ACCESS autosaves! Kathy Nickolaus is a f#cking LIAR!

[Pryderi]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/07/964645/-Kathy-Nickolaus-in-Waukesha-forgot-to-saveReally

Nickolaus says repeatedly that she imported the data into Access, but through a process of "human error", she "forgot to save". Then come the tears, repeatedly, throughout her presser.

Here's the problem. Microsoft Access (any version) doesn't ask you to save. When you enter data into a table, it automatically updates the underlying database. If you close the database accidentally, the data you entered (or imported, in the case of Nickolaus) remains. If you stop to take a phone call from your buddy the governor (for example), your data will still automatically save.

For further proof, I asked my 8 year old daughter to try to enter data in my little Access voting system mock up, and not save it. She couldn't do it. She tried all sorts of things, and the votes still saved.

I entered 10,000 votes for Prosser, and closed the database. No save prompt appeared. I came back in, and there were the 10,000 votes! Thanks Bill Gates! I entered 20,000 votes for Prosser, and did a hard shutdown of my computer. When I booted back up and reopened the file, the 20,000 votes were there! Thanks again Bill Gates!

[xchrom]

1. she gets this years Katherine Harris award! nt

[Poll_Blind]

4. Ah....Kathering Harris. The memories...

The nightmarish, nightmarish memories...

PB

[eowyn_of_rohan]

55. ROFL

Oh my... What a picture. Can't stop laughing

[russspeakeasy]

67. Reminds me of Bachman too.

[peace frog]

12. Just when I had her erased from my memory

Some people are not worthy of synapse activity.

[woofless]

35. Do NOT think of Anita Bryant.

Heh heh heh.

[peace frog]

36. Another waste of perfectly good protoplasm

Oh, you playin' with me now. :hi:

[SusanaMontana41]

72. Hear hear! I'd laugh but it hurts too much. n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

2. VERY good point.

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. THAT one little verbal gaff is going to hang her ass.

If she committed fraud.

[PatSeg]

56. She's been in trouble before

The only reason she didn't end up in jail was because she was granted immunity for testifying against others. I think I heard that on Rachel's show, but don't remember all the details. No wonder she was crying. I don't think she did this willingly.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

57. She testified against the Assembly Republican Caucus which was led by David Prosser!

For seven years, she worked as a data analyst and computer specialist for the Assembly Republican Caucus (ARC), where she managed an effort to build a computer program to track and average the performance of Republicans in elections across the state by ward.

In 2001, the Assembly Republican Caucus was charged with using taxpayer-funded resources to conduct campaign activities, a move that is wholly illegal. Nickolaus was granted immunity to testify about these issues. Guess who headed the ARC when Nickolaus performed this work? David Prosser, who was a Republican leader in the state legislature before being appointed to the bench in 1998.

[PatSeg]

76. Thank you

I hadn't caught all the details when it was on TV. Unfortunately the only person who I heard bring this up was Rachel.

[russspeakeasy]

70. Didn't do it willingly? Because she cried?

"I didn't mean to kill all those children, look how sad I
am". "I'll never drink and drive again, I
promise".

[PatSeg]

77. I think she was crying

because she was really scared. I got the sense that someone(s) said "you'll do this or else". That was what I meant by not doing it "willingly". Could be some really interesting back stories there.

[W T F]

71. Not just fraud, it's sedition and treason. And the penalty for that is.........DEATH

[Mz Pip]

5. These votes

have to be someplace in addition to this laptop. I can't imagine certifiying an election based on what is on someone's laptop with no varification.

Seems like a hand recount is in order.

[L. Coyote]

9. VVPAT

Voter Verified Paper Trail.

Of course, there can be that chain of custody problem.
There is no substitute for counting the votes on election night.

[inademv]

14. So that diminishes the value of these "votes" yeah?

since they weren't in until the day after...

[tabasco]

30. Whose votes are they?

Answer me that, sparkie?

[eowyn_of_rohan]

58. Yeah - Nicklolaus herself said expected turnout was 30% - but it jumped to 47%

after she "found" the votes. 17% phantom voters?

[L. Coyote]

41. No, just that they can be verified in theory, given several factors such as

the custody of the paper trail is secure.

[Life Long Liberal]

6. Great point! n/t

[LiberalFighter]

7. That is probably true for any database application. Even in default mode

and without creating an date entry application.

[kag]

60. Thank you.

I was going to make that point. Even my dinky calendar program saves automatically after every entry.

[LiberalFighter]

8. There is only one way to not save the data.

One at a time and by canceling the entry each time before trying to add another record.

[coalition_unwilling]

28. I think she's lying but actually, when you import a file into an

already-extant table in MS Access (using an underlying SQL insert query), there are multiple ways for the data not be saved. The most common would be some sort of import error while importing the data, such that you could not execute the "commit" statement.

