SEQUOIA Voting Systems
717 17th Street, Suite 310
Denver, CO 80202
www.sequoiavote.com
September 22, 2008
Mr. Errol R. Arthur
Chairman
Board of Elections and Ethics
Government of the District of Columbia
One Judiciary Square
441 4th Street NW
Suite 250 North
Washington, DC 20001
VIA E-MAIL TO: boee@dc.gov
Dr. Mr. Arthur:
Enclosed, please find Sequoia's response to your letter
dated September 12, 2008 regarding your questions surrounding the
election in the District of Columbia on September 9th.
We hope that our report assists the Board in more fully
understanding the issue that occurred on September 9th and how it can be
alleviated in future elections.
As we have expressed to the DCBOEE throughout out
long-term service to your jurisdiction with our equipment and support,
we stand ready to assist you in any way possible and we look forward to
working with your team in preparation for the November 4th general election.
In further support of our findings and to help our team
in working with the DCBOEE staff so everyone is in full understanding of
this situation, we ask that you please provide us with any and all
results reports of any sort provided to outside parties on Election
Night, 9/9/08 at your earliest convenience.
We are also requesting an electronic copy of the WinEDS
database containing the errant precinct 141 results, after precinct 141
was loaded into WinEDS but prior to that precinct's results being
removed and re-entered after discovery of the precinct results error.
If you have any further questions after reading the
attached, please do not hesitate to contact me at mshafer@sequoiavote.com
or 800.347.4702.
Sincerely,
Michelle M. Shafer
Vice President, Communication and External Affairs
CC: Sylvia Goldsberry-Adams, Acting Executive Director,
DCBOEE
Dan Murphy, Interim PIO, DCBOEE
Jack Blaine, CEO, Sequoia
Voting Systems
Peter McManemy, CFO, Sequoia Voting Systems
Edwin B. Smith, Vice President Quality, Compliance
& Certification
Waldeep Singh, Vice President, Operations, Sequoia
Voting Systems
Howard Cramer, Vice President, Sales, Sequoia Voting
Systems
Joe McIntyre, Senior Project Manager, Sequoia Voting Systems
Adolph Romei, Esq. Beattie and Padovano
Arthur Chagaris, Esq. Beattie
and Padovano
Encl.
Report to the District of Columbia Board of Elections
& Ethics
September 22, 2008
Sequoia Voting Systems is submitting the following report in
response to a request from our customer, the District of Columbia
Board of Elections & Ethics (DCBOEE) dated September 12, 2008
from Mr. Errol R. Arthur, Board Chairman. This request is included as
an attachment to this report for easy reference.
Following in the next four bolded paragraphs is
Sequoia's initial written analysis of the situation surrounding the
DCBOEE's September 9th election that we previously shared with the DCBOEE on Thursday,
September 11, 2008 after discussing the situation with the DCBOEE in
great detail after the election:
Sequoia Voting Systems technical personnel have
examined the election database for the District of Columbia September
9 Primary Election. Our technical staff members have found no
anomalies or irregularities in either the data or the internal event
logs that can be identified as having caused or contributed to the
issue experienced election night. The database that was examined is a
copy of the final database from election night after an returned
cartridges had been tabulated and unofficial results generated and
reported.
Due to the lack of any database irregularities or event
log indicators, a determination by Sequoia Voting Systems
as to the cause of the tally issue on one machine cartridge is
difficult to characterize. Endemic hardware and software failures have
been ruled out as the cause.
There are multiple possibilities for failure to
properly read the data, including a transient malfunction of the MPR
(Memory Pack Reader) unit, the cartridge not being sealed properly
in the MPR socket, accidental manual ejection of the cartridge prior
to completing the cartridge reading process, or some type of
electrostatic discharge that might have taken place while reading or
ejecting the cartridge. None of these instances would be recorded in
the voting system event logs, making it impossible to provide a more
definitive answer.
The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics
identified the issue through their established, standard procedures
and acted quickly to resolve the discrepancy within minutes of
auditing the unofficial results. The final, unofficial results
released by the Board on election night were accurate. Sequoia Voting
Systems will continue to work with the Washington DC Board of
Elections and Ethics to prevent this issue from occurring in future
elections.
This initial response above should serve as a summary
for this longer response to specific questions from the DCBOEE, and we
note that this initial analysis stands after further examination of
this situation by our staff members.
1. The methodology you used and an explanation of the
process you employed to analyze the data provided to you:
Sequoia response: Initially, Sequoia staff members
onsite in the District of Columbia worked with the DCBOEE staff to
examine the cartridge for Precinct 141 by inserting the cartridge in
an Eagle III precinct-based optical scanner, turning it on and
producing another results tape. That tape was compared to the results
tape originally signed by the poll workers when the polls were closed
and both tapes matched. The cartridge for precinct 141 was then
reprocessed in WinEDS (Sequoia's election management system) using the
same Memory Pack Reader (MPR) that had been used all evening for
tally. Then a precinct report was printed and compared to the results
tape from the machine. Both matched, and a new district-wide summary
was produced. This summary contained the correct results. Again, this
was a transient issue due to one or more of the following: improper
seating of the cartridge in the MPR, premature ejection and
reinsertion of the cartridge while processing that cartridge's votes,
electrostatic discharge, etc. The cartridge itself was not defective,
nor were any errors noticed or documented regarding the MPR.
