PA Counties Said Unprepared to Serve Voters, Meet Court Order for Emergency Paper Ballots
Election Official: '80% of Counties Do Not Have Emergency Ballots'...
In the suburban county of Montgomery, just outside of Philadelphia, election officials have, inexcusably, been caught off guard by a new, court-mandated directive by PA's Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes.
The direct requires that counties have enough emergency paper ballots (EPBs) on hand at polling places to ensure that voters can vote if half, or more, of a precinct's voting machines break down. County officials admit today that they were completely unprepared for the directive, and even for the likelihood of serious machine failure, despite known problems with the touch-screen voting systems they use, or the extraordinary voter turnout long-predicted for next Tuesday.
The new directive [PDF] was issued yesterday, as we reported last night in our late update to our article on the lawsuit. The successful suit was filed last week against the Democratic Secretary, by the NAACP and a local election protection coalition. It followed on Cortes' directive a month a go that EPBs only needed to be given out to voters in the event of failure of 100% of a precinct's machines.
Cortes' original directive, and even the one issued yesterday, has been seen at odds with a PA statutory provision that allowed counties to offer paper ballots in the event that just one machine had failed. PA uses Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems across most of the state, and is a key battleground for John McCain's attempt to win the White House this year
Montgomery County's voter services Director, Joseph R. Passarella admits this morning that his county is unprepared for the directive, despite known problems and historic failures of electronic voting machines on Election Day in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, or even the widely-predicted unprecedented turnout that's expected.
He also says that he believes, according to the Philadelphia Intelligencer , that an "estimated... 80 percent of the state's other counties do not have emergency ballots, having used provisional ballots for both purposes in the past."
Incredibly, Passarella also admitted today that he had previously planned to give just 100 provisional ballots, and 100 emergency ballots to each precinct...
"Montgomery County election officials Thursday said they would comply with Wednesday's federal court order directing polls throughout the state to offer voters paper emergency ballots if half of the voting machines in that polling place become inoperable on Election Day.However, officials do not have any concrete compliance plan in place at this time.
"We are just going to have to train on the fly," said county voter services Director Joseph R. Passarella, noting that all but one of the county's 18 poll worker training classes have been completed.
Simply placing a letter with detailed instructions on how to handle the situation in each poll's box of Election Day supplies "would only cause more confusion," said Passarella.
Also, there is no time to print additional individualized emergency ballots for each of the county's 418 polling places, according to Passarella.
Even if there was time, all of the supply boxes for each poll "are packed and ready to go," he said."
So, in other words, even though the law already says paper ballots may be given out if even one machine breaks down, and even though the machines have broken down historically, and even though there is likely to record turnout and not nearly enough machines to serve voters as is, this county has not previously -- prior to the new directive from the SoS, or even in response to the old one, issued over a month ago -- made plans to ensure that voters would be able to vote come hell, high-water, or completely-predictable machine failure.
Disgraceful.
Who Could Have Predicted It?
According to Wikipedia, Montgomery, a suburban area southwest of Philadelphia, has a population of approximately 800,000. The Democratic leaning county reportedly voted strongly for John Kerry in 2004, by a margin of 56% to 44% over George W. Bush. It is the third most populous county in the state.
In the 2004 general election, 379,715 voters reportedly voted [PDF] on the county's DRE voting systems at their 418 polling places.
That's an average of 908 voters at each precinct in 2004. And yet, as the Inquirer reports, Passarella was prepared to have just 100 provisional and 100 emergency paper ballots on hand at each polling place this year, even with the predicted historic turnout.
To make matters still worse, Montgomery County forces voters to use the Sequoia Voting Systems' faulty, error-prone, hackable AVC Advantage DRE touch-screen voting machines. Those are the same machines that wouldn't start up at all in New Jersey on Super Tuesday this year, delaying Governor John Corzine, and countless other voters', ability to cast a vote at all for nearly an hour on the morning of primary day.
The same Sequoia machines in New Jersey also reportedly flipped votes from Obama to Clinton that day, before proceeding to misreport vote totals in dozens of counties, and even lose votes entirely, as reported by Princeton University in their recently released court-ordered analysis of the Advantage machines.
"As a consequence of these flaws," the computer scientists at Princeton wrote, "voters were disenfranchised." The report was commissioned as part of a lawsuit by NJ election integrity advocates, the court ordered it's release just last week. The researchers were also able to pick the lock on the machine in 13 seconds, and do so without breaking the machine's security seals.
