FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
State Senators Question State Director of Elections about the Use of Uncertified Election Software in Six Washington
Counties
Olympia, WA. Wednesday, September 22. Members of the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee heard
testimony yesterday from John Gideon, Information Manager of VotersUnite!, that emergency rules written by the Secretary
of State's office allowed six counties to count votes on the consolidated ballots using software that has not received
Federal certification.
Senator Val Stevens asked State Director of Elections Nick Handy for reassurance that the Secretary of State's office
had not side-stepped state law, which requires Federal certification as a prerequisite for state certification. Mr.
Handy told the Committee that the election software in the counties that chose the consolidated ballots would not handle
the special features of the new ballots and that state law allows the Secretary of State to make exceptions in emergency
situations.
Mr. Gideon pointed out that the same uncertified software would also be used in the November general election, even
though the older, certified software could handle those standard ballots. He added that since the emergency situation
does not apply to the November election, using the Federally uncertified software for the general election is "setting
the State of Washington up for lawsuits and challenges to the election in November by any candidate who loses by one or
ten thousand votes," possibly bringing the legislature back into a special session to decide the presidential electors.
Senator Jim Horn asked, "Why not use the certified software, without modification, to count the general?" Director Handy
deferred to Paul Miller, also from the Secretary of State's office.
Mr. Miller stated that there wasn't enough time between the September primary and the November election to do the
installation and the extensive testing needed to ensure that the same software was installed and configured properly.
Ellen Theisen, Executive Director of VotersUnite, then testified that manually recounting a significant percentage of
the actual ballots and comparing the results to the machine results was necessary to ensure that the uncertified
software was operating properly.
"With optical scans, there is a piece of paper filled out by voters," Ms. Theisen said, "but if the votes are never
manually compared with the machine count, then we don't know that the machine has counted correctly, and there are an
enormous number of examples where the machines have not counted correctly."
Pointing out evidence of the need for such a check in Washington, Linda Franz, member of Citizens for Voting Integrity
in Washington, testified about the computer crashes experienced in Snohomish and King Counties during the primary.
The webcast of the hearing is here: ( http://www.tvw.org/media/recentevnt.cfm?CFID=230171=93326772 )
Members of the press are invited to visit the website, created by VotersUnite! and Concerned Citizens for Democratic
Integrity in King County to inform the public about Washington's current use of election software without Federal
certification and advocate for some assurance of the accuracy of November election results. ( http://www.electionintegrity.com ).
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John Gideon Information Manager www.votersunite.org
jgideon@votersunite.org