Talk:Volusia error

Article sources
The external link, One view of the error, leads to a sloppy page full of slanted, disputed opinion, boiling down to little more than a conspiracy theory. Therefore, I propose that this link be removed. --Jacobking 22:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the last external link, namely Information on the Diebold machines, as the link was broken when I tried to access it just now. --RCS talk 16:44, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * A quick Google check shows plenty of other sources, (, etc.) should an interested editor wish to add them. -Will Beback 21:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Please provide the source(s) of all the vote numbers in the following passage: "The error cropped up in Volusia's 216th precinct of only 585 registered voters. A Diebold Election Systems voting machine showed that 412 of those registered voters had voted (a perfectly reasonable number). The problem was that the machine also claimed those 412 voters had somehow given Bush 2,813 votes and more impressively had given Gore a negative vote count of -16,022 votes." 00:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)kcn

I don't understand how this article jives with the content included in 2004 United States presidential election controversy, voting machines article. That article reads under section "Similar anomalies in recent history: BBV summary of Diebold memo's", that the the second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the morning. It automatically replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's total by 16,022 votes and added several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of minor candidates"...I realize the quote in this article is from the Washington Post, but somewhere the contents erroneous or require a mention of contradiction.

Here are some additional sources for this article.

First, a book called Black Box Voting, by chapters in PDF form..

http://blackboxvoting.org/book.html http://blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-13.pdf

Chapter 13 includes Diebold voting machines support logs... "I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb"."

Also, here's a link to an archived mail list with that message

Link to CBS report containing additional details about the Volusia County anomaly: 

What is an "electronic ballot"?
"However, the error did cause embarrassment and scrutiny both for Volusia election workers and for GES, provider of the electronic ballots."

I am not sure what the author is trying to say? In 2000, Volusia County used paper ballots that were then counted by optical scanners.

http://www.failureisimpossible.com/floridafollies/FL_articles/spoiledballots.htm

Rustymustang (talk) 11:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Rustymustang

Phony Article
Here is the link to the Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Office:

http://volusia.org/elections/

No such event took place as being "documented" in this article. I LIVE in Volusia County. This article was obviously created from the hysteria of some Bush-haters. Volusia County uses OPTICAL READER MACHINES, NOT electronic machines. I mark my paper ballot with a PENCIL (fill in an oval) and a machine reads the paper (just like taking the good old SAT Test - fill in the ovals with pencil). The paper ballots are kept by the County or State. This leaves a PAPER TRAIL!!! To suggest otherwise is ridiculous!!!

Here is a link to another Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election%2C_2000 ''One thing to note, several Florida newspapers did indeed do recounts (Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post) and Bush not only still won, but picked up votes. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-04-03-floridamain.htm)''

By the way, the Volusia County Election Supervisor in 2000 was named Deanie Lowe (not a mythical Lana Hires)! Do you think someone should have gotten that right if they were posting a "factual" article??? Gamweb 21:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

This link is to an email chain started by Lana Hires. I am not sure why this link from MIT has this email. Maybe somebody can look into who Lana Hires is and what her position was. She may have been an employee of the GESN if not the Election Supervisor. Please see the following link with Lana HIres' email at the bottom of the page. http://web.mit.edu/mit-rnr/OldFiles/www/lists/support.w3archive/200101/msg00068.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.80.4.66 (talk) 01:30, August 30, 2007 (UTC)


 * Gamweb: The machines are not electronic? Optical reader machines are in fact electronic, otherwise you would not need electricity to run them.  They also use software that counts the votes as they are read and sends a report to the printer or digital storage.  I don't know if this article is true but what you have stated above is definitely not true.  I'm not saying you have intentionally lied.  I think its just a misunderstanding.  For the SAT test a Scantron 2100 attached to a microcomputer is used for determining your score.  Yes you could hack the SAT if you had access to the machinery. You could either hack the software on the PC or hack the DB25 cable that attaches the Scantron to the computer. Check this source at Baylor University: http://carl-bell-2.baylor.edu/~Carl_Bell/ReadMeFiles/HyperScanTron.html NationalPark 10:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The machines that count the paper ballots are electronic. They use an electronic memory card to record the results of the counting. This video shows how the machine works and shows how the machine can be hacked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LY0AqYXZC4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.80.4.66 (talk) 01:12, August 30, 2007 (UTC)
 * So the Washington Post straight made up a story? Please. Staxringold talkcontribs 15:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Gamweb: The article indicates that Lana Hires wasn't "Supervisor of Elections." But she doesn't seem to be "mythical," either.  The Daytona Beach News-Journal has several references to her, e.g., "Assistant Elections Department Director" (1997 Feb 05), "director of the county's election division of the election department" (1999 May 22), and "a director in Volusia's elections office" (2000 November 17).  I just added a citation to the last of these articles to corroborate the claim that she was in fact working for Volusia, and on the election, while the votes were being counted in 2000. John G Bullock 12:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The New Zealand source
The NZ source quoted by Will actually gives a good historical overview of what happened that night. There were at least three "computational" errors:

1) the first one with the wrong tabulation of Duval County gave Gore 40,000 votes too many. It happened well after the networks had declared Florida for Gore, but obviously stopped them from realizing early on that the first projection, based on the exit poll was wrong for various reasons (the sample was too democratic, and the number of absentee ballots was much higher than anticipated). Without this error, the networks would perhaps have retracted their Gore declaration a bit earlier.

2) 4,000 Gore votes inexplicably went missing in Brevard County - not very important (it was corrected!), until it was followed by something much worse,

3) which is the "negative score" for Gore and the 400% vote for Bush recorded, in precinct 216. This crucially increased Bush's lead over Gore by + - 18,000 at a moment when the networks also underestimate the number of votes still to be counted by 50%. Without this mistake (somehow avoided by AP) the same networks would never have declarated Florida for Bush.

All fairly straightforward and open. And yes, there was a paper trail and the mistake was soon corrected (but the same networks again took no notice for some time). No conspîracy here.

However you do not need to be paranoid to find two things in the Diebold mail chain at the end of the source rather disturbing:

a) "About the only constructive suggestion I have is to insert a line in the AV upload code to check that candvotes + undervotes = votefor*timescounted. If it happens, punt. That would have at least prevented the embarrassment of negative votes, which is really what this is all about." So, they plan to include code in the transmission protocol to avoid negative votes - which was precisely why everybody knew, or rather: should have known that the reult from 216 was wrong. "Then John can go to Lana and tell her it has never happened before and that it will never happen again." - Read: OK, it does not matter whether the results which are transmitted are the right ones, provided that they are mathematically possible.

b)"If the error was not transient (likely it wasn't because some time ago we programmed it to double check the problem before locking up), then the AV will prompt "COUNTER ERROR OK TO CONTINUE?" and then "CLEAR COUNTERS AND RECOUNT?". One vote center in Volusia quietly did clear the counters but failed to recount the previously processed ballots." Reading this now, I wonder whether there was actually a re-count in Volusia checking the paper trail, because that voter center was obviously different from the one where Lara Hires got the negative Gore vote, since the error codes were different. In precinct 216, the mistake was corrected, of course.

The article in scoop seems to be by an accomplished journalist. All in all, it looks like it could be used as the basis for re-writing this article. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

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