Disparity in the Miami-Dade County Undervotes

[eomer]

The Miami-Dade County Congressional (House) races show a significant difference between the undervote rates when voting on the ES&S machines versus the undervote rates when voting on paper (absentees). The Senate and Governor races, on the other hand, do not. (The 17th Congressional District was unopposed so the undervote rates in that district are not a concern.)

While not as pronounced of a differential as in Sarasota County, these rates have enough play in them for a significant percentage of votes to have been trashed. Since there is no paper trail and no way to watch the machines count, there is no assurance that they weren't.

Another interesting thing to note in the data is that the Republican candidates did significantly better than the Democrats in absentee voting. Given the history of absentee ballot fraud in this county, that is a bit of a red flag.

Here are my undervote calculations, with the data coming from the Cumulative Results document on the Miami-Dade County Elections website:

UNITED STATES SENATOR                              
                          TOTAL VOTES     IVOTRONIC     EARLY VOTING     ABSENTEE     PROV-I     PROV-P
Katherine Harris (REP)       143,162        88,129         21,161          33,831        11         30
Bill Nelson (DEM)            243,075       173,367         42,199          27,420        16         73
Floyd Ray Frazier (NPA)        1,536         1,212            202             121         0          1
Belinda Noah (NPA)             2,294         1,656            311             327         0          0
Brian Moore (NPA)              1,603         1,216            217             169         0          1
Roy Tanner (NPA)               1,064           822            131             111         0          0
WRITE-IN                         454           307             63              84         0          0
Over Votes                       384             0              0             382         0          2
Under Votes                   17,446        13,201          1,906           2,329         3          7
Under Vote %                     4.2%          4.7%           2.9%           3.6%      10.0%       6.1%
                              
17TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT                         
                          TOTAL VOTES     IVOTRONIC     EARLY VOTING     ABSENTEE     PROV-I     PROV-P
Kendrick B. Meek (DEM)        68,012        53,495          9,251          5,237          3         26
WRITE-IN                         629           366            106            157          0          0
Over Votes                        10             0              0             10          0          0
Under Votes                   13,183        10,578          1,508          1,095          2          0
Under Vote %                    16.1%         16.4%          13.9%          16.8%      40.0%       0.0%
                              
18TH CONGRESSIONAL DIST                              
                          TOTAL VOTES     IVOTRONIC     EARLY VOTING     ABSENTEE     PROV-I     PROV-P
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (REP)     65,525        38,084         10,190         17,229           1        21
David "Big Dave" Patlak (DEM) 38,987        26,594          7,481          4,888           5        19
WRITE-IN                         151            91             24             35           0         1
Over Votes                        29             0              0             29           0         0
Under Votes                    5,156         3,888            757            509           1         1
Under Vote %                     4.7%          5.7%           4.1%           2.2%       14.3%      2.4%
                              
21ST CONGRESSIONAL DIS                              
                          TOTAL VOTES     IVOTRONIC     EARLY VOTING     ABSENTEE     PROV-I     PROV-P
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (REP)     57,388        36,013          8,249         13,113           2        11
Frank J. Gonzalez (DEM)       33,220        23,152          6,367          3,690           1        10
Over Votes                        13             0              0             13           0         0
Under Votes                    7,054         5,503          1,076            471           2         2
Under Vote %                     7.2%          8.5%           6.9%           2.7%       40.0%      8.7%

25TH CONGRESSIONAL DIS                              
                          TOTAL VOTES     IVOTRONIC     EARLY VOTING     ABSENTEE     PROV-I     PROV-P
Mario Diaz-Balart (REP)       52,578        34,172          7,928         10,465           8         5
Michael Calderin (DEM)        37,984        27,539          7,118          3,320           2         5
Over Votes                        21             0              0             20           0         1
Under Votes                    6,782         5,242          1,099            439           1         1
Under Vote %                     7.0%          7.8%           6.8%           3.1%        9.1%      8.3%

GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR                         
                          TOTAL VOTES     IVOTRONIC     EARLY VOTING     ABSENTEE     PROV-I     PROV-P
Charlie Crist (REP)          183,457       113,305         27,869         42,222          13        48
Jim Davis (DEM)              215,930       158,313         36,917         20,625          14        61
Max Linn (REF)                 2,939         2,183            459            295           1         1
Richard Paul Dembinsky (NPA)     901           662            102            137           0         0
John Wayne Smith (NPA)         1,068           801            126            141           0         0
Karl C.C. Behm (NPA)             638           474             81             83           0         0
WRITE-IN                         164           109             17             38           0         0
Over Votes                       643             0              0            640           0         3
Under Votes                    5,278         4,063            619            593           2         1
Under Vote %                     1.3%          1.5%           0.9%           0.9%        6.7%      0.9%


