Jennings Campaign in Sarasota Florida asks this message be spread to as many in Sarasota as possible

[philb]

If anyone had problems voting on the Buchanan/Jennings race please
contact the Jennings HQ asap at 366-8121. They need to hear from
everybody. They are taking affidavits today. Every problem counts.
They also want to hear from people who were barraged with phone calls
that they assumed were from the Jennings campaign.

Please come forward quickly by calling or going to the headquarters at
the Bayou Professional Center at 1751 Osprey (2nd floor).
They will be there until 5 p.m. today (or later if need be).

Your voice matters.

Susan G.

[Eric J in MN]

1. Was this an email from the campaign? NT

NT

[philb]

16. From this poll worker who was sent request to come in and discuss what she observed; here is report

Dear Kathy Dent, S.O.E.

I worked as an inspector at precinct 5 in Sarasota on Tuesday, November 7th. I am writing to let you know that I was very disturbed about the kinds of problems that the voters were experiencing during the voting process.

There were people who went through the entire voting process, including pressing the vote button, who subsequently got a screen instructing them to "continue".

There were people who claimed that they voted on the race for the 13th Congressional District and yet, in the review of their ballot, there was no evidence of their vote having been registered.

There were people who claimed that the race for the 13th Congressional District had not shown up at all on their ballot until the review of their ballot.


I, personally, was unaware of the potential problem with viewing page 2 of the ballot until voters began to complain of the problems they were experiencing. There had been no mention of this from my clerk or co-workers while we were setting up for the voting process. After the voters started telling me about the problems they were experiencing, specifically with this race, then, and only then, did my co-workers say that they had heard about a potential problem with one of the ballot pages the night before "on the news". One of them said, "Oh yes, Kathy Dent came on and told people to watch out for that."

Why was there nothing posted at the polling places warning voters about this if you were aware of the potential problem?

Why were we (poll-workers) not instructed ,either by you or by our clerk, to warn voters of this potential problem before opening the doors to voters?

Why, if the ballot was previewed prior to the election was such an obviously poor layout of page 2 approved by your office?

I am a strong advocate for exercising our right to vote. I believe our right to have a voice in government is one of the most important privileges we, as citizens have. This, in my opinion, is what sets our nation apart from much of the world.

However, the right to vote means nothing if the process leaves you wondering whether or not your vote will get registered, or if the ballot is going to be accurate.

Sincerely,
Susan Gaar


Pollworker continues:
"After the first incident of a voter telling me that the Jennings/ Buchanan race had not appeared on
his ballot until the review section (within the first half hour of
voting) I felt alarmed that this could happen, and emphasized the
importance of the review even more, by saying go slowly, look very
carefully etc. The problem of the likelihood of people overlooking the
race had not been explained to us (pollworkers) so I didn't alert
people specifically to that. As the day progressed, more people let us
know that they weren't seeing this race before the review, or that they
voted on it and their vote disappeared when they got to the review. I
then learned from a co-worker (the asst. clerk) that he had seen an
announcement by the S.O.E. on the news the previous evening, stating
that there was a problem with viewing some of the information at the
top of one of the ballot pages. I could not view the page myself at
that point because it was on page 2 which I was not authorized to view,
being that I would have to violate a voter's right to privacy to do so.
From that point on I made a concerted effort to specifically emphasize
the importance of looking carefully at the top of page 2, AND taking
their time to carefully check to see if everything was exactly as they
intended when they came to the review, and to not push the vote button
until they were 100% satisfied that it was correct.
I could not hear what the other pollworkers were saying to their voters
most of the time, so I don't know if they were specific about the
problem or not.

I have heard mixed experiences from voters who voted in other
precincts. Some were warned some were not. I did not feel then, nor
do I now feel that telling voters to review their votes was adequate
warning for this specific situation. Given that the problem had come
to light prior to election day, I would have expected to be given
special instructions to insure as little error as possible."

[philb]

17. There were 2 (or 3) separate types of problems reported by voters and poll workers in Sarasota

There were 2(or 3) separate types of problems described by voters and poll workers that lost Jennings votes.

The first was a delayed switch to blank "hack/glitch" where the voter voted for Jennings but the vote "disappeared" by the time the voter was finished unless the voter saw that the Jennings slot was blank on the review screen.