Additionally, Sequoia's technical personnel have
examined a copy of the election database for the District of
Columbia's September 9th Primary Election in our Denver offices. The
examination included scanning all log entries in the system for any
error conditions. In addition validations were conducted on all data
in the system. Our technical staff members have found no anomalies or
irregularities in either the data or the internal event logs that can
be identified as having caused or contributed to the issue experienced
election night. The database copy that was examined is an exact copy
of the final database from election night after all returned
cartridges had been tabulated and unofficial results generated and
reported.
2. An explanation of the cause of the cartridge misread
of the data on Election Night:.
Sequoia response: There are multiple possibilities for
failure to properly read the cartridge data, including a transient
malfunction of the MPR unit, the cartridge not being seated properly
in the MPR socket, accidental manual ejection of the cartridge prior
to completing the cartridge reading process, or some type of
electrical or static discharge that might have taken place while
reading or ejecting the cartridge. This scenario would be similar to
positioning a CD in a CD ROM drive. The CD must be seated properly and
should not be put in the drive or taken out while the player is
running or it may not run properly, or at all. None of these instances
would be recorded in the voting system event logs, making it
impossible to provide a more definitive answer.
The critical point in this matter is that the cartridge
for precinct 141 was not corrupt, nor was the MPR showing any signs of
malfunctioning. When the cartridge for precinct 141 was re-read in
this same MPR, it was able to be read with no problems. If the
cartridge was corrupt, it would not have been able to be read by any
MPR. Regardless of third party comments to the contrary, Sequoia did
not and does not contradict the Board's assertion that the results
reporting issue on Election Night is due to more than one results
cartridge.
As stated previously, this reporting issue was a
process issue that was not noticed by the DCBOEE until after they had
already submitted their preliminary election night reports to the
media. They realized the mistake and what happened within five minutes
of handing the interim report to the media, immediately took action
and corrected the report.
3. Information regarding this kind of error and if it
has previously been suspected or known to have occurred in the past:
Sequoia response: This is not a problem with Sequoia's
software or hardware. This is a matter of human interaction with a
mechanical device (the MPR) and a cartridge with data, combined with a
process issue in the DCBOEE not thoroughly reviewing their reports
before releasing to the media. Since our customers conduct the actual
elections - not Sequoia - we do not have any way of keeping track of
such incidents, nor is it our responsibility to do so. As an aside,
the Eagle Ill optical scan equipment currently employed by the DCBOEE
- which worked extremely well in this election as it has for the DCBOEE in numerous elections over the years - is over
eight years old and very few of these units remain in the field.
However, heir track record over these years is excellent.
4. Recommendations on what specific steps should be
taken to curtail the risk of a recurrence of such issues in the
future:
Sequoia response: This is a mechanical process that
must be done precisely with exact seating of the cartridge in the MPR
- and noticing if something goes wrong. This situation can be
mitigated by ensuring proper seating of the cartridge in the MPR and
by taking note of the read to make sure it is processing properly.
Sequoia is aware of no errors being reported or documented by DCBOEE
staff while reading cartridges on election night.
Also, to curtail the risk of a recurrence of this issue
in the future, Sequoia recommends that those DCBOEE staff members
working in the evening on vote tally not report to work on Election
Day until sometime after noon instead of 6:00am. A large part of this
critical job is mental, inserting, reading, and removing cartridges is
tedious, and after putting in a 15 hour day by the time cartridges
arrive for tabulating, the workers are both mentally and physically
tired, which can obviously lead to mistakes being made, and some being
made without the workers even realizing it. In addition, we also
recommend that results reports not be rushed to the media before
taking the necessary time to review, cross reference to previous
results summaries and make sure everything is in proper order. The
issue on election night was glaring and quite obvious and would have
been caught easily with a simple review prior to handing the
unofficial results to the media.
Additionally, Sequoia staff members are preparing a
special Product Bulletin for the DCBOEE. We will be providing it by
October 2, 2008 so that it may be utilized for the November election
preparation cycle.
5. Any other pertinent data or information regarding
your analysis and findings:
Sequoia response: While Sequoia is happy to answer
questions on this matter and provide what information we can to assist
our longstanding customer - the DCBOEE - to prevent this and other
issues in the future, it is important to note that this was an
extremely minor issue that was not machine or software related and not
otherwise related to the performance of Sequoia Voting Systems and its staff members. We believe this was a simple, human
error that went undetected because a process was missed, that being
the process of verifying an interim summary report. Had that report
verification process taken place, this issue would not have received
the disproportionate amount of attention that it has garnered to date.
The election was coded by the DCBOEE, not Sequoia, and
everything related to the programming, testing, machine certification
and voting on Election Day was nearly as perfect as any election could
be. The DCBOEE should be commended for the outstanding job they did as
very, very few telephone calls were received during the day and
machine problems were nearly non-existent.
Furthermore, all of the DCBOEE's precinct optical scan
machines and their first generation Edge I non-VVPAT touchscreens for
accessible (audio-only) voting were in excellent condition and
performed very well on Election Day. Sequoia supplied the DCBOEE with
eight (8) field support technicians on September 9th and it was an
extremely quiet day for those technicians.
In the future, the DCBOEE staff members handling the
Eagle optical scan and Edge touchscreen cartridges as well as the
cartridge readers or MPRs, must be precise in their actions and should
immediately notify a supervisor when they suspect a cartridge misread
or see questionable results on a printed report. If the error is not
noticed and the report is printed, a thorough review of the report is
needed prior to distribution. By not doing this, a jurisdiction is
effectively putting speed and the intense pressure of the media and
candidates above accuracy and thoroughness. Rushing to report results,
whether prematurely removing a results cartridge while it is being
read, or failing to verify an interim results report is in the opinion
of Sequoia Voting Systems, the root problem, and this problem is
easily correctible.
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