Stones Unturned: Gaps in the Investigation of Sarasota's Disputed Congressional Election

[kpete]

Stones Unturned: Gaps in the Investigation of Sarasota's Disputed Congressional Election
By David Dill and Dan Wallach
April 13, 2007
Executive Summary



Download the full report: PDF
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkpg=http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2382&Itemid=113&linkid=33690



The November 2006 race for Florida's 13th Congressional District resulted in a 369 vote margin of victory for the winning candidate with more than 18,000 undervotes recorded on the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines used in Sarasota County. Since then, the losing candidate and a coalition of local voters have filed suit against the state and local election officials (among other defendants), seeking a judicial order to rerun the election. A key question is whether a system malfunction may have induced the undervote rate. We evaluate the two major efforts previously undertaken by the State: a mock election, conducted by the State, and an analysis of the iVotronic source code, conducted by academic computer scientists under contract to the State. Press reports and summaries of the State's findings have created a public perception that the investigation was thorough and that the voting machines have been exonerated of contributing to the undervote. Based on our evaluation of the investigation, this perception is not justified.



There are many significant gaps in the tests conducted by Florida and its experts. The defined scope of the mock election specifically excluded examination of the vote selection process, which, based on voter complaints, should have been a major focus of the investigation. The tests were conducted in an artificial setting with the iVotronics mounted vertically, unlike their horizontal orientation in real elections. Furthermore, the State's report claims that there were no anomalies observed during the vote, yet video recordings of the test show occasional vote selections not registering on the machines.



The State's inspection of the iVotronic's software was also incomplete. The State's academic team read the source code but performed limited hands-on experimentation with demonstration machines. They made no attempt to examine whether the hardware functioned properly, nor did they examine iVotronic machines that were used in the actual election. The team performed no analysis based on compiling and executing the software, either on iVotronic hardware or in a "test harness." Such testing is commonly used to identify bugs that may manifest themselves only under obscure conditions. Likewise, the team did not review internal ES&S documents, such as their bug tracking systems or software repositories, which might contain important clues about the problem. For key issues, including how the iVotronic screen is calibrated and how its smoothing filter operates, the final report contained insufficient detail to determine how these issues may have impacted the undervote.

more:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkpg=http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2382&Itemid=113&linkid=33690

[bleever]

1. Partial enforcement is a guarantee

of non-compliance.

*(This seal does not grant any guarantee, warranty, or redress against the presence of any and/or all of the following: rat hairs, rat droppings, rat diseases or their potential harms, up to and including the death of democracy, or any rat-infestation associated effects or alleged harms; chicken shit, bullshit, or other shit or shits that may be forced upon the public or individual members thereof, by those hereby held harmless.)

[Stevepol]

2. K&R!! n/t

[Kurovski]

3. Kick.(nt)

[eomer]

4. "Without doubt, the undervote rate... reflected a failure of the ES&S iVotronic systems..."

5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Without doubt, the undervote rate in Sarasota County’s general election in November 2006 reflected a failure
of the ES&S iVotronic systems to accurately capture the intent of many Sarasota voters. While Sarasota
County, the State of Florida, and its academic computer science experts have performed certain analyses,
we still have no conclusive evidence demonstrating the cause or causes of the unusual undervote rate.

We recommend additional expert analysis of the source code for these voting systems, including debugging
and simulation tests which may be more likely to trigger latent flaws if they are present. We likewise recommend
that experts be given unrestricted access to ES&S’s internal bugs databases and software repository,
where they may find additional evidence that could lead to the discovery of what software bugs, if
any, contributed to Sarasota’s undervote rate.

We also recommend further analysis of the iVotronic systems used in the election and still sequestered
in a Sarasota warehouse. We recommend that a sampling of these machines be carefully examined for
evidence of screen miscalibration and touch sensitivity.

These analyses could be performed by a relatively small number of experts in about a month’s time.
Should such analyses be able to conclusively determine a reproducible explanation for the undervotes, this
would have significant ramifications, both for the ongoing legal battle between the two parties for control
over Florida’s 13th Congressional District seat, as well as for the broader discussion of how voting machines
should be designed, tested, certified, and analyzed.

[Kurovski]

5. Kick. (nt)