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| Adam Carbullido, ES&S Senior VP |
"I want to apologize to the administration, county officials, elections staff, elections administrators and most importantly, voters," said Carbullido. What happened on Election Day is "completely unacceptable."
While waiting for an impound order on the machines to be lifted, ES&S created an "all hands on deck" team and began running tests on machines at their home base in Omaha, using the same configuration and ballot layout used in Northampton County. When the Order was lifted, tests on the machines led to the conclusions reached.
The fix? All machines will be properly configured before the next election. The small boxes marked with an "x" will be eliminated. Tha ballot layput technique will never be used again. The logic and accuracy testing will be strengthened.
"These are human errors and we own that," said Carbullido. "These issues will never occur again," he promised.
Council member Tara Zrinski asked how the County could be sure that another human error would result in no additional problems. Carbullido explained that the work done by one person will be checked by another.
In addition to the improvements by ES&S, which will be done at its own expense, Executive Lamont McClure said he would be presenting a plan for next year'selection to deal with long lines and other voter inconveniences. McClure said he "couldn't be more sorry" about what happened, but reminded everyone that the election was still "accurate, fair and legal."
Elections Commission member Deb Hunter, who opposed the Express Vote XL, said the County needs to address the lack of a permanent director of elections as well as machine custodian. She also said poll workers need better training.
Sandy Werner, who is married to Council member Bob Werner and who has previously been critical of both ES&S and the Express Vote XL, was incredulous about the improper configuration. "If I buy a microwave for $150, I expect all the functions to work when I plug it in at home," she complained. "I don't expect a few of them to work."
"Who will win next year's election?" asked Ms. Werner. "ES&S. $2.8 million and not much to show for it."
37 comments:
Ms. Werner apparently was not paying attention to the presentation. Errors were made, and they corrected them.
ES&S took a customer is always right approach. What choice did he really have? He was not going to blame the County, his customer who has the resources to make his life miserable over this. He tried to couch everything he said to give the County Administration an excuse to blame them. He basically said we did not idiot proof the machines. That what he was saying when he said that if ES&S done a good job, this would have been prevented. That is not to say that if the County had done the testing, that this wouldn’t have been prevented. He had no excuse as to why the County missed the fact that 30% of the machines were miscalibrated from the factory! The County could not have tested the machines because there’s no way they could have missed the calibration issues if they tested all the machines. This was gross incompetence at best from the County. He was very vague about the tabulation instructions that they missed when they did the L&I testing. So Northampton County was the only County in the history of these types of machines that was not trained properly on what to look for on the test tapes on the tabulation issues. The fact is, this did not ever happen elsewhere. The County is the one who apparently programmed that instructional text after the machines left the factory.
And neither the press conference nor the presentation to County counsel Counsel came close to addressing or answering all the problems with this election. If the computers were this screwed up, we really don’t know that the paper print outs were really 100% right either. Even slight errors can change the result in an election. Human verification was not sufficiently possible were the print was so damn small and voters were not educated on the verification process. The elderly population especially was at a disadvantage. What a disaster this administration made of this election. And coincidentally, Democrats benefitted.
Get rid of the machine. The cannot be an absolute guarantee that human error (if that is what truly happened) occurs again. Elections are too important to take a chance.
I would like to know if there was a pay to play with this purchase. Read Dertinger had his hands in it. Why was Amy Cozze hidden after all the issues started? Never should have had a clerical person handling this. Total Administration incompetence!
McClueless lying to try and safe himself.
My screen selection was wrong. Thus, my paper ballot was wrong. The printing on the paper ballot didn't even line up. Worse excuse of machine ever. Where did these machines come from Russia. Hope these machines malfunction when it comes time to vote for County Executive.
Outrageous. If anyone expected the company that peddled the equipment to blame the equipment, I'd like to sell you some oceanfront property in Chapman.
The company and its machines have zero integrity. They failed to perform per contract specifications. Remove the machines.
In the real, non-government-enabled world where the connected can only get away with selling shit for so long, these guys would already be fired and getting sued for damages.
The results of the next election are already suspect. Irreparable damage has been done to the integrity of NorCo elections.
Ditto on all of the above. The Elections Commission should start doing their job. Read the laws GODDAMIT. The Election Commission hires the Elections County Administrator not Charlie Dertinger. At least this is the law in every other County.You appoint political hacks and CLOWNS to a commission, you should expect a circus and that is exactly what you got.
as a taxpayer, the company did not address my concerns with respect to certain candidates showed no votes on certain machines and then the paper ballot has the correct amount of votes for that candidate. How can these machines be trusted? the company and the County put on a good show yesterday, I'm not buying it. T he state should start an independent investigation before the next election.
Was the man depicted as a representative of the XL makers grandma on his mommas side one of the Russian bots placed inside by Putin?
5:52, a completely unrealistic solution.
"He tried to couch everything he said to give the County Administration an excuse to blame them. He basically said we did not idiot proof the machines."
Excuse me, but the entity responsible for the configuration of the machines is the vendor, not the county. Configuration has nothing to do with making a machine idiot proof and takes place at the vendor. As many as 30% of our machines were defective. That is why some precincts experienced sensitivity issues while others did not.