The second were cases where the voter never saw the Jennings name on the ballot. Based on this poll workers discription it was because some of the ballots were designed like the "butterfly ballots" in Palm Beach and Duval County in 2000 that swung the florida race from Gore to Bush. The Congress header was on page 1 with Buchanan's name but no Jennings.
On the 2nd page was Jennings name at the top by itself with no Cong. Header and in small print. You would not know to look for it or know what its context was unless you understood that this was a contuation from page 1 of the Cong. race. Though the SOE and Sarasota officials were aware of this problem from early voting. They did not inform the voters about the ballot design flaw that was affecting lots of voters.


I haven't heard anyone answer why there were 2 types of ballots being used,
one of the "butterfly" type with Jennings name not shown where the Cong. race was on page 1,
showing up only by itself in small print on page 2 with nothing to indicate its context.

the other was a fairly standard version like the sample ballot. Not clear why there were 2 types or how many of each.
But on the standard type ballots, many of the machines had a "hack/glitch" so that the Jennings vote punched disappeared before the voter punched the red vote button, unless noticed on the review screen.


the poll worker also described that when many voter left after punching the red vote button, the touch screen was not blanked like it normally is when a voter is finished. Instead the screen read: Continue
like the voter was not finished voting. This may have been the error message for the voters who's vote "disappeared".
Or it could mean a 3rd unreleated problem.

[freedomfries]

20. K & R

investigate!

[philb]

18. Sarasota voter describes what her friends observed on election day

****************
From: Rosemarie Myerson <[e-mail] >
Date: Nov 10, 2006 1:41 PM
Subject: what haappened to three people in SArasota

I just have learned what was happening in Sarasota with the voting for Christine Jennings. Today I was at a Harvard Club luncheon and a husband and a wife and another man ay my table told me their stories. There were two distinct phenomena that they reported. All three were voting early voting and all three were from the same precinct and early voted in the same building so they should have seen the same screen.

1. These three people both from the same precinct and voting early at the Terrace Building got two very different screens.
Two people saw on the first screen the title Congressional Candidates and then underneath this title they saw the name only of Vern Buchanan ; but on the second screen way at the top they saw Christine Jennings name. That may explain why some people never saw her name ; Jenning's name may have been cut off the top of the second screen.

2. Other people saw Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings name both on the same screen but found when they reviewed their vote, they found that their vote had been disappeared. These people had to go back and push four or five times to get the screen to accept their vote for Jennings.

I have to also admit that according to our local newspaper the ballot lay out was done by our Secretary of State.
Rosemarie Myerson
*********************

Note that 2 distinct types of problems are desribed.
One a faulty/biased ballot design, similar to the butterfly ballot design approved by Katherine Harris in 2000 that
resulted in swing of thousands of votes from Gore to Bush in Palm Beach and Duval counties, etc.

The other, a delayed "hack/glitch" that deleted Jennings votes selectively. This is consistent with reports of other Sarasota voters and a poll worker who emailed me.


many of this same type of delayed "hatch/glitch" were reported by voters in Broward County Florida and Mahoning Co. Ohio
in 2004 and can be seen in the EIRS reports. Also in some other locations, both in the presidential and U.S. Senate race.

[texpatriot2004]

2. Kick it for exposure nm

[williesgirl]

3. K&R to help get word out to FL

[longship]

4. Recommended and kicked.

:kick:

[nashville_brook]

5. background on this race from the Orlando Sentinal

Some early voters may have overlooked the 13th congressional race between Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings because it is sandwhiched between the senate and governor's races.




http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-voterprobs1206nov12,0,6657404.story?coll=orl-home-headlines


Unclear ballot? Glitch? Maybe both, experts say

NOT CAST -- OR NOT COUNTED?
HOUSE DISTRICT 13 RACE: In Sarasota County, 13% of voters did not cast ballots or did not have them tallied.

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE: In 3 other counties using the same ES&S touch-screen machines as Sarasota, an even higher percentage of ballots failed to show any vote cast in the race.

SARASOTA -- Robert Hannemann just wanted to get his civic duty over and done with. So on the first day of early voting, the retired Navy worker and part-time pizza deliveryman cast a ballot in North Port on a new touch-screen-voting machine.

But as he pressed his choices on the screen in front of him, he inadvertently skipped one of the most competitive races in the country: the House District 13 contest between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan.


"There were so many candidates and so many issues, I may have missed it," said Hannemann, 61, sipping unsweetened tea outside Murphy's Diner in North Port on Friday.

