November 17, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004, 11:03 PM
NYT Headline: "Florida's High Court Rules Recounts Can Go On".

The lead paragraph:

"The Florida Supreme Court ruled today that at least two largely Democratic counties ould continue recounting ballots by hand, but a welter of pending legal challenges left in unclear whether any such votes would officially count in determining the outcome of the presidential race."

You can count 'em, but they might not count. Uh huh.

Jeb Bush finally put in a reappearance at the state capitol after days of keeping a low profile. Bush was photographed hanging out at his 1,500 acre ranch.

Palm Beach County's recount was back on, after the Florida Supreme Court decision. Thev olunteers started late that night and expected to take six days to finish.

The new chad standards: hanging and swinging chads would be counted, and ballots with tri-chads and pregnant chads would be put in a separate pile to be counted or not depending on the voter's intention, as best as the counters could discern it.

The hot topic of the day: what is abuse of discretion, and has Katherine Harris done it? That was the issue before Judge Lewis, in state court; in federal court, at the 11th Circuit, media camped out waiting for a decision on the recounts that didn't come.

Gore officially got Oregon and Iowa's electoral votes, still not enough to do him any good.

Yet another article was in the day's paper about our fine election system. "It's that old saying: to err is human, to really screw things up, you need a computer..." (p A29).



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Tech Support Reporting For Duty
Friday, October 22, 2004, 10:37 PM
Ugh, that does sound rather militaristic, doesn't it? Well, it's better than "Tech Support is on the way", or any other variant on a certain presidential candidate's catchy slogans in the debates.

I got my assignment from the Verified Voting folks a couple days ago, and due to the Red Sox debacle I forgot to report it! I get to do tech support for all those folks calling in from the field Nov. 2 with polling issues. Guess I'd better look at the software, huh? Wow, phone support for lawyers, just what I've always wanted *cough cough*.

So I'm going to put off provisional balloting one more day and tak about paper ballots and DRE's (electronic voting machines). Here in Alameda County, we have Diebold Accu-somethings. Accu-my-*ss, but they don't say that on the faceplate.... Anyways, I have decided to be one of the folks who requests a paper ballot, if I can just be assured that it gets counted. I can't tell if this is the same as a provisional ballot. I finally found in the California election code in some fine print what happens to provisional ballots; if you're in the right couny, they get counted, and every item gets counted if it would be on the ballot you got at the *right* precinct. That's not bad compared to some other states, no, don't bother hovering for a link because I'm not linking to any of those stories til *tomorrow* so hold your horses!

Nowhere in the election code, however, can I find a reference to paper ballots that are given out as an alternative to touch-screen voting. Do they count? This is not an academic question. Guess I'll be one of the folks flooding the Sec. of State's voting hotline with calls. (1-800-345-VOTE.)

I did get my voter registration card in the mail today, which gives me hope that my name will actually be on the rolls. Hope is on the way. Hey, that would be a great campaign slog-- ouch! Knock it off! Ow! Ow! That hurts!



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November 16, 2000
Friday, October 22, 2004, 11:49 AM
NYT Headline: "Florida Says No to Further Recounts as Bush Dismisses Overture From Gore".

Here's an excerpt from Katherine Harris's statement given the night before:

"After Judge Lewis's decision yesterday morning, my staff and I, along with counsel, developed criteria appropriate to the exercise of my discretion under Florida law. This criteria is clearly set forth in Florida case law.

For the past six hours, I have applied these criteria in deliberating upon the specific requests of the counties contemplating manual vote recounts. As a result of these deliberations, I've decided it is my duty under Florida law to exercise my discretion in denying these requested amendments. The reasons given in their requests are insufficient to warrant waiver of the unambiguous filing deadline imposd by the Florida Legislature."

In Palm Beach County, the recount was halted for the fourth day in a row while the board members waited for a ruling from the state Supreme Court on whether or not the manual recount was legally authorized.

In the courts, we had the following:

"In a unanimous one-page ruling late today, the Florida Supreme Court denied a request from the state's secretary of state, Katherine Harris, to block [the hand recounts]."

Also, "a federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed to hear Mr. Bush's request for an injunction to block any further recounts as unconstitutional, paving the way for possible review by the United States Supreme Court."

Gore proposed that the two campaigns accept either the results of the two manual recounts in progress, plus the overseas ballots yet to be counted, or to have a full recount of all 67 counties in Florida and abide by that. The Bush camp swiftly rejected the proposal.

Statisticians predicted that the overseas ballots would favor Bush by about 55% to Gore's 43%.

And meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill...

"Representative Tom DeLay, the Republican leader who drove the House forward to impeachment, has sent a staff memorandum to Congressional Republicans pointing out that the House and Senate can reject a state's electoral votes if they decide that the votes are tainted."

Bush and Gore both gave televised statements, a quote from each on the front page below a corresponding mug shot. Bush's quote:

"Manual counting, with individuals making subjective decisions about voter intent, introduces human error and politics into the vote-counting process."

