AVOID THE STRAIGHT PARTY OPTION WHEN VOTING IN
NOVEMBER!
Effects of the Straight Party Voting Option and
Sequoia Voting Machines Observed During the 2004 General Election in Santa Fe
County, New Mexico
By Judith B. Alter, Ed.D.
This
study of a single county in New Mexico describes the effect of the
"straight-party" voting option in relation to the high
"under-vote" that occurred in the 2004 presidential election in Santa
Fe County. This study revealed, for one county, several of the patterns found
by other researchers who have studied the election in the entire state of New
Mexico. Unusual voting patterns emerged when researchers compared the
presidential results to the totals of the statewide "down-ticket"
candidates in the three voting opportunities: Absentee, Early Voting, and
Election Day; each used different Sequoia voting systems.
After
the November 2004 presidential election, the Green and Libertarian parties
requested a recount in New Mexico because the state had the highest under-vote
rate for president in the nation.
Election officials record an under-vote when the voter does not make a
choice for particular race, in this case for president. As a part of this recount, volunteers
working with Black Box Voting obtained many public records documents. The study of Santa Fe County the elections
material acquired from this public records request provides the basis for the
observations presented here. The analysis of the "straight-party"
option appears to have contributed, in a major way, to the historic
"under-vote" for president. The "straight party" voting
option allows a voter to mark or cast a single vote that registers for all
candidates in the voter's political party.
The
high under-vote rate (no vote for any candidate for an office) in Santa Fe
County and the rest of New Mexico may have occurred primarily when voters chose
the "straight-party" voting option on election day. Another vote
reducing and possible vote-shifting scheme seems to have been present in the
Sequoia scanners that counted hand-marked paper ballots cast during absentee
and early voting in the straight party choices for minor third parties.
Finally, a large discrepancy exists between the number of signatures on voter
rosters, the total votes cast, and the presidential votes cast, especially on
Election Day.
New
Mexico voters had three different opportunities to vote; each was tabulated by
proprietary Sequoia software: A voter
could choose to vote 1) absentee (ABS),
using a paper ballot tabulated by Sequoia Optech 4C-400 scanners; 2) in early
(EV) at five specified locations using a paper ballot tabulated by Sequoia
Optech Insight scanners; and 3) on Election Day (ED), using Sequoia Advantage
push button machines (DRE-direct recording electronic devices) where machines
tabulated the votes and recorded the results on internal memory tapes. In Santa Fe County on election day 86
precincts or polling sites contained a total of 214 Sequoia push button DRE
machines.
In
Santa Fe County, 62% of the voters registered as Democrats, 18% Republican, and
20% other or "decline to state."
Of these voters, Absentee voters comprised 29% of the total Santa Fe
County votes, 35% chose to participate in Early Voting, and 36% participated in
Election Day voting. Of these voting
choices, 0.26% of Absentee (ABS) ballots contained under-votes, 0.22% of Early
Voting ballots recorded under-votes and a full 4.2% of Election Day voting
recorded under-votes. This means that
of the 36% of voters who voted on Election Day in Santa Fe County, 4.2% of them
did not record a vote for president.
In contrast to results reported on the New Mexico Secretary
of State's website, actual election night material provided the numbers of
voters who chose the "straight-party" option. The "straight-party" option allows
a voter of a specific party to check a single box indicating the intention to
vote for all the candidates in that party for all the races. The voter would check one box and believe
that all those running for any office of their party would receive their vote. The "down-ticket" races refer to
all of those contests below the president, such as congressional or senate
races where a partisan vote was possible.
"Straight-Party"
Voting
The
evidence about how the "straight-party" option worked on election day
came from the compiled lists of voter complaint calls received by the many
election protection services sponsored by groups such as the NAACP, PFAW,
MoveOn, etc. Find these complaints compiled on the Election Incidents Reporting
Service (EIRS) (http://voteprotect.org).
The reports shed light on the problems that occurred when voters chose
the "straight-party" option in New Mexico and sixteen other states
with the straight party option.
EIRS
records indicate that the "straight-party" option appeared not to
have included a vote for president for every party except for Republicans. When
a Republican voter selected the straight party option, a Bush vote appeared to
register automatically, that is, the machine showed "Bush" (with rare
exceptions). "Straight-party"
voters from other than the Republican Party may not have discovered the absence
of their presidential vote on their review screens. And others who reported
finding no presidential vote on their review screens may not have realized how
their choice of the "straight-party" option contributed to the
absence of a presidential vote. The "straight-party" option appeared
to have created a large under-vote by means of the no-vote-for-president
(except Bush) phenomenon.
The
second way the straight party option contributed to the under-vote occurred
when voters selected candidates outside their straight party selection. Many
voters may not have known that, on electronic voting machines, after selecting
the straight party option, if they then voted for a candidate from another
party, that non-straight party vote cancelled the voter's straight party
choices throughout the rest of the ballot. For example, perhaps a Democrat
voted for the Green Party County Surveyor instead of the Democratic candidate
running against him. That one vote outside the Democratic straight party would
automatically cancel all the selected votes for Democrats throughout the
ballot.
When
choosing the straight party option, voters reported another problem. Instead of
no presidential choice appearing on the voting machine screen, voters reported
that the wrong candidate, often Bush, appeared. Only two EIRS reports in New
Mexico (Sandoval County) came from Republicans saying that their straight party
selection, at first, showed a vote for the Democratic or Green Party
candidate. These voters reported that
they corrected this wrong choice.
