Jul 01 2009
November 2006 Undervote Analysis
Over the last week, our office has conducted an extensive analysis of the undervotes from the November 2006 General Election. Our analysis focused on the races for the five statewide constitutional officers (Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Treasurer) that are the subject of the new law requiring notification of undervotes.
First, and of greatest importance to Champaign County voters, we learned that our machines are doing an extraordinary job of counting votes, even if voters are not properly marking their ballots. As most voters are aware, an optical scan ballot in Champaign County should be voted by filling in the oval next to the person you want to vote for. That particular instruction is given to voters by the election judges when they receive their ballot. The instruction appears on the ballot itself. It appears in the voting booth. It appears on the privacy cover given to each voter when they vote. It even appears on the pen that is given to voters to mark their ballot. Unfortunately, a small percentage of voters do not follow those instructions. Nevertheless, we found that almost all votes that are cast with an X or check mark still properly counted.
Second, regarding voter notification of undervotes on the above noted races, we found that notification would have almost no impact in preventing uncounted votes.
Our method was to examine each ballot and find those where there was an undervote. We then compared the counts of the undervoted ballots from our examination with the undervote numbers from the final canvass.
In Champaign County, there were 53,869 ballots cast. Of those, 3,749 (7%) had undervotes for one or more of the statewide constitutional officers. The total number of undervotes was 6,729. Our analysis shows that 6,716 of those undervotes were intentional, meaning the computers correctly determined voter intent in all but 13 circumstances, a rate of 99.81% certainty when taken against all the identified undervotes. When taken against all ballots, the certainty is 99.9952%.
You can see the precinct by precinct results including the intentionally undervoted ballots here.
Put another way, if the notification of undervotes had been in effect in 2006 General Election, 3,749 people would have received a message on the vote tabulator that they had undervoted in a race for which they had no intention of casting a vote. As discussed before, it’s all but certain that a high percentage of those people would have the secrecy of their ballot compromised.
No more than 13 people would have received an error message that would have allowed them to correct their ballot to make sure that their vote counted correctly.
Perhaps most important, there were 46 undervoted ballots cast using the Automark Voter Assistance Terminal. For each of these ballots, the voter received a notification during the Automark voting process each time they decided to leave a race blank as well as a summary notification at the end of their Automark voting process. Once their ballot printed out, they then inserted the ballot into the vote tabulator. Each of these people would have received a visual message notifying them of their undervote. In the case of those who are visually impaired or unable to manipulate the buttons on the machine due to a disability, they by necessity lose their right to a secret ballot. Interestingly, the undervote rate on the voter assistance terminal was higher than the rate for all voters. (46 out of 483 identified Automark ballots.)
You can review the Automark Voter Assistance Terminal ballots here.
In addition to undervotes, we also looked at overvotes. Except for those people who vote absentee through mail, overvotes result in a notification to the voter and a chance to correct the ballot. There were 58 overvotes that we found where the voter decided not to correct the error. In 34 of those, voter intent could be clearly determined. In 24 of those ballots, no clearly discernible voter intent could be determined.
In our examination we ran across a number of other interesting items. In most precincts we were able to easily identify the undervotes. By deduction we were then able to determine that the ballots in those precincts with X’s or check marks had been counted by the machine. We also found eight ballots where voters overvoted because they wrote in the same name that they filled in the oval for. We also found a number of ballots where it appears that the voter filled in the oval after making check marks or X’s to start with. Some of these voters may have received an unreadable mark or blank ballot message from the vote tabulator.
X’s and Check Marks That Were Fully Counted
Voted and Wrote-in the Same
Filled in Oval after Using X’s
But this ballot is the poster child for the absurdity of this new law. After leaving all but the advisory referenda blank, the voter wrote:
Today, Tuesday, November 7, 2006 I am exercising my right to vote by not voting for anyone.
Personally, I am appalled as all the candidates should be ashamed, at how childish they have all been acting. I don’t want any on this ballot representing me or the State of Illinois.
Interesting analysis, Mark.
Unfortunately, these ballots look familiar; especially those with something other than a darkened oval and those with the same name written in on the write-in line.
At least for the write-in line we were able to help eliminate that issue with the 61 day write-in filing deadline. I’ve never had a ballot with that detailed of a message as the last one! What a hoot.
Nice effort. I hope it will prove beneficial to our need to eliminate the partial undervote flag. My equipment is not prepared. Nor has there been any effort to push for retesting that I am aware of.
It is important to note that your jurisdiction’s equipment could technically accommodate the flag for part of the ballot; and, yet, you know and have conveyed the message that the secrecy of the ballot will be compromised, voters will be intimidated and “fair and equal” elections/ballots among all candidates seems to be usurped.
Why isn’t there an effort to make “no vote” an option on each item to be voted on? With a required vote, including the choice for a ‘no vote’ will always catch 100% of undervotes. I don’t get it?
The no vote option does exist in at least one other state, New Jersey. I think elected officials are less than enthusiastic about this option as it doesn’t look good when lots of people pick “No vote” or “None of the Above”. Some might argue “None of the Above” might win a race or two.
I like the no vote option, however; this would not work in a vote for up to 3 candidates.
What are you going to do about explaining this to the voter?
Patty Lycan
[...] at every level are broke, it is remarkable that the state would saddle the voters with this unnecessary, unconstitutional, and costly [...]
[...] interest of the state is that the law might prevent unintentional undervotes. I believe our previous research already destroys that argument. But there is yet another argument that I haven’t yet [...]