Yeah, but as any computer tech person knows, leaving it to the computers is a guaranteed recipe for error. I *still* can't believe that some of these e-voting systems run on .... Windoze. Come on, I mean, throw me a friggin' bone here!


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To write in or not to write in... in Pennsylvania
Friday, October 22, 2004, 11:48 AM
This story broke about a week ago but it's finally starting to surface in the mainstream press.

Suppose you wanted to learn how to write in your candidate for President in Pennsylvania, someone whose name wasn't already on the ballot.

You might go look at the Pennsylvania Department of State explanation of how to do it.

Or you might go look at the League of Women Voters page describing how to write in your candidate.

Or you might google the news reports. A fine choice. Because, as it turns out, no voter guide describes the correct method, which involves writing in the names of all of the electors which in Pennsylvania means 21 names, all of which must be spelled correctly.

Of course the precise procedures, as well as the amount of room you have to write in these 21 names, varies from county to county, because the voting methods differ as well. A quite disturbing map on the official Pennsylvania voter information web site shows the patchwork of systems available.

Now, multiply this patchwork by 50, and you can see why our problem is not that we might have a repeat of Florida this year. It's that we'll wake up on Nov. 3rd to find that we are facing six Floridas.

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November 15, 2000
Wednesday, October 20, 2004, 11:17 PM
NYT Headline: "Judge Upholds Hand Recounts in Florida; 2 Counties are Facing New State Deadline".

The lead paragraph:

"The Florida secretary of state announced tonight that she would comply with a state judge's order to consider results of further recounts in the disputed presidential election, but she gave the two Democratic counties that are moving ahead with, or considering, a time-consuming hand recount a deadline of 2 p.m. Wednesday to explain their reasons in writing."

An excerpt from her statement:

"Unless I determine in the exercise of my discretion that these facts and circumstances contained within these written statements justify an amendment to today's official returns, the state elections canvassing commission, in a manner consistent with its usual and normal practice, will certify statewide results reported to this office today. Subsequently, the overseas ballots that are due by midnight Friday will also be certified and the final results of the election for president of the United States of America in the state of Florida will be announced."

The election "system" got more coverage on page 3:

"If it is not quite a dirty little secret, it is at least a rarely considered component of American politics: from local canvassing boards, like those in Palm Beach County, to the Federal Election Commission, people with a partisan stake can play a significant role in determining winners and losers."

The timeline of the previous day's events:

8:15 a.m. Palm Beach County suspends its hand recount of all ballots after it receives conflicting instructions over whether it can proceed.

10:25 a.m. A state court ruling on extending the 5 p.m. reporting deadline is postponed to noon.

11:25 a.m. Miami-Dade County agrees to partial hand recount requested by Gore campaign.

11:28 a.m. James A. Baker III of the Bush campaign challenges the Gore campaign to accept a 5 p.m. deadline for reporting Florida votes.

12:06 p.m. William M. Daley of the Gore campaign says the Bush offer was not fair.

12:46 p.m. State judge rules that 5 p.m. deadline should stand but that exceptions are at the discretion of the secretary of state.

1:11 p.m. Gore campaign says it will appeal decision to uphold 5 p.m. deadline.

2:00 p.m. State judge rules that 5 p.m. deadline does not apply to Broward County and gives its canvassing board the option to conduct a manual recount.

2:30 p.m. Warren Christopher of the Gore campaign says judge's decision implies that counts reported after the deadline must be considered.

3:05 p.m. Florida secretary of state's office restates expectation that it will be able to count all votes by midnight Friday.

3:17 p.m. A judge dissolves a restraining order that kept Palm Beach County from continuing its hand recount.

3:23 p.m. Miami-Dade County begins its hand recount.

4:32 p.m. Palm Beach County votes to submit its machine counted results but to continue the hand count.

4:40 p.m. Bush campaign files notice to a federal appeals court to stop all hand recounting in Florida.

The conflicting instructions Judge Burton got about the Palm Beack County recount consisted of a letter from the director of the Florida Division of Elections, saying that "an error in the vote tabulation" which would permit manual recount of ballots had to be from incorrect election parameters or software errors, and a letter from the state Attorney General, saying that the error could also include "failure of a properly functioning mechanical system to discern the choices of the voters as revealed by the ballots", and that the Division of Elections opinion was wrong.

An excerpt from the judge's ruling denying a temporary injunction against the secretary of state except for one crucial piece (accepting late returns within her discretion):

"That the secretary may ignore late-filed returns necessarily means that the secretary does not have to ignore such returns. It is, as the secretary acknowledges, within her discretion.

To determine ahead of time that such returns will be ignored, however, unless caused by some act of God, is not the exercise of discretion. It is the abdication of that discretion. ... Rather, the exercise of discretion, by its nature, contemplates a decision based upon a weighing and consideration of all attendant facts and circumstances."

On the editorial page, Kathleen Sullivan, dean of the Stanford law school, called for uniform standards for election procedures nationwide.

Well, heck, hell *did* just freeze over. Maybe it'll happen after this year. But I'm not holding my breath.


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