In the May 2003 Primary in the Gettysburg School District, there was a contested primary for School Board. In the Democratic primary, ballots were mis-coded and subsequently miscounted, leading to the Hanover Evening Sun proclaiming 18-year old Don Palesky the winner of the Democratic Primary the next day.
However, this problem, caused by votes for another candidate ALSO counting for Mr. Palesky, was discovered and corrected after multiple recounts.
The point?
Election Systems and Software, (ES&S) counts well over a million ballots in Pennsylvania. This one error did affect the outcome of an election last year, however it did not make state-wide or national media.
ES&S is under national scrutiny in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, especially on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. ES&S insist's their programs are rock solid, primarily their e-vote machines. That may be true and in fact, the local example may very well have been a printer's error.
That being said, no matter the error, the committee's behind candidates in Pennsylvania are subject to random annual audits - you don't know whether or not your committee will be audited or not, so you better be on the up and up. However, we do not perform basic audits of our vote system.
We do recount when an error is suspected, but only when asked for (which can come at the cost of political capital to the requester for fear of looking like a sore loser).
However, applying the same standard - that every county must perform a random audit of x percent of it's precincts from year to year, would ensure that as we move to new technologies for voting, counting, and tabulation, we do so secure in the knowledge that every vote has indeed counted.
However, this problem, caused by votes for another candidate ALSO counting for Mr. Palesky, was discovered and corrected after multiple recounts.
The point?
Election Systems and Software, (ES&S) counts well over a million ballots in Pennsylvania. This one error did affect the outcome of an election last year, however it did not make state-wide or national media.
ES&S is under national scrutiny in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, especially on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. ES&S insist's their programs are rock solid, primarily their e-vote machines. That may be true and in fact, the local example may very well have been a printer's error.
That being said, no matter the error, the committee's behind candidates in Pennsylvania are subject to random annual audits - you don't know whether or not your committee will be audited or not, so you better be on the up and up. However, we do not perform basic audits of our vote system.
We do recount when an error is suspected, but only when asked for (which can come at the cost of political capital to the requester for fear of looking like a sore loser).
However, applying the same standard - that every county must perform a random audit of x percent of it's precincts from year to year, would ensure that as we move to new technologies for voting, counting, and tabulation, we do so secure in the knowledge that every vote has indeed counted.
Comments