Citizens Deserve The Right To Know How The Vote is COUNTED

Reconciling Tabulator Machine Logs and Cast Vote Records (CVR) from 2020 General Election

Here is my first attempt to analyze and reconcile tabulator machine logs for a single county form the 2020 general. I have decided to not included the Appendix of Tables to keep the county anonymous.

I make no claims to be an expert but the point here is to understand just how complex and difficult to understand these systems are.

Every citizen not only deserves the right to vote, but just as important the right to understand how their vote is COUNTED….good luck with that one.

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The files from XXXX County for the 2020 General Election that were reviewed:

·      Log – election2020General_Official 1.csv – October 17th 2022 (Tabulator Log File)

·      Log – election2020General_Official 2.csv – October 17th 2022 (Tabulator Log File)

·      Log – election2020General_Official 3.csv – October 17th 2022 (Tabulator Log File)

·      Election2020General_Official.cvr.csv – October 27th 2022 (CVR File)

Section 1 – Reconciling Vote Counts Between Logs and the CVR

Observations

1.     The CVR file (Column D) includes a unique ballot ID. The log files (Column A) includes a unique time/date stamp. However, there is no explicit link between the logs and the CVR in terms of a common ID for votes that were counted in the log files and votes that were recorded in the CVR. See Table 1 in Appendix.

a.     Question: How are vote tally’s reconciled between systems if there is no way to verify that the records included in the CVR are the same records created on the tabulator machines for counted ballots?

2.     The total amount of votes counted in all machine logs is 37,201 (See Table 2). This includes log events for “ballot accepted” and “possible paper jam front and rear ballot counted”. The total amount of line items in the CVR is 58,362 (see Table 3 and Table 4). The difference is 21,161 (58,362-37,201=21,161). As indicated in Table 2, the logs do not include vote counts for GEJY92700UUZ, SCANSTATION01 (S1) and SCANSTATION02 (S2). S1 and S2 were used for counting the absentee votes, as indicated in the CVR (See Table 4 & 5).

a.     Question: Why do the logs for GEJY92700UUZ , S1 and S2 not include log events indicating how many votes were counted even though the CVR does include votes for GEJY92700UUZ , S1 and S2?

b.     Request: Please provide the COMPLETE logs for GEJY92700UUZ , S1 and S2 with vote counts or other reports showing vote counts.

3.     Upon reviewing the CVR file, S1 counted 12,338 votes. S2 counted 8,340 votes (See Table 4). ASSUMING the logs for S1 and S2 (when provided) will show the same amount of votes counted as in the CVR, there is still a shortfall of 419 missing votes. 37,201 + 12,338 + 8,340 = 57,943. 58,362 – 57,943 = 419 missing vote counts.

a.     Question: Why are 419 votes missing between the logs and CVR?

4.     No votes were indicated as being counted in the log files for machine GEJY92700UUZ (See Table 2 and Table 6).

a.     Question: Why was GEJY92700UUZ used in the election when no votes were recorded in the CVR?

5.     In the log file, GEJY840005TM includes 66 votes counted (See Table 2). However, the CVR does not include any votes counted for GEJY840005TM XXXXX (See Table 4 & 5).

a.     Question: Why are the votes for GEJY840005TM XXXXX not included in the CVR? (XXXXX are included)

6.     In the CVR, 284 votes are included for GEJY81200HT0 (No Vote Center Specified, See Table 4 & 5). However, only 84 votes were counted in the logs for GEJY81200HT0 (See Table 2 & 7).

a.     Question: Why is there a 200 vote difference between the log and the CVR for GEJY81200HT0.

b.     Question: Why was no vote center specified in the logs for machine GEJY81200HT0?

Section 2 – Observations About Log Messages

Observations

1.     FATAL ERROR Messages: SCANSTATION02 lists this error 3 times on lines 19164, 19165 and 19166.

FATAL: TabulationProcess1: Traceback (most recent call last):   File "C:\CBG\src\tabulate\BallotSweeper.py", line 1049, in tabulation_process_code   File "C:\CBG\src\tabulate\BallotSweeper.py", line 1987, in should_quit   File "<string>", line 2, in get   File "C:\Python27\lib\multiprocessing\managers.py", line 755, in _callmethod   File "C:\Python27\lib\multiprocessing\managers.py", line 742, in _connect   File "C:\Python27\lib\multiprocessing\connection.py", line 169, in Client   File "C:\Python27\lib\multiprocessing\connection.py", line 308, in SocketClient   File "C:\Python27\lib\socket.py", line 228, in meth error: [Errno 10060] A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond

a.     Question: Why does this FATAL error show up 3 times in the log?

b.     What connection attempt failed, as listed in the message? Who was trying to connect? What was the machine trying to connect to?

2.     ERROR Messages: There are a total of 81 login error messages for all machines including 77 for Poll Workers. See Table 8.

a.     Question: Why are there 81 login error messages?

3.     Election Administrator Logout Error Messages: There are a total of 15 Info messages in the log indicating that the Election Administrator Logged Out prior to any indication that an Election Administrator login had occurred. See Table 9.

a.     Question: What are there 15 Election Administrator logout error messages without a prior Election Administrator login?

4.     There are 104 instances of “deletions” occurring in the logs. A small sample is included in the Appendix. See table 11.

a.     Question: What is the purpose of each of these “deletion” types?

Section 3 – Trump and Biden Data Trends

1.     Biden & Trump Totals: The CVR indicates that the 2020 General Election includes 41,372 votes for Trump and 15,663 votes for Biden. See Table 10. Based on the vote tally in the CVR, SCANSTATION01 includes 4,837 votes for Biden and SCANSTATION02 includes 3,012 votes for Biden. 50% of all of Biden’s votes (4,837+3,012=7,849) were counted on only 2 of the 75 Tabulators. Conversely, 12,308 votes were counted on the same two tabulators for Trump which is 29% (12,308/41,372).

a.     Question: Please explain why it is reasonable to expect that ~ 50% of all of Biden’s votes would be counted on only 2 Tabulators.

b.     Question: Please explain why it is reasonable that only 29% of Trump votes were counted on the same tabulators versus 50% for Biden considering Trump won the election by 25,709 votes.