IVOTRONIC = Election Day Voting by Machine
EARLY VOTING = Early Voting by Machine

_{Edit: typos}

[philb]

1. EARLY VOTING = Early Voting by Machine; what kind of machine? IVOTRONIC?

[philb]

2. I noticed some similar results to these in the neighboring Broward county races

Attorney General and CFO had high undervotes on IVOTRONICs-- over 9%
These are very large counties, thats many thousands of votes.

Both of these counties had a large amount of touch screen switching in the 2004 election
www.flcv.com/EIRSfla.html


Was much switching reported this time? I know some was.
Its possible to manipulate such machines without the voters being aware of it, but some types of default settings and hacks are possible to see if you check the review screen.

[philb]

3. The two cabinet offices, At. Gen. & CFO that high UVs in Broward also had high UVs in Dade on IVOTRO

NICs.

These were relatively close major elections with the Dems winning the CFO race and Repubs winning the At. Gen. race

But there was a huge amount of undervotes on ES&S IVOTRONICS in 6 counties- see the AT. Gen. thread


What is the likely explanation of high undervotes in ES&S touch screen counties but not in other counties??


Is manipulation by ES&S reps in these counties a possibility?

[eomer]

4. Yes, early voting was on iVotronic, same as election day (eom)

[OnTheOtherHand]

5. hmm

Yes, I agree, those numbers are weird. I'm not sure how weird -- I'm not an undervote specialist.

[philb]

6. Clint only doing audits in 4 counties; any volunteers 4 Dade, Broward, Lee,Sumter, or Charlotte ?

Clint is only organizing audits in 4 counties; any volunteers for Dade, Broward, Lee, Sumter,Charlotte where UVs
were high and some other problems noted??

If there were enough volunteers, there were counties with
lots of undervotes on ES&S touchscreens in Attorney Geneneral race as well as switching reported on those machines
where I would like to see audits of some precincts.

I'd like to see some audits in Broward and Dade which were the 2 counties
with the most problems in 2004, and which also appear to have had stuff going on in 2006 on ES&S touch screens.
Any volunteers for Dade and Broward?
Or Lee?
or Charlotte?
or Sumter?
or Hillsboro? (suspicious results in some close races on Sequoia touch screens)


all that would be needed would be some precinct lists from precincts with high UVs, available from candidate or party or
SOE(for a little money), plus some volunteers to call or canvas.
Its not that hard to organize.

[eomer]

8. The undervotes at precinct level are due out today, according to the Elections Dept.

I'll post some undervote info for precincts after I get the data. It's going to be a pdf so I'll have to do some work to get it into a spreadsheet and then calculate the percentages.

It seems like the UV % for a precinct will need to be fairly high for a canvas to work. Otherwise we will be trying to do a fine measurement with a blunt instrument. Do you know what the typical response rates are for a canvas?

[philb]

7. Same ballot design flaws/bias found in Broward & Dade that plagued Sarasota

ELECTIONS 2006
Ballot design an issue in Broward and Dade, tooA close look at election numbers in Broward and Miami-Dade counties shows that confusing ballot design might have caused voters to overlook two Cabinet races.
BY TRENTON DANIEL AND BREANNE GILPATRICK
[e-mail]
Document | Sample ballot
The same electronic ballot design flaw implicated in more than 18,300 Sarasota nonvotes might have caused problems for South Florida voters in two well-publicized Cabinet races.

Both Broward and Miami-Dade counties recorded more than 34,000 nonvotes in their elections for attorney general and chief financial officer, according to election results from each county's Supervisor of Elections office.

The problem was worse in precincts with many older voters.

In both counties, the two Cabinet races appeared at the bottom of a voting screen with the higher-profile race for governor and lieutenant governor -- a contest in which seven sets of candidates nearly filled the screen. All races on the page were listed under a general heading.

One explanation is that many voters assumed the governor's race was the only one on the page, touched the ''next'' button and moved on through the ballot without noticing the two races.

In Sarasota, where the 13th Congressional District race also occupied the same page as the governor's race, experts have blamed the design problem for 18,382 nonvotes in one of the nation's most contested congressional races.

