Unofficial election returns from the PA State website show by an almost identical margin, the county supported Republican Lynn Swann for Governor, and supported Democrat Robert Casey, Jr. for United States Senator.
Similarly, by an almost identical margin, Westmoreland County voters rejected Democrat, Ed Rendell for Governor and rejected Republican Rick Santorum for United States Senator.
CASEY, BOB JR (DEM) 69,657 53.6%
SWANN, LYNN ( (REP) 69,778 53.8%
We are to believe that almost the same amount of voters voted for Republican Lynn Swann for Governor of Pennsylvania as voted for Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. for U.S. Senator - and the percentage margins are almost identical.
Then we are to believe that by an almost identical margin voters did not vote for Republican Rick Santorum for U.S. Senator and did not vote for Democrat Ed Rendell for PA Governor!
SANTORUM, RICK (REP) 60,390 46.4%
RENDELL, ED ( (DEM) 60,018 46.2%
In a county in which every single electronic voting machine shut down because of an incorrect date programming error, voters voted for a Republican Governor(Swann) and a Democrat for U.S. Senate (Casey) by nearly the same amount of voters?
The results of the election returns for Westmoreland County are more highly suspicious in light of the statements made in the following articles concerning the programming error in software for all of Westmoreland County's electronic voting machines, and specifically the comment:
Excerpt:
Susan Hansen, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the impact of the technical error could invalidate the election.
In addition, Vote PA's Mary Beth Kusnic's comment is in reference to vote tallies.
E-voting not easy in Westmoreland County
Excerpt:
Watchdog groups critical of the electronic voting systems, which in the primary replaced the 50-year-old lever voting machines, said they were not confident the vote tallies reported last night were accurate.
"It may be OK, but it may be a problem," said Mary Beth Kusnic, a Westmoreland County poll worker and a member of VotePa, a watchdog group that has complained about Pennsylvania's reluctance to allow the electronic voting machines to generate paper trails to ensure accuracy in reporting vote totals.
The questions remains: will an investigation of the election returns for Westmoreland County ensue?
It will be a travesty if Westmoreland county's voting equipment, including its vote tabulation system, is not investigated.
Early Returns, the Post-Gazette's online guide to Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania politics Politics Editor James O'Toole Nov. 9, 2006 Some interesting numbers out of the enigma that is Westmoreland County, via the Trib-Review: "The GOP is at a nearly a 2-to-1 disadvantage in voter registration to Democrats, but the county overwhelmingly supported political neophyte Lynn Swann for governor. By an almost identical margin, however, it cast aside two-term U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in favor of his Democratic challenger
http://www.post-gazette.com/earlyreturns/
Read the entire article: Trib doesn't find anything suspicious in the nearly identical totals for the Republican Governor/Democrat U.S. Senator and the Democrat Governor/Republican U.S. Senator.
Swann carried Democratic county Rich Cholodofsky
TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, November 9, 2006
Tuesday's election brought mixed results for Westmoreland County Republicans.
GOP is at a nearly a 2-to-1 disadvantage in voter registration to Democrats, but the county overwhelmingly supported political neophyte Lynn Swann for governor. By an almost identical margin, however, it cast aside two-term U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in favor of his Democratic challenger.
In the gubernatorial race, in which Democratic incumbent Ed Rendell easily won re-election, county voters supported Swann by a 54 percent to 46 percent margin. Meanwhile, Democrat Robert Casey Jr., who defeated Santorum for the Senate seat, carried Westmoreland County by 8 percentage points...
More...
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news/westmoreland/s_478982.html
Here are those nearly identical margin numbers!
United States Senator
Candidate Votes Percent
CASEY, BOB JR (DEM) 69,657 53.6%
SANTORUM, RICK (REP) 60,390 46.4%
Go to Top
Governor
Candidate Votes Percent
RENDELL, ED (DEM) 60,018 46.2%
Runningmate: KNOLL, CATHERINE BAKER
SWANN, LYNN (REP) 69,778 53.8%
Runningmate: MATTHEWS, JIM
http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?FunctionID=14&ElectionID=24&CountyID=65
E-voting not easy in Westmoreland County
By Rich Cholodofsky
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Programming errors in every voting machine in Westmoreland County left voters standing in long lines at some polls, turned away at others and using paper ballots in one Jeannette precinct.
