Washburn's World

My take on the world. My wife often refers to this as the WWW (Weird World of Washburn)

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Location: Germantown, Wisconsin, United States

I am a simple country boy transplanted from the Piehl Township in northern Wisconsin to the Milwaukee metropolitan area who came down "sout" in 1980 for college and have stayed in the area since.
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Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Would you like to test the Voting Machine Software Today?

If you live in the City of Waukesha, I have a difficult favor to ask. 

Before you mark your ballot today in City of Waukesha could you first attempt to cast the ballot into the machine without any marks on it at all?  Completely clean. There is a high price to pay though because if the machine accepts this perfectly unmarked ballot, then you will have cast no vote in this election ; no vote for governor, no vote for AG, no vote for anyone.

This is a difficult thing ask of a voter from the city of Waukesha. 

From some of my past work, I am confident the optech insight scanners used in the City of Waukesha (actually all jurisdictions) have a software defect that will allows a completely blank ballot to be accepted by the Insight Scanner.  A blank ballot will feed into the front slot, the ballot number on the front will increase by one, and the ballot will be transferred to the secure ballot box beneath.

Today, I am going to stand outside a polling place in the City of Waukesha and see if a voter there will attempt to cast a blank ballot into the machine on my behalf despite the possibility that there will be no vote cast.  But a backup would helpful.

I am focused on City of Waukesha because I know Clerk Kozlik specifically checks for this during her pre-election testing. The voting machine software in test mode produced a printed report regarding the perfectly blank ballot she presented to it. That output from the scanner was a report on the tape that essentially stated:
“Had this been a real election this ballot would have been rejected.”
This is one difference between test mode and election mode that I know of in the exists within the software for this scanner.

If the blank, unmarked ballot is rejected by the scanner because it is under voted, then you can mark it as you please and cast the ballot into the machine for processing.   No harm. No foul.

If you accept this proposition though, then could you let me please know what happened to the blank ballot:
  • accepted or rejected?
  • Which polling location?
  • What time of day?
  You can leave test result on the blank as a comment to this blog post.

If your perfectly blank ballot was accepted by the machine, then I will collect a certified copy of the blank ballot from the city clerk, all of the testing records and use the materials to write an academic paper on this software defect.

Monday, November 03, 2014

Public Meeting Notices From 25 Most Populous Municipalities

On October 15, 2014, the Office of the Wisconsin Attorney General issued a formal opinion that elections processes are open meetings; Specifically the canvassing of votes by the various Boards of Canvassers are opne meetings must follow the rules for public meeting such as 24 hours notice of the times and places of the mettings.  The AG opinion can be found at: http://www.doj.state.wi.us/sites/default/files/formal/OAG-05-14.pdf

One of the types of canvassing boards is the Local Board of Canvassers.  This meeting occurs in the polling location and begins, when the chief election inspectors announces: "Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Polls are now Closed."  The members of the Local Board of Canvassers are the election inspectors and the duties of the Local Board of Canvassers are laid out in WI Stats. 7.51.  The duties include reconciling poll books, reconciling that the nubmer of ballots handed to electors equals the number of ballots in the ballots box, securing the ballots, announcing results, etc.

Now that his age old requirement that election canvassing be public has been formally recognized by the state of Wisconsin's open meeting law, I thought I would survey the compliance to the notice requirements of WI stats. 19.84 by subscribing to the meeting notices under WI stats. 19.84(1)(b).  I chose to subscribe to the meeting notice of the Local Boards of Canvassers for the 25 most populous cities in the state of Wisconsin.

Among other things this subscription provide an enumeration  of the polling locations.  Something many communities do not readily provide.  True if you provide an address the site will tell you the polling location.  But election integity work it is useful to have a list of all poling location.  In the past I have used Zillow.com to find a house address, and then pasted the address of the house for sale into the municipal Find your Polling Location page order to determine the location of a polling location near some neighborhood.

The other  protection afforded by the AG ruling that elections are open meeting is that you can now video tape or audio record the canvassing of the vote by any board of canvassers (local, municipal, school, county,etc) without fear of arrest as happened on November 6, 2012 when the three of us dared to video tape the local canvassing of the vote at the Zablocki Library.  Tossed by Commission David Redemann no less.  The exact quote fro the chief inspector was: Get out!!! We're working here!

If you would like to observe the canvassing of the vote by the local boards of canvassers after polls close, here is where those meeting will be held for 21 of the 25 most populous municipalities in Wisconsin:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

























November 4, 2014 General Election
MuncipalityName of Municipal ClerkLink to Public Notice
 
City of AppletonDawn  Collins Type D Notice Provided
City of BeloitRebecca Houseman Lemire Type D Notice Provided
City of BrookfieldKelly S Michaels Type D Notice Provided
City of Eau ClaireDonna A. AustadNo 19.84 public meeting notice was provided as of 8:00 pm, Monday, November 3, 2014
City of Fond du LacMaggie  Hefter Type D Notice Provided
City of FranklinSandra  Wesolowski Type D Notice Provided
City of Green BayKris  Teske Type D Notice Provided
City of GreenfieldJennifer  Goergen Type D Notice Provided
City of JanesvilleJean Ann Wulf Type D Notice Provided
City of KenoshaDebra  Salas Type D Notice Provided
City of La CrosseTeri  Lehrke Type D Notice Provided
City of MadisonMaribeth L Witzel-Behl Type D Notice Provided
City of ManitowocJennifer  Hudon Type D Notice Provided
Village of Menomonee FallsJanice  Moyer Type D Notice Provided
City of MilwaukeeNeil  Albrecht Type D Notice Provided (English)
City of MilwaukeeNeil  Albrecht Type D Notice Provided (Spanish)
City of New BerlinKari  Morgan Type D Notice Provided
City of Oak CreekCatherine A RoeskeNo 19.84 public meeting notice was provided as of 8:00 pm, Monday, November 3, 2014
City of OshkoshPamela  UbrigNo 19.84 public meeting notice was provided as of 8:00 pm, Monday, November 3, 2014
City of RacineJanice M Johnson-MartinNo 19.84 public meeting notice was provided as of 8:00 pm, Monday, November 3, 2014
City of SheboyganSusan  RichardsNo 19.84 public meeting notice was provided as of 8:00 pm, Monday, November 3, 2014
City of WaukeshaGina  Kozlik Type D Notice Provided
City of WausauToni  Rayala Type D Notice Provided
City of WauwatosaCarla  Ledesma Type D Notice Provided
City of West AllisMonica  Schultz Type D Notice Provided
City of West BendAmy  Reuteman Type D Notice Provided