An Informal Guide for Election Observers in Harris County

Prof. Dan Wallach, Department of Computer Science, Rice University
November 1, 2004

I'm meeting this evening with some local citizens who plan to be election observers, so I thought I'd try to work out a list of "unusual" things that they should be looking for. Remember, the job of an observer is exactly that, to observe. You're not there to say "ah hah!" if you think you caught something wrong. Simply make a note of it in as much detail as you can. Don't be confrontational. Take meticulous notes. Note the precise time next to everything you write down. Write down exactly where you were and exactly what you saw. Later on, we can go through your notes and the notes of other observers to see if we detect any patterns of inappropriate behavior and/or malfunctioning equipment.

There are many different things that an observer can watch. Some observers might focus on average voter wait times at different times of the day. Other observers might focus on the behavior of poll workers. Still others might focus on the behavior of political partisans (e.g., whether they respect the minimum distance rules from the polls or whether they interfere with voters as they arrive). No one observer can cover everything that might be worth observing. Likewise, this guide is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all the possible things that might be observed. I can't help you prioritize your time for where and how you focus your energies, but I can at least explain some of the non-obvious electronic voting issues that are worthy of scrutiny.

Voter registration / sign-in at the polling place

In Harris County, we have a new electronic registration system that replaced the traditional printed poll books. I know they used it for early voting, but I don't know whether it will be used on November 2. They're just generic Dell PCs running Windows and connected to a network. The only application running on them is Internet Explorer. (I couldn't see whether there's a single web server on the premises, or whether each machine is running its own internal server, but each machine clearly had an Ethernet cable plugged into it.) Poll workers type in the details on a given voter (in particular, a seven-digit voter ID number), and then the machine prints out a small sticker with the voter's name. They place the sticker on a big sheet of paper and the voter signs it. (My pharmacy uses a similar procedure whenever I pick up a prescription.) Once this authentication procedure is complete, they give the voter another piece of paper with the access code that they need to use the voting machine.

• Every poll worker, observer, or anybody else operating in an official capacity should be wearing an identification tag. Write down all the names, affiliations, and stated responsibilities for everybody there.
• Before the polls open, if you can, follow the Ethernet cables to whatever hub they're connected to. Make sure that every Ethernet wire is connected to a machine that you can see. The polling place should hopefully not be on the Internet. If you see a wire going to a cable modem or anything else that ultimately connects to the wall, make note of it and take a picture, if possible. Don't panic, just take good notes.
• During the election, watch what's going on behind the desk. No poll worker should ever connect a USB key to a machine, nor should they be inserting CDs or floppies. Likewise, the only application that should ever appear on the screen should be the web browser with the vote registration interface on it. Anything else should be carefully noted. (When I went to vote early, I made a point of watching the screen without saying a word. This unnerved the poll worker and he turned it away from me.)
• Pay particular attention if and when a voter arrives who is found not to be on the voting roles for your particular precinct. Make a note of everything about how the process is handled. Is the voter offered the chance to cast a provisional ballot?
• Pay extra particular attention if a voter is told "we see that you've already voted; I'm sorry, you can only vote once." Drop everything else you're doing and write down everything you can about this.
• If any malfunctions occur (e.g., machines crash or become unresponsive), make a note of when the problem occurs and what measures are taken to address the problem. If a phone call made for technical assistance, pay attention to how long they take to arrive and what they do once they do arrive.

Voting

Obviously, you must respect the privacy of voters, but there are plenty of things worth observing:

• At the beginning of the day, there should be some kind of procedure to make sure that all of the machines have been "zeroed" out and that the correct precinct's ballots have been loaded into each machine. Pay careful attention. In your notes, include the times and booth numbers of each machine, as it's checked. Pay attention to whether they verify that every race on the ballot has the correct candidates for the precinct.
• If/when voters ask for help, while still standing in the booth, make a note of their questions and of the poll worker's responses.
• If a voter forgets to press the final "Cast Ballot" button, they may leave the machine with the summary screen showing how they voted (and, the vote hasn't actually been "cast" yet). If this occurs and you see it, tell a poll worker so they can chase down the voter to help them finish their vote. Don't touch the voting machine yourself but make a note if anybody else touches it.
• The eSlate voting systems can, in theory, be removed from the polling place and taken out to the car of a handicapped voter to allow them to vote without needing to physically enter the polling place. If this occurs, watch how they extract a machine from its booth and how the machine is escorted outside and back.
• There have been stories of voters indicating a "straight" Democratic ticket and finding Bush/Cheney on their summary screen. If you hear a voter complain about this, take note of their complaints and, again, how the poll workers respond.
• During the day, poll workers may occasionally check that the number of votes cast is equal to the number of registered voters who have entered the precinct. Write down the numbers. If they're different, write down what the poll workers do in response to the problem.
• During the day, technicians and/or higher-level election officials may arrive at the polling place. Note the names of any such technicians or officials that you see. If they do anything interesting, particularly involving physically opening a voting machine or any other computer, take note. If they bring something like a laptop or even a USB key along with them and plug it in anywhere in the polling place, also take note.
• After voting is over, make sure you write down how many people cast votes at that precinct and that it was the same as the number of people who signed in.
• At the end of the day, there will be an elaborate procedure for shutting down the voting machines and printing a summary of the votes cast in that precinct. See if you can get a copy of the summary printout. If not, be sure to copy down as much as you can. My understanding is that the memory cards are not removed from the Judge Booth Controllers (JBCs) but that the whole JBCs are taken to election central, still with the official seal attached. Make a note of whether the seal is present and, if you can, write down the serial number that's stamped on the seal. Likewise, if you can see the manufacturer's serial number on the JBC itself, write that down.
• They're going to get into a car and drive over to the central tabulating facility. Who's in the car? Are there members representing each party? If you are in the car, keep everything in plain sight, if you can. (I don't know if there are official rules about where the records are supposed to go. If the rules say "trunk", then you might ask that everything else in the trunk be first removed so all parties can convince themselves that it's empty and no funny business will occur. If you've got a minivan, then putting everything in the middle row of seats, with observers behind would make a lot of sense.)

