State Board of Elections de-certifies WinVote voting machines

After several months of testing and examination, followed by a public hearing today (14 April), the Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) de-certified WinVote voting equipment for use in Virginia.

http://elections.virginia.gov/…

This is important because:

1.  Ten localities with a total of 270 precincts that use WinVote are holding 9 June primaries.  

http://elections.virginia.gov/…

This means these localities now have no voting machines for their 9 June primaries.  Some of them have a few machines by other manufacturers that were not de-certified.  Now, these localities are scrambling to purchase, lease, or borrow certified voting equipment for the primaries, only 7 weeks away.

2.  WinVote equipment is in use in a total of 30 localities statewide that include 568 precincts — that’s a LOT of voting equipment that must be replaced before the November 2015 general election.

http://elections.virginia.gov/…

Read the report of the technical investigation into problems with WinVote machines.

http://elections.virginia.gov/…

Here’s the short version:

1.  During the November 2014 election, reports were received from around the state of malfunctioning voting equipment.

2.  SBE and local officials investigated and found in most cases the problem was: voter error; machine out of calibration; or other minor error that did not affect votes cast.

3.  HOWEVER — in three localities, all using WinVote, there were serious errors that could have compromised the outcome of the election:  Virginia Beach City; Henrico County; and, a single precinct in Spotsylvania County.

A company that is federally-certified to test and analyze voting machines was called in and their report can be found here:

http://elections.virginia.gov/…

Read the report.  One especially troubling occurrence was at the Spotsy precinct — in a public library with wifi — where it was determined that the wifi was interfering with the WinVote machines.  In fact, when the machines were inspected during the recent audit, auditors were able to use their smartphones to access the WinVote equipment!!!

Here is a link to the SBE website where you will find memos, releases, and documents pertaining to this matter:

http://elections.virginia.gov/…

Read the six documents in the section titled:  Interim Report on Voting Performance, Usage and Certification