Post-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2008 Presidential Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed a post-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators that were used and to be used in the November 2008 Elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts, and shipped to Connecticut districts for use in the elections. The VoTeR Center received in total 462 memory cards from a number of districts after the elections. This document reports on the findings obtained during the audit. Among these cards, 279 were used in the elections, the rest remained unused, serving as back-up cards. The 279 cards represent over 30% of all districts, thus the audit is broad enough to draw meaningful conclusions. We note that in a few cases, districts apparently had problems with one tabulator and had to complete the election using another tabulator.
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Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2008 Presidential Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed a pre-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators that are to be used in the November 2008 Elections in Connecticut. The cards are programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts, and shipped to Connecticut districts for use in the elections. For the pre-election audit the VoTeR Center received and examined 620 memory cards as of November 3, 2008. These cards correspond to 620 distinct districts in Connecticut. About 2/3 of these memory cards were randomly chosen by the VoTeR Center personnel during the visits to LHS and before the cards were packed and shipped to the towns. Another 1/3 of the memory cards came from the towns directly, where the cards were randomly chosen for pre-election audit (this procedure applied to the town for which the cards were not selected at LHS). The towns that shipped the cards to be audited were not asked to perform the local pre-election testing before shipping, thus the majority of the cards received from the towns did not contain the pre-election testing events in their audit logs.

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Post-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed a post-election audit of the memory cards for the AccuVote Optical Scan tabulators that were used in the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts, and shipped to the towns in Connecticut. For the purpose of the post-election audit, the VoTeR Center received 297 memory cards from a number of districts after the elections. The audit was performed on 280 of these memory cards (among the 17 cards not included, 14 were from the February 2008 Connecticut Primary, two were from the March 2008 elections, and one card arrived damaged, preventing data analysis).
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Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed a pre-election audit of the memory cards for the AccuVote Optical Scan tabulators that were used in the August 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts. The districts covered by this pre-election audit included all 185 districts participating in the elections. The VoTeR Center received in total 185 memory cards before the elections to be audited. The memory cards were shipped by LHS directly to the VoTeR Center. This document reports on the findings obtained as the result of the audit. Among the 185 cards received and tested by the VoTeR Center, 175 cards (94.6%) were found to have been properly programmed for election. These cards contained valid ballot data and the executable code on these cards was the expected code, with no extraneous data or code on the cards. The remaining 10 cards, or 5.4%, were found to contain “junk” data, that is, they did not contain usable data. Such cards are detected by the tabulators to be unusable, thus they could not have been used in the election.

The audit was performed on request of the Office of the Secretary of the State.

Full report: audit0808pre

Statistical Analysis of the Post Election Audit Data 2008 February Elections

The University of Connecticut Voting Technology Research (VoTeR) Center received the data gathered in the post-election audit performed in the State of Connecticut following the February 2008 election. The audits of the randomly selected approximately 33% of the districts were conducted in February and March of 2008, and the returns were subsequently conveyed by the Office of the Secretary of the State (SOTS) to the VoTeR Center. The audit data received by the Center contains 624 records per each party, where each record represents information about a given candidate. Specifically, each record contains the following significant information: date, district, machine seal number, office, candidate, machine counted total, undisputed hand counted total, questionable hand counted total, overall hand counted total, that is, the sum of undisputed and questionable ballots. This report contains several statistical analyses of the audit returns.
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Post-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the February 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed a post-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators that were used in the February 2008 Connecticut Primary Elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts, and shipped to Connecticut districts for use in the elections. For the purpose of the post-election audit, the VoTeR Center received 215 memory cards from a number of districts after the elections. The audit was performed on 210 of these memory cards. (Five of the 215 cards were examined separately: three contained data from special election held in March, different from the primary elections; one card contained a referendum, and one card was from the 2007 municipal elections.)

This document reports on the findings obtained during the audit. Among the 210 cards received and tested by the VoTeR Center, 200 cards (95%) were found to have been properly programmed for election. These cards contained valid ballot data and the executable code on these cards was the expected code, with no extraneous data or code on the cards. The remaining 10 cards, or 5% were found to contain “junk” data, that is, they were unreadable, which is easily detected by the tabulators as such, and could not have been used in the election. This is a high percentage of faulty cards.

137 of the cards were used for the actual election (the rest where backup cards). All cards were properly programmed and contained no unexpected code. 126 cards, or 92%, of the 137 cards were in the “election closed” state with non-zero counters which is the intended state. 10 cards (7.3%) indicated that printing was aborted, which suggests that election officials turned off the machine before the printing of the election results was completed.

The audit was performed on request of the Office of the Secretary of the State.

Full report: audit08-b1

Statistical Analysis of the Post Election Audit Data 2007 November Elections

The University of Connecticut Voting Technology Research (VoTeR) Center received the data gathered in the post-election audit performed in the State of Connecticut following the November 2007 election. The audits of the randomly selected 10% of the districts were conducted in November and December of 2007, and the returns were conveyed by the Office of the Secretary of the State to the VoTeR Center on January 8, 2008. The audit data received by the Center contains 958 records, where each record represents information about a specific candidate. Specifically, each record contains the following significant information: date, district, machine seal number, office, candidate, machine counted total, undisputed hand counted total, questionable hand counted total, overall hand counted total, that is, the sum of undisputed and questionable ballots. This report contains several statistical analyses of the audit returns and recommendations. Among the 958 records received by the Center, 175 records (18.3%) were incomplete, unusable, or obviously incorrect. Another 111 records (11.6%) contained usable, but incomplete data, or minor arithmetic errors. Thus about 70% of the audit records were complete and contained no obvious errors. While some problematic records were clearly due to human error (e.g., in addition), this suggests that auditors found the audit instructions to be ambiguous or insufficiently specific. Read the rest of this entry »

Partial Post-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2007 Connecticut Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed a partial post-election audit of the memory cards for the AccuVote Optical Scan tabulators that were to be used in the November 2007 Connecticut Elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts, and shipped to the towns in Connecticut. The research and development required to perform the audit and the methodology and procedures used to conduct the audit are essentially identical to what was used to perform the pre-election memory card audit, and we refer the reader to our earlier report to avoid a complete restatement. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2007 Connecticut Elections

The UConn VoTeR Center performed an audit of the pre-election memory cards for the AccuVote Optical Scan tabulators that were to be used in the November 2007 Connecticut Elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Methuen, Massachusetts, and shipped to the towns in Connecticut. The towns were instructed to test the cards and to choose randomly one out of each four cards per district to be shipped for the audit.

The total of 522 cards were received and tested by the VoTeR Center, out of which 378 cards were received before the election. Out of the total number of cards, 18 cards, or 3.5% were found to contain “junk” data, that is, they were unreadable, which is easily detected by the tabulators as such, and could not have been used in the election. The rest of the cards, or 96.6%, were found to have been properly programmed for election. These cards contained valid ballot data and the executable code on these cards was the expected code, with no extraneous data or code on the cards.
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Analysis of the Audit Returns for the November 2006 Election

The report is available here: audit-final-06.pdf