The
difficulty in removing the wrong presidential choice, however, created another
means of generating an under-vote. To override the automatic Bush vote or the
voter’s wrong choice on the Sequoia push-button electronic voting machines,
voters had to push the button for Bush (or the wrong candidate) again (a toggle
mechanism) to erase the vote. Voters reported that they had to push the Bush
button from two to ten times to remove that incorrect choice before they could
vote for their preferred candidate.
Furthermore,
after removing the vote for the wrong candidate and voting for their correct
one, some voters reported that when they got to the review screen at the end of
the ballot, they found no vote for president had registered. Voters reported
the need to scroll back up the ballot one or two more times to vote again for
their presidential choice. Even when the review screen actually showed their
correct vote, citizens voiced concern that their vote would not actually
register. They worried about the voters who were unable to find and correct
this problem of no-vote or a wrong vote for president.
The programmed mechanisms in the straight party option
probably contributed to the high under-vote rate on Election Day. These
programmed mechanisms for the straight party option include a vote shifting
formula in the scanners used to count ballots for absentee and early voting (see
below); and with the DREs on Election Day:
no-vote-for-president for all but the Republican party; a difficult to
change incorrect presidential vote; an inadvertent canceling of straight party
votes when voting outside that party, or undetected or uncorrected Bush
default. The under-vote total alone,
1117, amounts to 19% of Kerry’s loss by 5988 in New Mexico. In New Mexico, the Election Day statewide
presidential under-vote was 17,095.
Down-Ticket Discrepancies
in Early Voting and Absentee
One might assume that the "straight-party"
discrepancies only occurred on the Election Day electronic DRE voting
machines. Not so! Evidence shows votes
for President for persons voting "straight-party" in third parties,
such as the Green Party, both in the Absentee and the Early Voting choices were
not recorded. For example, the straight party choice for the Green party showed
2 votes, but no votes registered for David Cobb. There were, however, minimal under-votes recorded; this implies
another candidate received the "shifted" vote. Sequoia scanners with proprietary software
counted both the Absentee and the Early Voting paper ballots. Since the three Democratic members of the
State Election Board prevented the official hand recount, citizens have no way
to know how much vote shifting occurred.
Roster Signatures, Total
Votes Cast, Votes for President: Hidden
Provisional Ballots
The website of the NM Secretary of State lists the total
number of roster signatures for each voting occasion by precinct. A comparison
of the total number of signatures with the total votes counted shows, for all
voting occasions in Santa Fe, 1523 more roster signatures than total ballots
cast. That is a large number of voters
who signed the roster books, but for some reason, did not have their ballot
counted. That number, 1523, is 27%
higher than the tallied under-vote of 1117.
The website also shows 205 phantom votes, (more votes cast than roster
signatures) in the three voting occasions:
95 in absentee voting and 110 in early voting. Researchers Warren Stewart and Ellen Theisen explained that
election officials subtracted phantom votes from the under-vote in their
certified vote tallies instead of listing the phantom votes in a separate category
on the certified totals.
The total number of more-signatures-than-votes-cast may be
the uncounted provisional ballots: 2%
of the total ballots cast in Santa Fe County.
Rather than post the counted and uncounted provisional ballots as a
separate category, Warren Stewart reports, the Secretary of State adds the
total provisional ballots counted to the election night totals. Combine the 1523 uncounted ballots to the
under-vote of 1117 and get 2640. This
2640 is 4% of the total Santa Fe County vote and it may represent the extent of
voter disenfranchisement in this County.
If the uncounted provisional ballots were primarily from newly
registered Democrats whose voter registration forms remained unprocessed or
destroyed, then much of the 2640 votes (under-vote + uncounted provisional ballots)
amounts to 44% of Kerry’s 5,988 vote loss.
Summary
When voters use the "straight-party" option during
an election, they run the risk of losing their vote. The effects observed in New Mexico have also been seen in many
other states that offer the "straight-party" option. Whether intentional or unintentional, the
use of proprietary software prevents citizens from observing the actual vote
counting; thus, citizens do not know if their votes are counted as cast. Scanners that count paper ballots use proprietary
software and are just as susceptible to large inaccuracies as the touch screen
machines. Citizens must vote on paper
ballots but unless citizens also hand count these ballots no one can verify the
accuracy of the total vote count with or without the "straight-party"
option. Since fifteen states in
November 2008 continue to offer the "straight-party" voting option
and almost no option to hand count paper ballots yet exists, after reading this
evidence, voters should avoid using the "straight-party" option.
States that still have straight party voting include: New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Texas, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Michigan. (New Hampshire and Missouri no longer have this option.)
Articles about New Mexico:
Stewart, Warren. 2005. “Did We Bounce An Election?” www.votersunite.org and http://www.votersunite.org/info/newMexicophantomvotes.asp
Theisen, Ellen and Warren Stewart. 2004. “Summary Report on New Mexico State Elections Data.” www.USCountVotes.org
Liddle, Elizabeth, and Josh Mittledorf. 2005. “Analysis of Undervotes in New Mexico’s 2004 Presidential Ballots.” www.USCountVotes.org
Plotner, Robert Glenn. 2005. “A Guide to irregularities in the 2004 New Mexico General Election.” www.USCountVotes.org
State of New Mexico, Office of New Mexico Secretary of State, Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, http://www/sos.state.nm.us/Election/cntyindx04.html
Thank yous: Green and Libertarian Parties, Jeremiah Akin, Warren Stewart, Ellen Theisen, Ken Aaron, Stuart Shakman, Dan Ashby, Myra Boime, Megan Matson, Scripps Howard News Service, Eva Kataja, Mitch Buszek, Wayne M. Burke, Lubosh Novak, and others in Recount New Mexico; Bernie Ellis, Kip Humphrey.
To read the entire go
to: www.protectcaliforniaballots.org,
www.freepress.org, www.solarbus.org