes cast matched, so he believes the one precinct is the only place where votes were lost. The five votes are among 166,903 cast on electronic machines in Montgomery County during the general election.

Board of elections members said they are awaiting a full report on the problem, but member Dennis Lieberman said it is a problem if a single remains uncounted in an election.

Board member Jim Nathanson said the issue is of concern but that people should not rush to judgment.

Brunner has been critical of the machines since a study last year found serious security failures. She's called for them to be replaced statewide, and earlier this year she filed suit against Premier for breach of contract.

Spokesman Jeff Ortega said her office is looking into the Montgomery County problem.