In February of 2007, we reported on the same Sequoia Advantage machines having been hacked in five minutes by a professor at Princeton University, who had purchased five of the machines on the Internet from an on-line government equipment clearinghouse for $86 apiece. NJ had purchased them for $8000 a piece.
John Bonifaz, of VoterAction.org, the lead attorney in the successful NAACP lawsuit against the state of PA, writes via email this morning that the legal team in the case has been alerted to the report out of Montgomery County.
Cross-posted at The BRAD BLOG...
Brad Friedman is an investigative journalist/blogger and the creator/publisher of The BRAD BLOG, which has been focusing for some years on the many issues involved in election integrity. He can currently be seen in a number of documentaries on the topic, now in release around the country, including David Earnhardt's Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, and the just-released Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story, by documentarian Patty Sharaf.
Follow Brad Friedman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheBradBlog
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
EVERYONE could predict problems with voting machines and the need for paper back-up.
Duh.
If Obama can win this, despite massive vote suppression, hopefully the long lines and failed machines will lead to a NEW and ACCURATE way of counting votes--one that is free of the FRAUD Republicans always count on (although, of course, they'll still keep the dirty tricks of lying to voters about the requirements, dates, etc--and candidates. Anything to win).
What a bunch of crooks.
Obama-Biden '08 .... Please!
We should go back to bringing our own ballots, the way they did when the first elections were held.
Guys, I am so p.o'd!
Where are our leaders who care? What the heck are they waiting on? The ballot problems can and should be taken care of immediately if they have to stay up all night getting them printed.
No darn excuse for this.
Someone needs to take up the gauntlet and get this country on course. We can have voter registration without problems just as we do with any other registration including social security, drivers licenses, etc.
We may as well have a national presidential election system implemented if local officials are going to be a part of voter disenfranchisement.
Every American who has a right to vote deserves to have his/her vote counted.
Surely there is a printing company somewhere capable of performing an emergency printing job for Montgomery Co.
This makes me even more suspicious of McCain spending so much time campaigning in PA. Is all this a part of the plan - faulty machines and all.
The official should be immediately relieved of his duties because it was his job to plan for this election. He should have enough common sense know what his job entails.
Why should he need a court order before ordering enough paper ballots to cover everyone registered in his county when he knew that the number of voters expected was unprecedented. He has displayed a willful and wanton neglect of the rights of all the voters in his county. If he does not have the ability to make a much necessary administrative decision then citizens of his county ought to demand that he be fired immediately and raise hell until he is gone.
Just unfreaking
In the 2004 presidential election, 57,000 voting irregularities, such as problems with voting machines and voter suppression, where filed with the Government Accountability Office mostly favoring Bush and hurting Kerry. Yes 57,000! If you're a journalist who has courage to speak up, look at the information presented and let it be known to the public.
http://www
Brad, you're the best reporter on election protection issues. I know there's plenty going on in the rest of the country but guess what? Right here in our own L.A., our very own unbeloved Dean Logan hasn't printed enough ballots for Los Angeles County.
See Brad Friedman's Profile
Don't I know it! I'm quite concerned that I won't be able to vote *myself* out here tomorrow!
What is wrong with these election officials. Are they afraid to do their jobs or is someone else making the administrative calls that they should be making. Regardless, after this election is over it appears that there are quite a few heads that should roll.
Who will make these people accountable. This is no small problem. It is very serious and a blatant disregard for the voting rights of Americans.
Pretty interesting especially given that PA is supposed to be key to unlocking a victory scenario for McCaine..
The investigation should start immediately and all the administrative staff should be relieved of their jobs with oversight replacement workers.
Yeah. McCain sees positive trends in PA. This is why I'm still scared about this election.
So this must be why the Mccane camp feels confident about PA. God I hope all goes well.
It appears as though everyone can see through the thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise the voters.
Where are all those lawyers who were going to make sure voters didn't get disenfranchised.
They have an opportunity to run interference. Get on the front end of this before it gets really messy.
Someone should be checking all the machines in Montgomery County tonight for signs of tampering.
They don't have Kinko's in PA? And enough pens for poll officials to sign the ballots and keep a tally?
This is absurd, no?
See Brad Friedman's Profile
Yes. Very.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