Tabulation / Canvassing

At the end of the day, all of the votes get tabulated so the winners can be announced. Voting machines, JBCs, and/or voting records (memory cards and printouts of vote totals) are going to be brought into the tabulation facility. You can expect vast amounts of boredom punctuated by occasionally interesting events. Here are some things you should look for as an election observer:

• Every poll worker, observer, or anybody else operating in an official capacity should be wearing an identification tag. Write down all the names, affiliations, and stated responsibilities for everybody there.
• Every time somebody shows up from a precinct with their JBCs, note the time, the name(s) and (if applicable) party affiliations of the group. If you can, write down the serial numbers that are stamped on the official seals on the JBCs. Likewise, if you can see the manufacturer's serial number on the JBC itself, write that down.
• Once the seal is broken and the memory card is removed, watch the process used to handle the memory cards. Who carries them, where do they take them, etc. If you see somebody put one of these cards into their pocket or otherwise place it anywhere outside of public view, make a note of it.
• The memory cards will each be inserted into one of a handful of computers, each of which will add that card's votes into the main tabulation. In your notes, try to track the times when each card arrives, when it's inserted, and where it's placed afterward. Early in the evening when the first results come in, keep track of exactly how the procedure is supposed to work. Later, when things get busier, try to focus on anything that appears to diverge from the procedure.
• As an observer, you're probably not going to be able to inspect much, if anything, of how the tabulating machines are wired together. As a result, you should focus on who goes where. You should pay particular attention if somebody is working on one of the tabulation machines by themselves. Anybody operating without direct, visible supervision could potentially be doing undesirable things.
• You may or may not be able to see the screens of the computers in use. If you are not able to watch the computer screens, and particularly if you are specifically forbidden from looking at them, then make note of who is telling this to you and what rules they cite for this. If you can't see the computer screens, then you're not really being allowed to observe anything more than you could see if you were out in the parking lot.
• If you can see the screens, you want to get some idea what the "normal" screens look like. Try to figure out how the machines are named or numbered and what their functions are for the election. It would be helpful to write down that machines #1 through #5 are configured to accept data from precincts, while #6-10 are configured to tabulate the results and #11 is the master tabulation machine.
• We've been told that, for security reasons, nothing at the tabulation facility is on the Internet. If you clearly see a "real" web page on a computer in the tabulation facility that couldn't have been generated internally (e.g., a web page for a major news organization), note down the exactly what you saw.
• Again, because they're not on the Internet, that means they'll need some other mechanism to report results to the press. Pay attention when such reports are made (e.g., "with 80% precincts reporting, we see candidate A beating candidate B with X votes to Y votes"). Does somebody burn a CD or load a USB memory key and carry it over to a separate, Internet-connected computer in a corner? Do they print something and drop it into a fax machine?
• If you see somebody pressing the "Start" button and running other programs, note the time and what program is being run. Some programs may be "web applications", so you shouldn't necessarily be alarmed to see a web browser in use. If you see something resembling a spreadsheet and see what looks like numbers being typed into the spreadsheet, take careful notes.
• If you are ever, at any point, asked to leave the facility, take note of who is making the request and the rules they cite as authorizing them to make such a request.

This is only a start, but it hopefully gives you a good idea of what might be "interesting" from a security perspective when you're observing the election. Unfortunately, I've had to make a number of educated guesses about election policies and procedures. The details aren't written down anywhere that I've been able to see them. If you see manuals that explain these sorts of procedures, ask if you can have a copy and read the manual during the dull points. If you observe any behavior that deviates from the stated policies and procedures in the manual, that's definitely worth writing down. Just remember that it's not your role to call a foul. Write it all down and we'll sort everything out later, if it's necessary.

Where to Report Problems

So, you think you found something anomalous and you're wondering what to do? A non-partisan group called Election Protection (1-866-OUR-VOTE) is trying to collect as much evidence as it can about voting irregularities. If you're not sure whether you need to call them or not, think about the severity of the problem. If, for example, a voting machine was accidentally unplugged, the battery died, and they've got nine other machines working just fine, then you probably don't need to make a call. If all of the machines go out in the space of ten minutes because none of them were plugged in, then you should whip out your cel phone and make the call right away.