supplemental material sent to hearing officer

Dear Friends,

I decided to send the Hearing Officer a supplemental letter on error rates after realizing Evnen and Bena were both shooting themselves in the foot with what they thought was a great error rate. Read this propaganda piece they sent to press across the state a few days ago:
https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/12/16/hand-counted-election-audit-finds-low-error-rate-with-nebraskas-voting-machines/

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…and then read what I sent to the Hearing Officer yesterday afternoon (and if you’re so inclined to reinforce what I said, you can send him a copy at saxelson@krbklaw.com ):

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Dear Mr. Kinsey,

I have additional information with regard to the allowable voting machine error rate.

Apparently Evnen and Bena didn't realize they were shooting themselves in the foot with their press release. But then again, I highly doubt anyone in the press bothered to check their math.

Allow me to proceed with this short explanation.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), Section 301(a)(5) states the following with regard to machine ERROR RATES:

The error rate of the voting system in counting ballots … shall comply with the error rate standards established under section 3.2.1 of the voting systems standards issued by the Federal Election Commission which are in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act. 
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/6/HAVA41.PDF

Here’s the standard (which can be found by reading pgs 3-3 and 3-4 at the link below):

"the system shall achieve a target error rate of no more than one in 10,000,000 ballot positions" (or .00001%)
https://www.fec.gov/resources/updates/agendas/2001/mtgdoc01-62/v1/v1s3.pdf 

You can also find it at the link below, on pgs 68 and 69:

"the voting system shall achieve a target error rate of no more than one in 10,000,000 ballot positions" (or .00001%)
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/28/VVSG.1.0_Volume_1.PDF 

A “ballot position,” also called a “vote position,” is any choice presented to the voter, such as a single candidate in a contest or a single response to an issue. For example, a ballot with 10 contests and 3 candidates in each contest would have 30 vote positions.

Evnen says he looked at 3 races on 48,292 ballots in the article above. I will allow for 4 ballot positions for each of those three races, which should be more than enough options in a general election.

Now then….

3 races x 4 ballot positions x 48,292 ballots = 579,504 ballot positions. 

Mr. Evnen said he had 11 discrepancies. 11 divided by 579,504 = .0000189817, or .001898% … or 189.8 errors in 10,000,000 ballot positions!

The maximum allowable error rate is .0000001 or .00001% … or 1 (one) in 10,000,000 ballot positions!

This standard is what it is for the following reason:

"This rate is set at a sufficiently stringent level such that the likelihood of voting system errors affecting the outcome of an election is exceptionally remote even in the closest of elections."
https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/eac_assets/1/28/VVSG.1.0_Volume_1.PDF 

Obviously, Mr. Evnen and Co are WAY OVER the error rate...by 190 times, assuming he's telling the truth...because, after all, he is auditing himself…who else gets to do that?

Evnen far exceeds the allowable error rate, even if we cut the discrepancies in half.

We won’t even talk about the fact that this error rate is supposed to test the integrity of ONE tabulator, not 93, as is the case in the Examiner article above. (The work load of Evnen’s so-called audits, the machine wear-and-tear, was spread over 93 county tabulators.)

One last thing. Every time you take out a withdrawal from the bank, the bank counts your withdrawal first, and then the teller counts it by hand, before giving you the money. And then you probably count it again. I’ve asked bank tellers that question numerous times, “When you’re withdrawing money from the bank, do you recount it again yourself before you leave the bank? They tell me “yes” every time. Why do we treat our votes so cheaply? Why do we allow our votes to be counted once, and that with a hackable machine??

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Robert J. Borer

P.S. Supplemental material:

 (2 min)

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/A8/A865440C8BAD8D0B83E8AD79ACDEC41E_Black_Box_Voting_-_By_Bev_Harris.pdf

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https://murderspiesvotinglies.com/

Professor J. Alex Halderman, University of Michigan, Computer Science:
“I’m a professor of computer science and have spent the last ten years studying the electronic voting systems that our nation relies on. My conclusion from that work is that our highly computerized election infrastructure is vulnerable to sabotage and even to cyber attacks that could change votes... I know America’s voting machines are vulnerable because my colleagues and I have hacked them repeatedly as part of a decade of research studying the technology that operates elections and learning how to make it stronger. We’ve created attacks that can spread from machine to machine like a computer virus and silently change election outcomes. We’ve studied touch screen and optical scan systems and in every single case we’ve found ways for attackers to sabotage machines and to steal votes…In close elections, an attacker can probe the most important swing states or swing counties, find areas with the weakest protection, and strike there. In a close election year, changing a few votes in key localities could be enough to tip national results.”

Criticisms of electronic voting machines
A Pennsylvania court ruled in April 2007 that voting machine certification was the result of what Judge Rochelle Friedman called "deficient examination criteria" which "do not approximate those that are customary in the information technology industry for systems that require a high level of security". The court ruled that voters have a right under the commonwealth's constitution to reliable and secure voting systems and can challenge the use of electronic voting machines "that provide no way for Electors to know whether their votes will be recognized" through voter verification or independent audit.