Response from OH Attorney General on Vote-Switching Machine

More than a month after Election Day, I finally received a response to my complaint about the vote-switching I witnessed as a poll worker. I personally witnessed a TXS voting machine change votes from Republican candidates to Democrats. I contacted Attorney General Mike Dewine, Secretary of State Jon Husted, The Wayne County Board of Elections, The Ohio Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee. DeWine's "Constituent Services" letter is the first (and only) response I have received. 

DeWine's letter says that, "The Secretary of State, as is normal practice, has directed that county board of elections to also conduct a post-election audit to make sure that the voting equipment functioned properly.  They will also review your other concerns as addressed in your correspondence to the Attorney General's Office."

Raise your hand if you think this will be a serious investigation. If they were serious, the machines in questioned would have already been secured and investigated. Sounds like business as usual. 

December 10, 2012

Dear Paula,

Thank you for contacting the Ohio Attorney General's Office with your concerns about the malfunction of voting machines and other suspicious activity at you're Ohio voting location.

All voting machines that are used in the State of Ohio are certified by the State Board of Voting Machines Examiners.  

This board tests and certifies both the hardware and software.  Before voting machines are used, they go through an extensive testing called Logic and Accuracy testing.  This makes sure that the machines properly function and accurately record any vote that is cast. The Secretary of State, as is normal practice, has directed that county board of elections to also conduct a post-election audit to make sure that the voting equipment functioned properly.  They will also review your other concerns as addressed in your correspondence to the Attorney General's Office. 

If you have any additional questions regarding the tests done on the machines, you can contact the State Board of Voting Machines Examiners within the Ohio Secretary of State's Office at 614-466-2655.  Questions for the Secretary of State can be directed to the Secretary of State at, 1-877-767-6446

Again, thank you for contacting our office.  If we can ever be of assistance to you in the future, feel free to contact us.

Very respectfully yours, 

Mike DeWine
Ohio Attorney General

Paula K. Armentrout 
Director of Constituent Services
614.644.2329

-----Original Message-----

Paula Bolyard
15952 McCallum Drive
Doylestown, OH 44230

November 13, 2012

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine
30 East Broad Street 14th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Mr. DeWine,

This past Tuesday, November 6, 2012, I was a Precinct Election Official (PEO) and Republican Presiding Judge in Chippewa Twp., Ohio, Precinct 2 and witnessed the following incidents:

Voter “D” (identity withheld) announced that the machine upon which he was casting his ballot (Unit 0) had changed his vote from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama. At his request, I investigated, along with Democratic PEO Doris Jones. We saw that the machine showed a vote for President Obama. There was no way to determine at that point whether or not the machine had done this on its own or whether the voter had inadvertently touched the wrong spot and voted for Obama. We cancelled his vote and gave him another encoder card, allowing him to vote again. He proceeded to vote without incident and I called and reported the problem to Sue Ann Donahoe at the Wayne County Board of Elections. She said that it may have been a problem with his long sleeves brushing against the touchscreen and changing the vote. She said they had been having some issues with men with big sleeves. I was instructed to turn off the unit it and turn it back on, which I did. Voters continued to use it without further issues.

Not long after that incident, I was on the phone with the Sue Ann working through a problem with a printer on Unit 2. “T”, who was voting on Unit 1, alerted me to a problem with her machine. I again called Doris Jones to assist. The voter said that the machine would not allow her to choose any Republican candidates. Every time she would touch a box for a Republican candidate (including Mitt Romney) the machine would deselect her choice and place an “X” in the box for the Democratic candidate. I was on the phone with Sue Ann throughout this incident, so she heard the entire conversation. I asked the voter to uncheck all the boxes and try again. She repeated her attempt to vote for Republican candidates, only to have the machine change all of her votes to Democrats, this time with two poll workers watching and a board of elections official on the phone. We cancelled the vote and allowed her to cast her ballot on another machine. The malfunctioning machine was immediately closed, along with the first machine that had reported problems. The board of elections sent two new units to replace them. The events were documented on our precinct event log, which Doris and I both signed; Sue Ann said she had also documented it.

While I will not speculate on the reasons for the vote switching, as a Wayne County voter, an Ohio resident, and a Precinct Elections Official, I would like to ask for a formal inquiry into the incidents and request examinations of the two affected machines in my precinct as well as any other machines in the state that received similar complaints. The machines should be immediately secured and kept in a safe location until a time that they can be examined by independent analysts under the supervision of bipartisan witnesses and the board of voting machine examiners.

Confidence in the integrity of our elections is a matter I take very seriously in my capacity as a Precinct Elections Official. I work hard to project the confidence I have had in our  system through professional conduct in my precinct on Election Day. Tuesday, my confidence in that system was shaken after seeing a voting machine changing votes before my eyes. I have no idea if it had happened before the reported incidents or if it had happened on other units in our state and that has made me question the outcomes of very important races and issues that our state voted on this week. It’s vital that you thoroughly investigate to determine what went wrong and that you find out how widespread the vote switching was so that you can assure Ohio voters that the problem has been fixed and that it never happens again.

Sincerely,

Paula Bolyard