ES&S Machines in Mahoning County Defaulted to Bush!

[emlev]

New study by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.

Excerpt:



DEFAULT SETTINGS IN MAHONING COUNTY

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
December 20, 2004

A disturbing story has been widely circulated that a
vote for Bush was the default choice in the software of
electronic voting machines in a number of states. By
definition, “default” settings are built-in by the
manufacturer to make sure their programs work properly,
and can be changed by the user. Some examples of
default settings on a home computer are screen savers,
type face, and screen resolution.

According an article by Ann Harrison, posted at

http://www.counterpunch.org/harrison12082004.html

in certain counties in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania,
Texas, and New Mexico where touch screen voting machines
were used, there have been complaints from voters who
selected Kerry on the touch screen and saw their votes
change to Bush on a summary screen. In addition, there
was a specific problem with the Sequoia AVC Edge machine
(not used in Ohio) where voters actually saw preselected
default choices presented to them.

With touch screen machines, it is possible to set up a
default choice for Bush that would not be seen by the
voters. Their votes would be automatically cast for
Bush unless they successfully overrode the default
choice of the computer. Likewise, if they deliberately
chose not to vote for president, their votes would be
counted for Bush.

Mahoning County was by far the largest county in Ohio
where touch screen voting machines were utilized.
According to a report by the Youngstown Vindicator at

http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/281829446390855.php

Mark Munroe, Chairman of the Mahoning County Board of
Elections, said there were 20 to 30 machines that needed
to be recalibrated during the voting process because
some votes for a candidate were being counted for that
candidate’s opponent. In addition, about a dozen
machines needed to be reset because they “essentially
froze.” Later on election night, problems arose in 16
precincts (11 in Youngstown, 2 in Boardman, and one each
in Jackson Township, Craig Beach, and Washingtonville),
causing election results to be delayed for three hours
as Board of Elections employees checked the vote tallies
of the touch screen machines.

Mahoning County utilized ES&S Ivotronic touch screen
machines. The administrative password for these
machines was reported on the ES&S website itself.
By default, the password is 1111.

Full study:

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/youngstown.htm

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Thanks for posting...Will be sending story out to my distribution list.

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. It will be important to see where this goes (n/t)

[berniew1]

4. This confirms the documentation of same thing in N. Mexico and Florida

See other threads on this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=176637&mesg_id=176637

[hedda_foil]

13. There is no documentation on New Mexico or Florida ...

There are certainly indications that this may have occurred, but this is the first study on the question. It was prompted specifically by the threads here at DU.

[merh]

14. hedda_foil

Just want to tell you thanks for all of your hard work and all that you have done in compiling and disseminating the facts on the election fraud. :toast: You deserve a slap on the back and a great big hug :hug: for all of your determination and efforts! You are a patriot and I salute you. :hi: Don't know what we would do without you and the others who have struggled to keep up with all of the facts and figures and documentation. :loveya:

Thank you so much!

[berniew1]

15. You apparently haven't read the Help America Recount Study on my thread

They have lots of documentation. More than Phillips I think.

http://www.helpamericarecount.org/NewMexicoData/NewMexicoGeneralElection.pdf

http://www.flcv.com/fraudpat.html

This is why they are doing the recount. And this isn't the only one thats been done there. There have been posts before about the fraud pattern there- default to Bush being extremely widespread there.

[skids]

17. I can assure you hedda has...

What is missing with NM/etc is the precinct-level verification as Richard did in this paper.

[dewaldd]

3. I can't keep up with the ugliness

[driver8]

16. I am sick to my stomach over this... n/t

[understandinglife]

5. Thank you: forwarded to my mailing lists (n/t)

[demodonkey]

6. Good God! NO Voting Machine should have a "default" choice!

Many voters like to excercise their right to NOT vote for any candidate.

So if you do this on a Black Box DRE you are putting in a vote for ** (or whoever is the next rethug darling?)

Un-f-ing-believable! :nuke:


WE MUST STOP THESE MACHINES, PEOPLE.

[lonestarnot]

7. Hehehe LOL This is America! This is Democracy LOL

This is bushilter's rendition of a free and fair election. Just like the "Iraqi War" clever use of possessive declaration...he needs to own up to both or be prosecuted! War crimes and treason! Bush Monkey War

[mtnester]

8. Fer the love of God....even a simple web form can be set up w/o

a default selection.

[Dolphyn]

9. Thread headline is misleading. Not all ES&S machines defaulted to Bush.

The thread headline "ES&S Machines in Mahoning County Defaulted to Bush!" suggests that all ES&S machines in the county defaulted to Bush. Actually, the article states "For Mahoning County there are 116 incident reports, 28 of them involving machine problems. Most of these are complaints consistent with the voting machine having a preselected default setting. There are several reports of machines miscasting votes, always away from Kerry, that do not specify a polling site."

Troubling, YES -- but it would be misleading to claim that all ES&S machines in the county defaulted to Bush. Indeed, if that were true there would be ZERO undervotes for precincts using ES&S machines.

I find the "miscasting votes" problem to be just as bad as, and perhaps worse than, the "default" settings.

[demodonkey]

12. In a way "some" is worse than "all"...

why would only "some" machines default to **, that looks like it was just intended to make it harder to catch.

There is NO reason for even ONE voting machine to default to ANYBODY.

Something like that does not just jump into the programming by itself!

[Smirking_Chimp]

10. I voted on a Sequoia AVC edge machine!?!

Those are the machines we have in Ocean County NJ. I'm voting absentee from now on.

[enough]

11. Great post, emlev.

kick

[procinderella]

18. Do we have a leader yet?

I know that the Arnebeck Petition filed with the Ohio Supreme court is huge. But he is probably swamped with emails and information coming at him.

What other organization has really stepped up and is concisely organizing all this stuff. And then turning it around and presenting it in a coherent press release form type of message?

[Firespirit]

19. Whoa.

I am not an expert on these machines, but it would seem that there is no way to "undo" this particular brand of fraud via recounts. Questions:

-Do these machines store records of individual votes?

If yes...

-Even if Bush is set as the default candidate, in an electronic device, if there is input (in this case from the touch screen), a series of programmed actions will be triggered electronically. Computer science and engineer types know what I'm referring to. Is there any way to detect forensically, for each vote, whether these steps were executed?

I'm guessing the answer to be NO on at least one count.

This would appear to be legal grounds for a revote in all precincts where this was the case.

[emlev]

20. Minor change made to Phillips report...

If you're circulating it to your email list or posting it elsewhere, please be sure you have the updated version.

[Hamoth]

21. My letter to him: He missed one big thing...

I am probably the originator of the concern of undervotes being improperly handled via machine defaults. I felt your study had one glaring hole in it...it is possible that the tabulation of punch-cards could also be counting undervotes as bush votes...if the tabulation software indeed has a default value selected like we have seen in other electronic systems, then an improperly punched ballot might in such a configured machine count as a vote for a default candidate.

I suspect that if you examine optiscan tallies and observe a reduction of undervotes in those tallies compared from 2000, then compare that reduction to increase in votes for Bush, you might find a correlation.

In an electronic tabulator in Fairfield county, during the hand count sampling, one such machine was discovered that was logging two undervoted balots as bush votes. It was written off as a defective machine and replaced during the recount. But was this used for initial tallying? Was this error common? If so, given the high occurance of undervotes in Dem precincts this would effectively be the very mechanism by which votes expected for Kerry were switched into bush votes electronically. I offer you your smoking gun.

Thank you for your hard work and attention to this matter!