MESSAGE
| DATE | 2016-11-08 |
| FROM | Rick Moen
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout-NYLXS] Election results
|
Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben-at-mrbrklyn.com):
> Then they scanned the ballot and it is went, perfect despite that I know
> at least one section should have caused the machine to blink as I wrote
> two judges and then circled 5 more which is one more that it was
> supposed to have.
>
> This election is just SOOO fixed..
According to NY Board of Elections, there are five models of voting
machine certified for your state. They're shown here:
https://www.elections.ny.gov/VotingMachines.html
As is typical for a Ruben Safir mailing list posting, you gave _nowhere_
near enough detail to indentify which one of these, specifically, you
are talking about. Your reference to the machine 'scanning' your ballot
seems to suggest it's a type of machine using a paper ballot where one
feeds the paper ballot into the machine after marking the ballot with
(e.g.) a pen. That would _seem_ to rule out the Shoup Lever Machine and
the AVM Lever Machine. I'm still left a bit mystified about which of
the remaining three types you used.
Attempting to narrow it down further: You are voting in Kings County,
which is coextensive with the Borough of Brooklyn. These machines
are used in Kings County / NYC, according to the NY Board of Elections:
ES&S DS200
ES&S AutoMARK
So, if the NY Board of Elections Web site is correct, then it was one of
those.
DS200 instructions transcript
(https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/hava/VoterInformationontheDS200.html)
suggests it's a classic paper ballot and mark-sense electromechanical
thing. It requires using the manacturer's special marking pen and
filling in ovals next to candidate names or write-in blanks. You do not
'circle' your votes on this system. All choices, write-in or not, need
to be indicated by filling in an oval.
The DS200 appears to do only extremely limited checking of ballot
validity when you insert the ballot for initial scan. It does pop up
the message 'Over Voted Ballot' if you've filled in more ovals than is
valid for a particular office. It pops up 'Blank Ballot' if 'voter did
not shade in the ovals properly'. (Source:
http://www.amherstbee.com/news/2009-10-28/Local_News/New_voting_machines_to_be_used_on_Election_Day.html
) The DS200 doesn't blink in these conditions; it just puts up a
cautionary message for the voter's attention on-screen.
ES&S AutoMARK instructions transcript
(https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/hava/ESSAutoMarkVideoTranscripts.html)
shows that it's a very different type of machine, even though it's from
the same manufacturer. In this one, you insert the ballot _preparatory_
to voting, and do your voting via the LCD screen, rather than inserting your
ballot for scan at the end. As you make your selections on the LCD
screen, these are buffered while you proceed through the ballot, and
then at the end of the process you press the 'mark ballot' control,
which prints out your selections onto the printed ballot. You can then
review the printed paper ballot to make sure it accurately reflects your
selections before putting it in the ballot box.
So, the only machine that sounds likely, based on your description, is
the ES&S DS200, which nonetheless doesn't 'blink', and where you don't
'circle' your selections. The 'wrote two judges' bit doesn't actually
vote for them unless you also fill in the oval next to that write-in
line, and do so using the manacturer's special marking pen. If you
marked oval for (not 'wrote two judges' and not 'circled') more judges
than are valid for that category, the DS200 should then display
cautionary message 'Over Voted Ballot' when you feed your ballot into
the mark-sense reader for the limited amount of checking it does.
Now, for all I know, all the voting machines in Brooklyn Borough are
under the evil control of the Gaudi Family, or the Bavarian Illuminati,
or Elizabeth Warren, or aliens from Zeta-Reticuli. However, bollixing
the vote by sabotaging the mark-sense machines' cautionary messages
would be pretty awesomely inefficient. As any dictator knows, the way
you fix elections isn't in the ballot-casting phase but rather in the
counting and reporting phase.
More parsimonious explanation: You screwed up and/or weren't paying
adequate attention.
But hey, sure, could be aliens from Zeta-Reticuli playing games with
mark-sense ballot-processing hardware. Sure, why not? Or maybe George
Soros and Saul Alinsky dancing cheek-to-cheek, or whatever.
As a point of interest, in a lot of places in the USA, you are welcome
to participate while election officials and polling place volunteers are
setting up and testing the voting equipment, which would give you a good
chance to, say, feed a creatively mismarked ballot paper into a
mark-sense machine and verify that it triggers diagnostics if it's
supposed to do so. This of course doesn't prevent the ghost of Saul
Alinsky and the Bildenburgers from sneaking in _later_ to do sinister
acts of sagotage, but at least it would probably save you from the
embarrassment of posting ill-informed postings to mailing lists alleging
electoral fraud when the real problem is that you weren't clear on how
things worked.
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