Canova / Wasserman Schultz Handcount

I am re-posting the link to the statistical research that I did on the results of the August 30th 2016 primary between Tim Canova and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. 

Tim Canova is running against Debbie Wasserman Schultz again for a seat in congress.

Tim Canova is running against Debbie Wasserman Schultz again for a seat in congress.

After almost a year of protracted and contentious negotiations with the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office, we have finally gained permission to copy the ballots in 12 precincts of the 2016 primary race between Canova and Wasserman Schultz. We had to take them to court in order to do this. We now have 2 days assigned, November 1st & 2nd when we will have permission to make copies of the ballots. After that we will count them by hand.

The statistical analysis of this race raised red flags, and it is important that we look at races like this to see if the results are accurate. The only way to know is to count the ballots by hand. If you believe this is important work, please support this project. We need your financial help to get this done. Please give as much as you can today. Here is the Gofundme link where you can contribute.

Wasserman Schultz has been embroiled in a series of scandals this year.

Wasserman Schultz has been embroiled in a series of scandals this year.

2 Tier Approach to Election Audits

Robust audits are the single most useful tool we can use to ensure the accuracy and security of our elections. I have written a proposal for a realistic approach to implement audits in as many counties as quickly as possible. The basic concept is to do 100% hand-count audits in places where it will not be burdensome, such as smaller jurisdictions, and those with simpler ballots. In larger jurisdictions, and those with more complex ballot content, risk limiting audits can be implemented; but it would be advisable to additionally audit one randomly drawn race on every ballot, and all races closer than 1 % with 100% hand-count audits.

I have presented this paper at 3 conferences now. The Electoral Integrity Project Workshop in San Francisco in August, The People's Convergence Conference in September, and the Take Back the Vote Conference this past weekend in Berkeley. The response has been very positive.

Below is a link to the complete paper. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

If you support the work that I'm doing, please show that support by making a donation to my GoFundMe today. I very much need your help right now in order to continue.  Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, and thank you for the work that you are doing to move this issue forward! 

 

Click on the photo to read or download the complete paper.

Click on the photo to read or download the complete paper.

What to investigate?

Here is where I am today on evidence of Russian involvement in our elections; what is a valuable use of time; and what is less so.

- There is a lot of evidence that Donald Trump has been doing business with individuals associated with the Russian mob and money laundering.
"...for more than three decades the FBI has had Trump Tower in its sights. Many of its occupants have been targets of major investigations ... One thing many of them have in common is deep ties to organized crime — including the Russian mafia."

- The Clintons seem to have compromised themselves by donations from Russia and various business associates surrounding a uranium deal with Russia.

Why many progressives are more interested in the Clintons' ties to Russia than Trump's ties I don't understand.

Louise Mensch apparently says that Russia is connected to everything. So eventually, with any luck, she may be right about something. Could be Trump.

All of this for me, is a distraction from the real issue, which is how are we going to establish accurate, secure election protocols by the 2018 mid-term elections. Anyone can hack our elections right now: The Russians, Iran, China, Karl Rove, The DNC. Alex Halderman has said straight up that he could do it, probably most of his grad students and the girls from black girls code could as well. It is infinitely more fascinating to speculate on who may have been doing it than to do the nitty-gritty, tedious work of how to prevent it. Yet, that is where we need to put our attention. We have an incredibly narrow window in which to do this work before it will simply be too late to make changes to voting sytems prior to the election. Already Chicago and Maricopa County AZ are in the process of making these decisions.

There are a number of really important areas that need to be researched. If people are interested in assisting with this research - it would be really useful!

1) We need an excel sheet of the laws pertaining to how ballots are counted in each state.  Many states have outlawed hand-counting and we need to know which ones, and what the specific regulations are in each state. Someone could start this in a google spread sheet, and others could add in information. 

2) We need to research about 7 different emerging voting technologies that are coming on the market. I support hand-counted paper ballots in as many places as possible. Probably that will be in jurisdictions with on average 50,000 votes or less — and not too many referendums on the ballot. Other locales are going to need some kind of mechanism, and it would be good to compare emerging technologies and see which ones offer the most transparency and ability to verify the vote. 

Someone could start a google spread sheet and begin listing the parameters that can be compared for each system. This would be tremendously helpful! We can crowd-source this research and get it done more quickly and more thoroughly than anyone could do it on their own. If we can get a spreadsheet in place with basic information and websites of each option — we can take this to a team of computer scientists and ask for more in-depth vetting of the systems. 

If you start a spread sheet, please lmk via my website or DM and I will send you an email to add me. Here are the systems that I am aware of currently. 

o   Clear BallotMark EarleyIon Sancho may be a source of information on this company

o   Clear Ballot has partnered with Voatz – (supporting internet voting- quite risky)

o   Galois

o   Jim Keller’s system (photographer/inventor from San Antonio Texas)

o   STAR – Travis County election officials & Rice Univ

o   Mitch Trachtenberg / Humboldt County system

o   TOBI – The open ballot initiative - Ray Lutz, Citizens’ Oversight Projects

o   Trust the Vote – Open Source – but available for commercial development

o   Some jurisdictions may be developing their own systems- LA & San Francisco are

o   A simple off the shelf system that would scan or photograph ballots that could then be counted via spreadsheets, in a system developed by the Michigan Election Reform Alliance, or a slide show method that has been developed by the Wisconsin Election Integrity Action Team, or another protocol.

Thoughts? Willing to help? Please let me know!!

 

2016 GOP Presidential Primary Shows Evidence of Manipulation

This blog post is updating information from the report, An Electoral System in Crisis. Our data indicates, that as Trump has suggested, it is likely that the vote counts were not accurate in the 2016 Republican Primary. In the large precincts Trump's percentages go down, as other candidates' percentages go up. We were unable to find a demographic explanation for this. It is possible this is an indication that the vote count is being manipulated through the electronic voting equipment in the large precincts. We identify the electronic voting equipment as a potential source of the problem, because we do not find the same suspect pattern in the hand counted precincts that we examined. The Wisconsin graph demonstrates this. Graphs by Phil Evans &  Anselmo Sampietro. @luluFriesdat For a more detailed explanation, we encourage you to read the full report. www.electoralsystemincrisis.org #ESIC