A double error by Election Systems and Software (ES&S), Northampton County's election machine vendor, managed to completely disrupt yesterday's municipal election.
The first mistake was a simple coding error by an ES&S employee. It completely screwed up the retention races for Superior Court President Judge Jack Panella and Judge Victor Stabile. Those who voted Yes were shown on the paper receipt as having voted done so, But those who voted Yes to Judge Panella and No to Judge Stabile were shown as having voted No to Panella and Yes to Stabile.
The second mistake happened during something known as logic and accuracy (L&A) testing. Before an election, every voting machine is placed through a series of tests to determine whether the votes cast on that machine are being tabulated accurately. The L&A testing failed to catch this coding or labelling error, likely because ES&S failed to try different combinations.
Though the paper receipt showed that Yes votes for Panella were being counted as Nos, ES&S and county officials assured that the count would be correct on the USB drive that comes with every voting machine.
This double error is two mistakes too many. At a news conference late yesterday afternoon (you can see it above), Executive Lamont McClure took the hit. "Ultimately, it is my responsibility," he acknowledged. He did downplay the problem as "relatively minor," but admitted these mistakes undermine public confidence in the integrity of our elections.
They certainly do. Moreover, this double error in the appellate retention races managed to completely disrupt the entire election.
ES&S provides the elections systems for over 30 Pennsylvania jurisdictions but only had this specific program in Northampton County.
According to Administrator Charles Dertinger, the problem was brought to the attention of elections officials at about 7:15 am. They tested their own machine and confirmed it was a problem. At about 7:30 am, Dertinger states that elections officials notified all elections judges (every election judge is provided a county cell phone)to discontinue using the voting machines and instead issue emergency ballots to voters. If precincts ran out of emergency ballots, provisional ballots were used. At about 10 am, after a hearing before Judge Abe Kassis, elections judges were told they could return to using the machines because their vote on the screen will be the vote that ultimately is counted, regardless what the paper ballots show. Deringer said he would be "logistically impossible" to change the programming on all 365 machines in use in such a short time span.
This "relatively minor" affecting only appellate court retention races had a negative impact on the entire election. Voting by machine was suspended at 7:30 am, forcing voters to use emergency and provisional ballots. That continued until after 10 am.
The early morning hours are when a large segment of voters come in to vote on their way to work. Some voters in a hurry were told to come back later. How many did? How many people never bothered to sign in and simply turned around a left because of this "relatively minor" error?
Moreover, a voter who sees that his vote in a race is not registering on the paper receipt has every right to complain and be distrustful of the entire process. This supposedly minor error undermine public confidence in the election. What happened certainly had at least a minor impact of election day turnout. Since most election day voters are Republican, I am sure they will argue that this "relatively minor" error affected candidates in close contested races.
12 comments:
Oh Charlie...hmnahmnahmna. last time mistakes were made with these machines, it was the paper ballot that was accurate. This time, the machine recorded correctly but the paper ballot didn't. At least Lamont admitted he's no expert on on how voting machines work. But Charlie certainly was when he stomped all over everyone that took issue with choosing these XL machines that he was pushing. How you like 'em now Charlie?
McClure took responsibility for the screwup but quickly claimed it was insignificant and punted to Dertinger and the company. So, its my responsibility, BUT...
Not quite a profile in courage.
The system works the way it was designed ... by Democrats. It's a blue world. Why don't drag queens read to homeless shelters and old folks homes? Only kids.
On the local NextDoor online site a person said she was told to vote opposite of what she intended in order to get the desired vote. So, if we have these situations, I think at least a printed handout should be read by all the staff at polling sites so every voter gets the same instructions/explanations. Not individual interpretations. Each voter should get a printed one for their records. Right now, how do you know every voter was told the same thing?
McClure blamed the voting machine company? That undermines elections and democracy. People have been convicted for less. NorCo elections went from best in the state to a statewide embarrassment. Is there anything the McClure administration does well? Wrecking the best election office in the state will go down as one of his greatest hits.
Or even given instructions at all. I spoke to some friends and family who were unaware of the problem and had voted long after the "solution" was public. No instructions given.
It switched my intended vote and I was given no instruction how can anyone have any confidence in these machines! I also voted at 6:15 P.M..
I say we blame stupid Bow Tie...he walks around all smug and acts like he knows EVERYTHING about everything. Total loser. Oh, eat some cheesburgers Chuck...keep that waistline expanding
Yesterday I was a judge of elections in Lehigh County, which uses paper ballots. There were no issues in Lehigh County that I was aware of, or they too would have made the news. Maybe it's about time Northampton County gets rid of its electronic voting machines and go back to paper. "The more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to clog it up." - Montgomery Scott
Polling sites and poll workers and poll watchers..can all go the way of the horse and buggy if we want them to do so. Stop the charade and let everyone vote by mail and be done with this lunacy! Haven't we seen enough and subjected voters to waiting lines and bad weather just to exercise their right to vote? Electronic tabulation still susceptible to human error and that is the tale of the tape! What a waste of our hard earned money to lese this crap.
ESS voting machines had similar shutdowns and problems occur in 2019, and the county administration gave the “apology” to the people
once again. Maybe the 3 million dollars of taxpayer money used to purchase these technological voting machine wonders could have been better spent
elsewhere. What guarantee is there that they won’t fail again during the presidential election?
Hope that "relatively minor" error happens when he is up for re-election.
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