Also, the ballot layout technique was done by the vendor,not the county. Again, this has nothing to do with making a machine idiot proof.
Finally, the logic and accuracy testing, which is where these errors should have been caught, were miffed because ES&S handled it. Now this is where the county might be partly to blame, but the major responsibility was on ES&S.
There was a perfect storm of three errors.
" If the computers were this screwed up, we really don’t know that the paper print outs were really 100% right either"
Yeah, we do. It was explained that the programming error leading to improper results ob the USB had no relation to the paper ballot. The proof is that the paper ballots showed voters their votes and they were cast . If this translated into the paper ballots,people would have niticed their selections were not on the paper ballot and holy hell wold have erupted at the polling precincts.
YES, our upcoming elections are subject to vote tampering and fraud. No denying that anymore. Here’s a prediction. The 2020 election will be under attack like never before. You decide who you want to blame after those results are announced . . . and then what?
The vote tampering and fraud will not come from the machines but will instead be the result of widespread disinformation campaigns. Trump is unable to utter a sentence without lying, and many media outlets are so slanted it is often impossible to discern the truth
Where is the proof that these errors will be fixed..the machines were to have been 100% infallible the first time and how did that go?
It concerns me so many are willing to believe there are overwhelming miscounts. If Trump can manage to convince people of this will he attempt to throw out election results if things don't go his way? This may sound silly but with this guy nothing can be certain.
6:49 . According to the Administration, the Election Commission DOES NOT hire and fire Election office employees as they are designated service level. So take your gripes with staffing of the Election office to the Administration.
Did I hear correctly "so-called hyper sensitivity issue". Guess so!
Bernie, of course vote tampering and fraud are the products of human behavior. It’s how a voting district accused of false results PROVES the totals recorded by humans are accurate. We never hear about foolproof measures to guard against human tampering after the voting is done. This includes “finding” ballots in car trunks, late arriving mail ballots, and, of course, how votes challenged for eligibility are adjudicated by humans during counting of votes after being cast. THIS is where my mistrust lies.
LVCI @10:20 AM
Yeah, who knows. He may try to do something really outrageous, like lead an impeachment or something.
The animals are out of the barn better close the doors.
I have no obligation to host anonymous comments unable to make a point without personal insults.
This democratic blog deletes the truth just like the impeachment hearings. The dems should take a close look at England.
Liberals are losing all over the world--Pelosi Schiff Warren ETC WILL LEAD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO ITS DEMISE.
If unable to post an anonymous comment w/o insults,expect to be deleted. I will be posting about the CYF workers Monday.
With the Democrats, we can be certain that everything possible will be done to steal the election. Democrats are power-hungry, ruthless, win-at-all-cost mobsters. Remember Tammany Hall!!!
You can be CERTAIN next year’s local election results will be held-up by legal challenge. That stage has now been set.
The new machines might well have eliminated any means for cyber attack, but the real shenanigans will come from those who personally handle the ballots. How many here can accurately describe a step-by-step journey of a ballot from check-in at the polling place to final statement of accuracy after the polls close? A journey that is fully protected from human intervention? I can’t.
@ 6:39 AM - Totally agree. My initial ballot had to be taken from the machine because it was wrong. The lady had several other ballots in her hand and put my with them. She said she would destroy it. What proof is there that they were destroyed. Get rid of the machine and McClure.
Who goes around and clears the ballot receiving box of its contents? Is it even possible to add-in additional ballots somewhere along the way? I really do not know.
However, if for example, a voting district has 1000 eligible voters and the voter turnout is 40% in that district, then there are 600 spaces to fill “under the radar,” it seems.
The travel of each ballot and consecutive steps used to prevent fraud along the way would be an interesting Special Investigative Report by some news outlet. Too bad honest journalism is pretty much missing in America. I’ve never seen such an analysis. If one exists, please provide a link.
The sales pitch person is a gook sent to represent the Russian bots in the most corrupt state in the union.
9:41,
The only thing corrupt is your racist comment. Go away and exchange your racist opinions with your Trump loving friends.
8:15 where did you vote.
Not a Trump lover, just a realist and not pandering to the left or right! The local people living in the valley need some real representation not sellouts to advertizementalists renting uninhabitable blight as livable tenaments to there undocumented voting base.
You should just stick with believing the fake news!
10:57 Were is the answer comment reply, just look around at all the fat greasy lawyers in this the most corrpt state in the union?
I can understand If someone made a human error, the only thing I care about is that a accurate back up hard copy is correct, unchangeable and tamper proof!!!
11:01 - that’s exactly the point! Thank you.
The first hurdle is to get all machines across the nation immune from computer hacking. Next, guard against HUMAN dishonesty all along the process. From maintaining updated voter registrations, to the volunteer person who signs off on log-in signatures, to the person who controls access to the locked ballot receptacle, to the person transporting cast ballots, the person counting them, and finally the individual registering the final total for each candidate.
There are still weak links all throughout the chain.
Stop complaining about TH cyf problems. Bernie O'Hare will post about them later. He will attack all of us because that is what Mr. McClure wants him to do. He may even attack council as well.
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