The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), Section 301(a)(5), requires that the vote-counting error rate of each voting system used in federal elections must comply with the 2002 Voluntary Voting Systems Standards. UPDATE, May 5, 2008. It has come to our attention that the 1/500,000 error rate previously quoted here applies to the testing process. For operation in an election, the allowable error rate is 1 error in 10,000,000 ballot lines (0.00001%).

Here are some examples of voting system error rates logged in elections since HAVA was enacted, yet no federal agency has taken action to stop the use of these systems. In fact, all these systems are still in use in the United States.

Maximum legal error rate:	0.00001%
ES&S InkaVote Plus ballot-marking error rate: Los Angeles County, CA. June, 2008 1 ballot; 8 errors in 13 contests, with 35 ballot lines.	11.43%
ES&S iVotronic (e-vote) error rate: Faulkner County, AR. East Cadron B. May, 2008 57 ballots; 57 errors in 1 of 5 contests.	11.11%
Sequoia AVC Advantage (e-vote) error rate: Camden County, NJ. Pennsauken Dist. 6. Feb. 2008 One machine, 21 votes, 20 ballots.	0.68%
Sequoia AVC Advantage (e-vote) error rate: Bergen County, NJ. Engl.Cliff.Dist 4. Feb. 2008 One machine, 106 votes, 105 ballots.	0.12%
Premier (Diebold) GEMS v.1-18-24.0 error rate: Butler County, OH. March 2008 105 entire ballots uncounted.	0.08%
ES&S Optech IIIP Eagle scanner error rates: Milwaukee City, WI, Ward 43. Nov. 2004 Milwaukee City, WI, Ward 44. Nov. 2004 Milwaukee City, WI, Ward 98. Nov. 2004 Entire ballots uncounted in each case.	0.43% 0.10% 0.43%
Diebold AccuVote OS scanner error rate: Germantown Village, WI, District 1. Nov. 2004 Eleven entire ballots uncounted.	0.11%
Hart InterCivic Ballot Now scanner error rate: Yakima County, WA. Precinct 3301. Nov. 2004 One machine, all five contests in one column uncounted on 24 ballots.	0.18%
Sequoia AVC Edge touch screen error rate: Bernalillo Co, NM. Precinct 558-early voting. Nov. 2004 More votes than voters (phantom votes) in all 37 contests.	29.49%
Sequoia Optech 4C scanner error rate: Dona Ana Co, NM. Precinct 106-absentee. Nov. 2004 More votes than absentee voters in 16 of the 22 contests on the ballot. (For the precinct as a whole, a total of 65 more presidential votes than the number of voters registered in the precinct.)	23.57%

Many other news stories tell of equally shocking error rates. Though we have not calculated the error rate per ballot line (choice on the ballot), it's clear that these miscounts are far beyond the legal limit of one error in 10,000,000 ballot choices.

For example:

	Phillips Co, AR. 2006. 432 of 2,011 ballots had "mistakenly been counted as Republican ballots, effectively nullifying them." (Thanks to ES&S programming of the iVotronic touch screens.)
	Pottawattamie Co, IA. 2006. A machine count of the absentee ballots showed Sciortino 79, Duran 99; but a subsequent hand count gave the correct count: Sciortino 153, Duran 25. (Thanks again, ES&S.)
	Johnson Co, KS. 2002. Results were misreported in six races. "The system miscounted hundreds of votes, and a re-count was ordered." (Diebold admitted it was a software error.)
	Sarasota Co, FL. 2006. ES&S touch screen voting machines reported 18,000 fewer votes than voters in a US Congressional contest won by less than 400 votes. Wait! My mistake. It's impossible to tell whether this was a miscount or not since the electronic evidence has long since vanished into thin air and cannot be recovered.

The list goes on and on and on ... Every election, federal law is being violated in hundreds, maybe thousands, of polling places, and no federal agency takes action.

Worse yet, democracy is being violated.

Furthermore, HAVA Section 301(a)(3), which requires that each poll site provide a means by which voters with disabilities can vote privately and independently, has been the driving force behind the widespread purchase of equipment that DOES NOT COMPLY with the very law it purports to satisfy.

The official report from the California "Top to Bottom Review" of voting systems shows that much of the "accessible" equipment doesn't even meet common-sense standards, and stories from poll sites are heart-wrenching. Yet, the fact that "accessible" equipment is inaccessible is being ignored by virtually all officials. Certainly no action has been taken.

Voting system vendors are taking billions of tax-payer dollars and, in return, giving us inaccurate, inaccessible, unauditable, unreliable voting equipment that counts our votes in secret.

You Can Take Action. It's time to call for accountability in the machinery of our electoral system. Please sign the petition in support of VoterAction's call for Congressional investigations into blatant and destructive commercial fraud in the electronic voting machine industry.

This handy dandy machine will cure your paralysis, palsy, rheumatism, tumors, sprains, chilblains, inflammations, incontinence ... and more.	These handy dandy machines will cure your voting ills. They'll cast your votes, count 'em, tally 'em, report 'em, and sometimes even choose 'em.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." ~George Santayana

"Our analysis shows that the technological controls in the Diebold software do not provide sufficient security to guarantee a trustworthy election." ~ Source Code Review of the Diebold Voting System, commissioned by the California Secretary of State

"We found significant security weaknesses throughout the Sequoia system. The nature of these weaknesses raises serious questions as to whether the Sequoia software can be relied upon to protect the integrity of elections." ~ Source Code Review of the Sequoia Voting System, commissioned by the California Secretary of State

---

E-Voting Failures in the 2006 Mid-Term Elections
A sampling of problems across the nation

The 2006 mid-term election revealed that the promise of easier voting, more accurate tallies, and faster results with electronic systems has not been fulfilled.

This account of the November 7, 2006 election draws on incidents reported by pollworkers, voters, and the media. In all, we looked at 1022 reports of problems associated with electronic voting equipment from 314 counties in 36 states. Read the report      View the incident data

Prepared by VotersUnite, VoteTrustUSA, Voter Action, and Pollworkers for Democracy.

Pollworker reports provided by Pollworkers for Democracy.
Voter incident reports provided by Election Protection Coalition and Voter Action.
Media reports collected by VotersUnite.Org.

---

Myth Breakers: Facts about Electronic Elections 2nd edition - designed for County Officials
Download free	Information is power. Learn the facts. Myth Breakers... - Corrects HAVA misconceptions - Describes HAVA-compliant alternatives to DREs - Gives general pricing information - Speaks about myth vs. misinformation The second edition includes... - Malfunctions from the 2004 General Election - More about testing and certification - Details about software complexities
Myth Breakers is a tool for citizen activists. Myth Breakers will enable you to speak with confidence about the issues. Then ... Spread the Truth! Deliver "Myth Breakers: Facts about Electronic Elections" to your local election officials and legislators. Give them the information they need to make wise decisions. Participants have confirmed that Myth Breakers (first and second editions together) have been delivered to thousands of election officials and legislators. Do your local and state officials have the facts?