Cops Canvass Report Issues Of Concern

This is a section of the Cops Canvass Report. See also San Diego County Canvass Procedure

Issues of Concern Overview

Based on our review of the November 2008 presidential election, the Issues of Concern are grouped into the following categories. Each will be considered in a separate section. Some specific Isssues of Concern are duplicated in separate sections, if they apply to more than one.

• Lack of Documentation - The most prominent concern is the lack of documentation concerning many of the procedures in use. This section also details official reports that are insufficient or nonexistent.

• Chain of Custody - The Ro V does a poor job of tracking and investigating tampering (99 cases of tampering with no investigation). There are two subcategories, the chain of custody prior to the Tally Center, and the VBM Custody.

• Ballot Handling and Scanning - The number of signatures does not match the number of ballots scanned (off by 9,000 ballots).

• Audit Log Discrepancies - Audit log is insufficient and contains unexplained inconsistencies.

• Manual Tally Procedure - Post Election Manual Tally documents that 29% of precincts checked had errors, but they were simply rescanned and deemed fine, when the proper conclusion was that there are serious errors in the election.

• Audit Trail - We had difficulty in examining the entire election because the audit trail is insufficient, difficult to process, and only available after the election has been certified.

Note:
A number of issues we describe below occur during operations in precincts by precinct volunteers. We DO NOT regard these errors to be due to any fraudulent intent by those workers, but instead by procedures that require improvement. For example, very few precincts (only about 15%) were able to balance the number of ballots received with the number of signatures. We found that the form used and the method of reconciling could be improved to make it feasible for workers who are tired and ready to end their day of service to find the reason the counts do not reconcile. Given additional resources, additional personnel could assist with ballot reconciliation, related documentation and packing/sealing/transporting ballot cartons to the Collection Centers. A workflow analysis may reveal ways to improve and expedite procedures used in the polling place to address this issue.

Next section: Lack of Documentation