[Davis Democrats] U.C. Berkeley Statistical analysis shows 99.9% chance touch-screens gave Bush excess votes in FL (260, 000 or so)

[Adrienne Kandel]

Wired News

Researchers: Florida Vote Fishy
By Kim Zetter

12:18 PM Nov. 18, 2004 PT

Electronic voting machines in Florida may have awarded George W. Bush up to
260,000 more votes than he should have received, according to statistical
analysis conducted by University of California, Berkeley graduate students
and a professor, who released a study on Thursday.

The researchers likened their report to a beeping smoke alarm and called on
Florida officials to examine the data and the voting systems in counties
that used touch-screen voting machines to provide an explanation for the
anomalies. The researchers examined the same numbers and variables in Ohio,
but found no discrepancies there

Their aim in releasing the report, the researchers said, was not to attack
the results of the 2004 election in Florida, where Bush won by 350,000
votes, but to prompt election officials and the public to examine the
e-voting systems and address the fact that there is no way to conduct a
meaningful recount on the paperless machines

The analysis -- which hasn't been formally peer-reviewed, but was examined
by seven professors -- showed a discrepancy in the number of votes Bush
received in counties that used the touch-screen machines and counties that
used other types of voting equipment. The researchers examined numerous
variables that might have affected the vote outcome. These included the
number of voters, their median income, racial and age makeup and the change
in voter turnout between the 2000 and 2004 elections. Using this
information, they examined election results for the Republican and
Democratic presidential candidates in the state in 1996, 2000 and 2004 to
see how support for those candidates and parties measured over eight years
in Florida's 67 counties.

They discovered that in the 15 counties using touch-screen voting systems,
the number of votes granted to Bush far exceeded the number of votes Bush
should have received -- given all of the other variables -- while the number
of votes that Bush received in counties using other types of voting
equipment lined up perfectly with what the variables would have predicted
for those counties.

The total number of excessive votes ranged between 130,000 and 260,000,
depending on what kind of problem caused the excess votes. The counties most
affected by the anomaly were heavily Democratic.

Sociology professor Michael Hout, who chairs the university's graduate
Sociology and Demography group, said the chance for such a discrepancy to
occur was less than 1 in 1,000.

"No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the
significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic
voting cannot be explained," he said in a statement. "There is just a
trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where
the true difference is zero -- less than once in a thousand chances."

The three counties where anomalies were most prevalent were Broward, Palm
Beach and Miami-Dade. In Broward, statistical analysis showed that Bush
should have received 28,000 fewer votes this year than in 2000. In fact, he
received 51,000 more votes than expected, for a net gain of 81,000 votes. In
Palm Beach county, analysis showed that Bush should have received 8,900
fewer votes. But instead he gained 41,000. In Miami-Dade county he was
expected to gain votes, but by much less than he actually did. According to
the researchers he should have received only 18,400 more votes, but he
actually received 37,000, a gain of 19,300 beyond the expectation.

Both Broward and Miami-Dade counties use machines made by Election Systems &
Software, while Palm Beach county uses machines made by Sequoia Voting
Systems. No Florida counties used touch-screen machines made by Diebold
Election Systems, the company whose machines have received the most scrutiny
over the last year.

A representative for Election Systems & Software called the study
"hypothetical."

"If you consider real-world experience, we know that ES&S' touch-screen
voting system has been proven in thousands of elections throughout the
country," said Jill Friedman-Wilson. "Based on this solid track record -- as
well as the extensive testing process that is required before equipment may
be used in an election -- we are confident in the security, reliability and
accuracy of all of our voting systems."

Susan Van Houten, cofounder of Palm Beach Coalition for Election Reform, was
not surprised by the Berkeley report.

"I've believed the same thing for a while that the numbers are screwy and it
looks like they proved it," Van Houten said.

Van Houten said her group had received a number of reports from voters who
said that when they voted for Kerry on the Sequoia machines, the review
screen showed that the vote had been cast for Bush. The review screen lets
voters review their choices before casting their ballot. Van Houten said she
was concerned that the same thing may have happened to many other voters who
didn't carefully check the review screen before casting their ballot.

"From the computer experts I spoke to, it’s relatively easy to program
something into the system so that only every 50th vote would automatically
go to Bush," Van Houten said. If this were the case, election officials
would be less likely to think there was a problem with the machine if only a
few voters noticed it.

Jenny Nash, press secretary for the Florida Department of State, said she
would not comment on a report that she had not yet read. She said Florida
had been using its current voting systems since 2002 and had "delivered
hundreds of successful elections using the systems."

"Florida has one of the most rigorous certification processes in the
nation," Nash said. "After a system is certified for use ... then every
single voting systems is tested prior to the election, sealed, and then that
seal is not broken until Election Day. We have never had any reports from
supervisors of machines malfunctioning or of votes being lost."

"I think that's a joke," Van Houten said. "As a poll worker in the primary
(election), I personally witnessed three machines go down."

Van Houten's group, which monitored polling places on Nov. 2, found that at
least 40 of 798 machines they monitored were unable to print out a final
tally tape at the end of the night. In Florida, poll workers are supposed to
print out two tallies from each machine -- one for county officials and
another for posting at the polls so that voters can see what the tallies
were.

"In around 40 cases that didn't occur," Van Houten said. "I personally
observed that during the primary as well. A machine just went down and
flashed a message that it needed service repair. It didn't print out a
tally."

Graduate students from Berkeley's Quantitative Methods Research Team
launched the research project after following debates in the blogosphere
about possible fraud in the election. After examining and discounting many
other theories, such as ones involving optical-scan machines in Florida,
they decided to look at counties that used touch-screen voting machines.

Touch-screen machines became the focus of much debate last year when
computer scientists who examined the systems released several reports
showing that the machines were vulnerable to hacking and vote manipulation.
The testing and certification process for approving voting systems has also
been roundly criticized by computer experts and voting activists as being
inadequate.

The researchers would not speculate on possible causes for the vote
discrepancies in Florida; they said they would leave it to officials to
figure that out. [Adrienne Kandel]