I don't know what in the hell she was doing importing any data into a MS Access database anyway. What table was she importing records into and what data was she importing into that table? Just counts of votes or actual votes themselves? Too many details missing for me to know for sure at this point. Which is why I think a federal investigation is merited.

[Maraya1969]

52. The fact that she did it all by herself should render the votes moot anyway.

That is against the rules no?

[Imajika]

10. What difference does it make how she screwed up?

An entire city's votes were apparently not reported in the total. That is an ENTIRE city. This is NOT hard to check. We are not talking about votes being suddenly found, or a broken machine not tabulating votes, etc. The city reported its votes to Nickolaus and she failed to include them in the totals she originally reported. She apparently found the error, but even if she hadn't the canvass would have. The Democratic representative of the canvass team AGREED with the new totals.

Nickolaus is obviously an idiot, but if she was trying to cheat this is NOT how one would do it. The canvass no doubt checked the totals from all the machines and this verified that Nickolaus had not included Brookfield in the reported totals.

Does this warrant an investigation? Absolutely. But as of now there is just no evidence of fraud. Even if Nickolaus was lying about saving data in Access, or is just too stupid to understand what she is talking about, it STILL wouldn't matter. The canvass evidently showed she had in fact NOT reported Brookfield's votes and the Democratic member of the canvass agreed.

[rainy]

13. What if she did count them but added them to another county's

votes and is now trying to count them twice? She probably put them into another group of votes and now claims they were never counted.

[rl6214]

27. If that's what happened it will be found

[PeaceNikki]

62. Because she only handles HER fucking county

[Pryderi]

15. She said she forgot to save. That's a lie.

[cui bono]

16. If she is found to be lying about that, one would think it would lead to a deeper

investigation. Why would she lie if it were an honest mistake? This lie would make one wonder why she held back those votes and makes it look like it was on purpose so she could wait until she knew how many to put in in order to avoid an automatic recount. I heard that she put in just enough to avoid an automatic recount.

Finding a lie in someone's story almost always makes people question the rest of what they say/do.

[Imajika]

22. A "deep" investigation is likely to show that Nickolaus is incompetent...

...but that won't help Kloppenburg as there is no way to erase the votes from Brookfield. This is not about new votes being discovered, only about initial reporting totals. This idiotic woman, Nickolaus, did not find a bag of new votes, a machine did not suddenly spit out a pile of Prosser ballots. All the canvass had to do with check the machine totals and re-add them to generate a full total. The new tally now included Brookfield and showed that Nickolaus had incorrectly reported the totals previously.

A full investigation will likely show that Nickolaus is a buffoon who should not have been elected to her position, but it won't make Brookfield's votes go away and therefore won't help Kloppenburg overcome Prosser's lead.

We can hope a similar error was made somewhere else that will benefit Kloppenburg, but short of that I don't see how she can overcome this and win.

Nate Silver analyzes this and comes to the conclusion that this was likely incompetence and not a conspiracy.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/vote-counting-error-in-wisconsin-points-to-incompetence-not-conspiracy/

[cui bono]

37. Do you know for a fact that those are real votes?

Personally I believe something fishy is going on. If they'll steal a presidential election they sure as hell will steal a state supreme court election.

[SnakeEyes]

42. Yes we know

Brookfield posted their results on their website on election night.

http://tinyurl.com/3oq3vgr

[pnwmom]

40. How do we know those 18,000 votes were distributed

in the way this liar said they were?

[SnakeEyes]

43. Because she wasnt responsible for counting them

The city of brookfield election officials counted then transmitted the results to her. She screwed up and didnt add it to her data base.

Again, the city posted the results on election night on their website:

http://tinyurl.com/3oq3vgr

[pnwmom]

44. Maybe she added the votes to the wrong line on her database.

And that's why she thought she hadn't saved them -- she actually saved them on the wrong lines.

[SnakeEyes]

50. that would have come up in the canvassing

as they double checked all the numbers. Even if, it would mean another cities was wrong. Be easy to find and fix too as I doubt you'd have two cities will identical vote totals.

[pnwmom]

51. How do you explain 14K votes in a town with only 28K eligible voters,

not all of whom are registered to vote? (The 38K population includes children under 18 who aren't eligible.)

Don't you think, in an election with a statewide turnout of 33%, that a local turnout of 50% (assuming 100% registration) or 67% (assuming 75% registration) would be very . . . unusual?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=850214&mesg_id=850214


According to the 2010 census, there are 38,649 living in Brookfield. Of these Male 48.4% Female 51.6%, Median Age 42...Most of the media has been focusing on the 38,649 number, which — given a 33% turnout over all — would yield about the 14,000 votes reported...But the "voting age and over" population for Brookfield is 73.2%. This yields a possible voting base of 28,291.