Voting machine malfunctions could have contributed to some of the nonvotes, said Stephen Ansolabehere, a member of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project. Voters also may have decided to skip the race intentionally.

But the high number of nonvotes potentially related to the design -- throughout Florida -- signals a need to re-evaluate some of the state's electronic voting technology, Ansolabehere said.

''In general it's a good rule of thumb to have one office per screen,'' said Ansolabehere, who is also a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ``It really minimizes confusion as to what you're doing.''

The canvassing board certified election results Friday in Broward and Miami-Dade, and acknowledged the significant number of nonvotes in the two races.

''I think looking at that page you may not see those two races,'' Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said.

Sarasota, Broward and Miami-Dade counties all use the same touch-screen iVotronic machines, which are produced by Election Systems & Software.

Each county designs its own ballots.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/16042973.htm

[philb]

9. Broward voters reported ES&S touch screen switching and glitches- similar to 2004

851 Polling Place Problem Broward Florida Coral Springs Library Yes Coral Springs Library on University Drive Machine did not want to register Democratic selection until he" pounded it. " It had not registered any vote until he tried several times. Eventually he was able to vote and the screen confirming his vote was accurate. He was concerned about how difficult it was to get his vote registered. Incident during early voting. This wa

3854 Polling Place Problem Other Problem Broward Florida Markham Park Yes Voter completed her voting all the way through. After finishing and hitting the "View" button, all of the voters' prior selections had changed to other candidates who the voter had NOT SELECTED. She complained to two poll workers neither of whom were helpful or very sympathetic. They finally allowed her to vote again on another machine after void the defective ballot. The Machine Number for the defective machine is 268561. The voter complained that after she was permitted to vote on another machine, the poll workers allowed others to use the defective machine even though they were aware of the problems that she reported.

5348 Polling Place Problem Broward Florida No Voting machine is broken -- was skipping choices. Poll workers shut it down. Voter later voted successfully.

904 Other Problem Broward Florida Active Senior Living Residence Yes Ballot skipping pages.

3884 Other Problem Broward Florida No Voter alleges that some of her votes were missing from her summary screen. Voter was not comfortable providing her personal identifying info. Voter did not obtain serial number of machine.

3854 Polling Place Problem Other Problem Broward Florida Markham Park Yes Voter completed her voting all the way through. After finishing and hitting the "View" button, all of the voters' prior selections had changed to other candidates who the voter had NOT SELECTED. She complained to two poll workers neither of whom were helpful or very sympathetic. They finally allowed her to vote again on another machine after void the defective ballot. The Machine Number for the defective machine is 268561. The voter complained that after she was permitted to vote on another machine, the poll workers allowed others to use the defective machine even though they were aware of the problems that she reported.


A much bigger EP hotline effort in 2004 had a lot more of such cases of switching from Dem to Repub, switching from Dem to blank, and other types of glitches- in Presidential, U.S. Senate, and races down to the amendment level
www.flcv.com/EIRSfla.html

[philb]

10. Voters reported switching and glitches to EIRS hotline in Dade & Palm Beach Counties

2945 Polling Place Problem Miami-Dade Florida Juan Duarte Park Yes Voter noticed (and overheard others complaining that) the machine was not calibrated so that when the voter touched the screen the selection above it was the one that was marked.

3235 Polling Place Problem Miami-Dade Florida Yes She voted in the same precinct as her husband, but received the wrong ballot, with the wrong candidates listed on it.




1540 Other Problem Palm Beach Florida Delray Beach First Baptist No Voted by use of machine; voted democrat, but checked republican; poll worker was able to help so that correct vote was cast.

3632 Polling Place Problem Palm Beach Florida PBC Fire Rescue #57 No When voter pressed screen for one candidate, check mark appeared for different candidate. This occurred more than once, but the voter was ultimately able to cast the correct ballot. Voter believed it was the third or fourth machine.

1591 Polling Place Problem Palm Beach Florida Tower Club Teen Center Yes The polling place is not open at all as of 8:15am and voters are being told they cannot vote at this time.

322 Polling Place Problem Palm Beach Florida Palm Beach Co. Library No Voter intended to vote for Davis, but vote logged for Chris. Called inspector over to voter machine. The inspector advised to re-press for Davis. Voter repressed for Davis and vote logged correctly. Voter checked paper trail and it was logged correctly. Incident occured November 4, 2006 at approximately 1 am.