Technological Audits of Optical Scan Voting Systems: Summary for 2007 to 2010 Connecticut Elections

Security and integrity concerns regarding the use of electronic voting technologies in elections necessitate comprehensive election audits. Two types of audits are routinely performed in all state-wide elections in Connecticut: random post-election hand-counted audits and technological audits. This report presents the summary of the technological audit results in Connecticut from 2007 to 2010. The technological audits were designed on the request of the Secretary of the State (SOTS) of Connecticut by VoTeR Center and are conducted by the Center before (pre-election) and after (post-election) each state-wide election and selected primaries. The technological audits focus on the information contained on the memory cards used with the AccuVote Optical Scan (AV-OS) tabulators. This report presents the cumulative results of the pre-election and post-election technological audits. The audits examine the correctness of the programming of the memory cards with respect to the specific elections and the usage patterns at the districts in light of the election procedures established by the SOTS Office. The audits also assess the reliability of the memory cards. The conclusions are that districts do not always adhere to the established pre-election procedures. Most notably, in recent elections over 6% of the memory cards are duplicated by the districts, a practice that is not permitted by the SOTS Office; additionally, the number of cards submitted for audits has been substantially lower since 2008. The audits also established that more than 10% of the memory cards may experience data loss between the time they are programmed and the day of the election; this is apparently the reason for card duplication done by the districts. This data loss is most likely caused by the weak batteries on the cards (however, as of this writing it is not clear how long a fresh battery lasts in a memory card as some cards are known to consume substantially more power than others). To provide a better statistical basis for the overall elections landscape in Connecticut, it is recommended that the number of cards examined by the audits is substantially increased.
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Post-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2009 Elections

The Voting Technology Research (VoTeR) Center at the University of Connecticut performed a post-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators that were used in the November 2009 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 120 memory cards from 49 districts after the elections. The cards were received during the period from December 12, 2009 to February 12, 2010. Among the received cards, 49 were used in the elections, the rest remained unused (either being unusable or serving as back-up cards). This document reports on the findings obtained during the audit.

Among the 49 cards actually used in the elections all were properly programmed, however 2 cards were involved in duplication and one card was a non-standard (32K) card. 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. Concerning the remaining cards, 14 (12% of the total number of cards) were found to contain junk data, that is, they were unreadable, which is easily detected by the tabulators; had a card contained junk data at the time of the election, it could not have been used. A separate report will document our findings regarding the reasons causing occurrences of such cards.
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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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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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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

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 »

Analysis of the Audit Returns for the November 2006 Election

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