[Rozlee]

66. The "eyes" have it.

Were the lines out the door in the voting precincts? Were there crowds? When I go to school board elections, someone might come in to vote every ten to fifteen minutes or more. Comparing the number of people standing in the lines waiting to cast their votes has always been my way of telling which way the wind is blowing. If there really were as many people at the polls as they say in a city that size, the voting precincts would have been mobbed.

[PeaceNikki]

69. Go look at Brookfield's ward by ward vote history. They had 20k in November.

Ya'll are speculating and using #'s that don't factor in previous elections, the ACTUAL make-up of the community and the divisiveness of the current environment.

There will be a hand recount and every ballot will be looked at by a human being.

[SnakeEyes]

74. Exactly!

Looking at numbers in a vacuum and speculating is not helpful. I hate to continue to be that guy but if the turnout here really were an outlier it would be an EASY outlier that Nate Silver would have picked up on right away.

[PeaceNikki]

63. 14k. And we know because Brookfield released them Tues night

[eowyn_of_rohan]

68. Technically, early Wednesday morning, wasn't it?

I thought they posted them after 12:30am.

[PeaceNikki]

73. You're right, very early AM Wed.

I stand corrected.

[pnwmom]

39. It makes a difference is she was lying. Then everything she says

is suspect.

[rzemanfl]

54. The Wisconsin Jury Instructions say that if a juror concludes

that a person lied about one thing they can disregard everything they said. Falsus in uno. At least that what they said before Wisconsin became Fitzwalkerstan.

[Welibs]

47. The votes were NOT found by the canvassers. She says

she discovered them 29 hours before and didn't tell a soul???? Also Scott Walker said on Wednesday that "even if some votes are found that were maybe got lost, those would have to count..."

These people are trying to steal another election. Why would this woman put those records on HER computer??? That's illegal and she knows it. Why would Walker state there could be lost votes and insist they should be counted. That would go without saying.

You are trying to make excuses for these people's criminal behaviour! That's unacceptable!

[pnwmom]

53. Here's some evidence.

There were 14,000 "found" votes, but there are only 28,000 people of voting age in the town. (38,000 of all ages). How would that be possible?

Well, it would be possible if 100% of eligible voters were registered, and they had a turnout rate of 50%. But honestly -- 100% registration?

Or it would be possible if 75% of eligible voters were registered (which is still a high number), and they had a turnout of 67% (almost unimaginably high for an off-year election).

The statewide turnout was 33% -- which was considered quite high.

Do you still think there's no evidence of fraud?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=850214&mesg_id=850214

According to the 2010 census, there are 38,649 living in Brookfield. Of these Male 48.4% Female 51.6%, Median Age 42...Most of the media has been focusing on the 38,649 number, which — given a 33% turnout over all — would yield about the 14,000 votes reported...But the "voting age and over" population for Brookfield is 73.2%. This yields a possible voting base of 28,291.

[PeaceNikki]

64. Go look at Brookfield's ward by ward vote history. They had 20k in November.

Ya'll are speculating and using #'s that don't factor in previous elections, the ACTUAL make-up of the community and the divisiveness of the current environment.

There will be a hand recount and every ballot will be looked at by a human being.

[PeaceNikki]

79. No, here's actual data - your evidence is not.

Brookfield turned out over 21k in November, 14k for this spring election is perfectly within the norm:



Here's the link to source data: http://gab.wi.gov/elections-voting/results/2010/fall-general/ward

[PeaceNikki]

61. This ^

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

11. Looks like she'll have to upgrade her story to to EXCUSE 2.0

[hobbit709]

17. When the alibi changes every 5 minutes, somebody LYING!

[beac]

18. I'd like to know if her bank account has been "upgraded" or

if she's doing her lying pro bono.

[Mnemosyne]

20. They do absolutely nothing pro bono. If they do it, there is always some benefit. n/t

[blondeatlast]

19. Thread win!

:bounce:

[Ignis]

34. Well played.

:thumbsup:

[IDemo]

21. Not an Access guru here

But I can think of only three ways of changing data after it has been entered:

1) Update each record manually, directly from the appropriate table.
2) Create an 'update' SQL query directly from within Access.
3) Create a VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) routine to perform an update query.

[Courtesy Flush]

23. She's slandering Microsoft. They should sue!

[RagAss]

26. That's the first thing I thought of last night.

[BrightKnight]

24. Access is a disk based database. There is no save option period. - n/t

[Time to Barf]

25. I'm in the IT industry - and yes, our company loathes Access

Useless piece of shit.

And yes, we can confirm it autosaves. It also autoscrews up everything else.

