Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 6, 2012 Connecticut Elections

The University of Connecticut Center for Voting Technology Research (VoTeR Center) performed pre-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan (AV-OS) tabulators that were used in the November 6, 2012 elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Salem, New Hampshire, and shipped to Connecticut districts.

Cards were submitted for two reasons per instructions from the SOTS Office (a) one of the four cards per district was to be selected randomly and submitted directly for the purpose of the audit, and (b) any card was to be submitted if it appeared to be unusable. Given that cards in category (a) were to be randomly selected, while all cards in category (b) were supposed to be submitted, and that the cards were submitted without consistent categorization of the reason, this report considers all unusable cards to fall into category (b).

The VoTeR Center received 150 memory cards from 141 districts. Among these 150 cards, 94 (62.6%) fall into category (a). All of these 94 cards were correct. There are 56 cards (37.4% of all cards) that were found to be unusable by the AV-OS, thus falling into category (b). In particular, 53 cards contained apparently random (or ‘junk’) data, one card was unusable by AV-OS, but did not contain random data (this requires further investigation), one card was formatted using AV-OS tabulator, however, it was not programmed , and one card contained only zeros. All these cards were unreadable by the tabulators and could not have been used in an election. Given that such cards were not selected randomly, we estimate that for pre-election audit the percentage of unusable cards is between 1.7% and 9.9% and this range is consistent with the results for prior audits.
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Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the August 14, 2012 Connecticut Primary Elections

The University of Connecticut Center for Voting Technology Research (VoTeR Center) performed pre-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan (AV-OS) tabulators that were used in the August 14, 2012 elections. The cards were programmed by LHS Associates of Salem, New Hampshire, and shipped to Connecticut districts.

Cards were submitted for two reasons per instructions from the SOTS Office (a) one of the four cards per district was to be selected randomly and submitted directly for the purpose of the audit, and (b) any card was to be submitted if it appeared to be unusable. Given that cards in category (a) were to be randomly selected, while all cards in category (b) were supposed to be submitted, and that the cards were submitted without consistent categorization of the reason, this report considers all unusable cards to fall into category (b).

The VoTeR Center received 82 memory cards from 67 districts. Among these 82 cards, 36 (43.9%) fall into category (a). All of these 36 cards were correct. There are 46 cards (56.1% of all cards) that were found to be unusable by the AV-OS, thus falling into category (b). In particular, 44 cards contained apparently random (or ‘junk’) data, one card was unusable by AV-OS, but did not contain random data (this requires further investigation), and one card was formatted using AV-OS tabulator, however, it was not programmed. All these cards were unreadable by the tabulators and could not have been used in an election. Given that such cards were not selected randomly, we estimate that for pre-election audit the percentage of unusable cards is between 1.5% and 17.2% and this range is consistent with the results for prior audits.
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Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the August 10, 2010 Primary Elections

The University of Connecticut Center for Voting Technology Research (VoTeR Center) performed a pre-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators that were to be used in the August 10, 2010 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 226 memory cards from 218 districts for this audit. The cards were received during the period from August 6, 2010 to August 17, 2010. This document reports on the findings obtained during the audit.

Among these 226 cards, 192 (85%) were correctly programmed for elections. 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, 34 (15% of the total number of cards) were found to be unusable by the AV-OS. In particular, these cards contained ‘junk’ (i.e., apparently random) data. These cards were unreadable, according to the tabulators and could not have been used in an election. (We report on the causes of such card failures separately – See here.)
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Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2009 Elections

The Voting Technology Research (VoTeR) Center at the University of Connecticut performed a pre-election audit of the memory cards for the Accu-Vote Optical Scan tabulators that were to be 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 491 memory cards from 481 districts before the elections. This document reports on the findings obtained during the audit. The 491 cards represent over 80.6% of all districts, thus the audit is broad enough to draw meaningful conclusions.

Among the 491 cards representing those intended for use in the elections, 87% were properly programmed. 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, 42 or 9% 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. It was determined that weak batteries is the primary cause of this and a separate report will document our findings.
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