Hannemann was not alone in his confusion.

During the Nov. 7 election, more than one in eight of Sarasota County's 142,284 voters somehow skipped the race between Jennings and Buchanan, who won by only 373 votes.

[Lexingtonian]

6. I hope Jennings's people

have worked a couple of problem precincts to find out what the non-votes or non-appearing votes really represent.

[philb]

7. This message was from a pollworker who witnessed some of the "glitches"

This message was sent to her asking her to come in to describe what she saw and sign an affidavit.

I was copied.

[Lexingtonian]

9. sure

But the Jennings people really only have a worthwhile case, i.e. wrongful outcome of the election, if it's quite clear that more of their votes were lost than Buchanan votes.

[philb]

21. It appears that virtually all of the missing votes are Jennings votes based on evidence

of the voters statements; the only votes that voters saw disappear were Jennings votes.
Jennings was the only candidate not on the main page- page 1- where the Congression race was listed.

No reason or indication that any Buchanan votes disappeared

Plus the many polls were consistent with this view

[philb]

8. The Dist. 13 hack/glitch thread is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=457470&mesg_id=457470

[emlev]

10. Did you cross-post this on the Florida and GDP boards?

If not, I'd recommend you do. I can get it on the Velvet Revolution Election Protection Strike Force site.

[emlev]

11. Is this just for Sarasota voters or the whole FL-13 district? EOm

Map of FL-13.

[philb]

13. anyone who had or saw problems or knows of problems, anywhere in D13

But the only problems that are known about are in Sarasota where they had touch screens

In Manatee they use opti-scan and although they are hackable, the voter would not see anything while voting.

[emlev]

14. Thanks. eom

[frebrd]

12. K & R nm

[usregimechange]

15. kick

[WillyT]

19. K & R !!! - Kick!!!

:kick:

[Amaryllis]

22. did you post this in FL forum?

[TexasLawyer]

23. I hope they will ask the newspaper's help

The newspaper could ask these contacts to call Jennings HQ.

Sarasota voters report touch-screen woes

By DAVID GULLIVER, HEATHER ALLEN and FRANK GLUCK

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
SARASOTA COUNTY -- Raymond Politowicz voted for Vern Buchanan. Kate Lowman voted for Christine Jennings.

But a day after the election, the Sarasota residents shared at least one political belief: The county's voting process is deeply flawed.

More than 120 voters called or e-mailed the Herald-Tribune, reporting problems with the county's touch-screen voting machines. Almost all of the complaints stemmed from the congressional race between Buchanan and Jennings.

Reporters interviewed three dozen of the frustrated voters, most of whom said they either missed the candidates on the ballot or that their votes did not register at first.

At his polling place, a 12th Street church in Sarasota, Politowicz pushed the touch-screen button for the Republican candidate.

<snip>

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061109/NEWS/611090312/1006/SPORTS

[Sancho]

24. What is interesting to me, is that this has happened before in 2004!

For several years, I've reported that in Pinellas county in 2004, some people voted for Castor (instead of Martinez) and that the vote didn't appear on the review page. If the voter tried to correct the "error" on the last page, they got an error. I would not have believed it, but it happened to my wife at one machine while I was at another machine. She louded told the poll workers, "All I want to do is vote for Castor and it won't let me."

Even after the 2000 mess, we didn't know it was anything but a glitch. That's one reason I got interested in this issue and started looking at DU. Later, it was clear that Democrats won lots of local elections and amendments, but Martinez won a "close" election.

In hindsight, there appears to be a way to hack the machines floating around in Florida. It may not appear in every machine or district or race; but crops up in close races in some districts. Since many machines are unsecured (certainly they are left in the open in libraries and things in Pinellas) and some election officials are probably in on the fix, they keep getting away with it. I suspect that...

1.) sometimes they incorrectly apply the hack and cause machine errors
2.) voters are getting more vocal about reporting the problems and recognizing the missing votes

Flipping or tabulator errors are likely not detectable.

Remember, this is the home state of Tom Feeney paying for a program to hack the voting machines!

I disagree with some of the pollster defenders. I think that quick and accurate exit polls would detect some of these problems and trigger an investigation along with a better system to report problems officially. Also, there should be random confirmation audits of individual machines and precincts during the voting process to catch violations and put someone in jail. Complaints ought to automatically result in a "911 fraud team visit" in Florida and Ohio.

[mom cat]

25. Kicking for maximum visability!