[glinda]

29. If there are problems there there are problems elsewhere also I will bet.

[karnac]

31. AUTOSAVE always works? explain this..

*All this found via google, there is A LOT more*
http://allenbrowne.com/bug-01.html

Flaws in Microsoft Access

Provided by Allen Browne, January 2004. Last updated: April 2010.
Losing data when you close a form

When you enter data into a form, Access saves the record automatically. An error message notifies you if the record cannot be saved. Or does it?

Use the Close action or method, and the form fails to notify you if the record cannot be saved. The form closes, and your entry is silently lost.

To demonstrate this flaw, download AccessFlaws.zip, open the form LosingData, and follow the instructions.

(Note: if you close the form with the at the right end of the form's title bar, you do receive a warning that the record cannot be saved. Typically the problem occurs when you place a Close command button on your form.)
Examples where the record would be lost

There are many reasons why a record could not be saved, such as:

* a required field was left blank;
* the record would create a duplicate in a unique index;
* the form's Before Update event was cancelled;
* a Validation Rule was not met.

She has an old computer and equally old buggy version of ACCESS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Access

1993: Microsoft specified the minimum hardware requirements for Access v2.0 as: Microsoft Windows v3.1 with 4 MB of RAM required, 6 MB RAM recommended; 8 MB of available hard disk space required, 14 MB hard disk space recommended. The product shipped on seven 1.44 MB diskettes. The manual shows a 1993 copyright date.

Originally, the software worked well with relatively small databases but testing showed that some circumstances caused data corruption. For example, file sizes over 10 MB proved problematic (note that most hard disks held less than 500 MB at the time this was in wide use), and the Getting Started manual warns about a number of circumstances where obsolete device drivers or incorrect configurations can cause data loss. With the phasing out of Windows 95, 98 and ME, improved network reliability, and Microsoft having released 8 service packs for the Jet Database Engine, the reliability of Access databases has improved and it supports both more data and a larger number of users.

Problems autosaving still occur? YES.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/1/helproom/393667/mic... /

Essentially, we have an Old computer with old software, by a former it specialist with old skills that knows just enough to be dangerous.

What could possibly go wrong.

we are still looking at the situation the wrong way. She says she entered the data into the computer incorrectly. her explanation be damned. she is known to be wrong. if she entered correctly, then she is wrong the second time and not the first. the ONLY way we would be happy is if she was right the first time but wrong the second time.

so what do we do? obviously the data on the computer cant be trusted. looking at the computer all we would find is wrong data and she admitted it.

What we do is count the data(submitted spreadsheets and other data) outside that computer. do we trust her? no. we trust democrats and others in the office to double check and triple check. this was allegedly done yesterday.

Fine lets count it again. Just don't expect to find anything significantly different. except a couple MORE votes from a republican county that she probably missed too!

[IDemo]

38. Your first reference is regarding data entry into a form

Which is just a user-friendly looking page with controls such as text boxes and pushbuttons like a regular Windows application. Part of this is to ease data entry, but another purpose is to let the developer or database owner test inputs before applying them to the actual underlying database. If I recall, the election data was imported directly into Access from an Excel spreadsheet, which wouldn't have required a form.

[valerief]

46. She was entering in the votes record by record in a form?

I thought she got a table of data saved to an Access table.

[Le Taz Hot]

59. Which, of course, BEGS the quesion,

if Access is so unstable (it is!) why the HELL would you be using it for a statewide election? Some IT "expert" this one.

[moondust]

32. Apparently similar to personal finance software.

Enter transactions and close the program. No saving involved.

[southernyankeebelle]

33. If she is on the up and up then let them investigate. I would do the same if it was a dem.

[valerief]

45. "Did I say Access? Um, I meant Excel. Yeah, that's it. Excel. Sorry. Human error."

:rofl:

[quakerboy]

48. To be fair, an incompetent could neglect to enter data

thus removing the possibility of it being saved.


Or alternately, maybe she entered it into the wrong slots in her table, so with her new correction the data is in there twice. That would be an ideal solution to this from an ideological stand point. Not only would the better candidate win in a legit recount, but the R nutbag comes out looking doubly like a putz.

[deacon]

49. Nickolouse is a frigging liar. n/t

[WillyT]

65. K & R !!!

:kick:

[russspeakeasy]

75. So far there have been 34.678 comments to this post.

I saved most of them, so the rest of you can't see them.

[Yavin4]

78. I Work With Access Every Day, and The OP Is 100% Correct

There's no "SAVE" option when importing data into a table, with one caveat. If Nickolaus was using some sort of customized UI with Access as a back-end and the UI requires her to "SAVE", then maybe. However, if she's using straight Access then she's a liar.