A software glitch that caused more than 800 touch-screen machines to act as though it was not Election Day prompted some computers to shut down early and others to never function at all.
Officials blamed the failures on a glitch in which the electronic ballots loaded into the new computers were given an incorrect time stamp. All of the county's voting machines, more than 800, reflected Monday's date and were not ready to accept votes when the polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
Commissioner Tom Ceraso said hardware might have to be stripped from the computers to verify that vote totals matched the number of ballots cast in yesterday's election...
State party officials monitored the problems in Westmoreland County and throughout Pennsylvania, where numerous issues with electronic voting machines were reported.
State GOP Chairman Rob Gleason Jr. issued a statement yesterday afternoon urging counties in which there were machine failures to pull those computers offline and use paper ballots.
"We need to make sure this election is fair and that every single Pennsylvania voter gets an opportunity to cast their ballot. Machine failures are occurring in various parts of the state, and we need to take the appropriate steps to ensure an accurate vote," Gleason said.
State Democrats also were monitoring the elections.
"We're hoping the results are not tainted," said Abe Amoros, spokesman for the state Democratic Committee.
Watchdog groups critical of the electronic voting systems, which in the primary replaced the 50-year-old lever voting machines, said they were not confident the vote tallies reported last night were accurate.
"It may be OK, but it may be a problem," said Mary Beth Kusnic, a Westmoreland County poll worker and a member of VotePa, a watchdog group that has complained about Pennsylvania's reluctance to allow the electronic voting machines to generate paper trails to ensure accuracy in reporting vote totals.
"The machines are so new, we don't know. It makes me sad this happened, but I'm not surprised," Kusnic said.
Susan Hansen, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the impact of the technical error could invalidate the election.
"I'm not sure there is a right answer. This is all new territory," Hansen said.
The malfunctions had an initial impact in getting the votes counted last night.
While it could take days to get all the votes counted, delays in having initial vote tallies were directly related to the software issue.
Unity Township's Roble precinct lost both of its machines for about 30 minutes yesterday morning and had to turn people away.
Judge of Elections Lisa Burkardt said the first machine malfunctioned after three voters used it. The second machine broke down a short time later. ...
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news/westmoreland/s_478760.html
Paper ballots to back up machines by Rich Cholodofsky TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Paper ballots will be available at each of Westmoreland County's 306 voting precincts in future elections, county officials said Wednesday.
That policy change was made yesterday, a day after a software glitch affected every touch-screen computerized voting machine used during Tuesday's vote.
The problem, an incorrect time stamp in the voting cartridges that contained the ballots, resulted in about 10 machines to prematurely shut down and six machines to be inadvertently closed at the start of yesterday's polling.
Several precincts had to turn away voters for a short time because paper ballots were initially unavailable at the polls while technicians worked to restart some of the computerized machines...
Excerpt:
Meanwhile, county officials spent yesterday investigating the error that resulted in more than 800 voting machines to act as if Tuesday was not Election Day.
The machines, instead of automatically loading ballot after ballot for voters, required that poll workers manually keep the computers on after each ballot was cast. If a poll worker pressed a button when prompted by the computer to end the voting, the machines shut off and could not be restarted.
County leaders insisted ES&S Inc. of Nebraska, which supplied the computerized machines, made the error. A company spokeswoman on Tuesday blamed the county for programming the software glitch.
"We'll find out what happened," said Commissioner Tom Ceraso. "We want to make sure it doesn't happen again. But the good news is that if it does, we now know how to deal with it."
According to the Pennsylvania Bureau of Elections, most of the equipment failures involved voting machines in Lancaster, Lebanon and Westmoreland counties.
"These issues were a result of mainly human error, and most occurred during the opening of the polls, which is common in any election using any type of voting system. In every instance, counties took the proper steps to address the issues promptly and effectively," said Loida Esbri, a spokesman for the Department of State.
There were equipment failures in other counties as well, including Allegheny, where paper ballots had to be used for part of the day at a precinct in Monroeville.
For a while on Tuesday, Westmoreland officials were unsure just how the software problem would impact vote counting.
But, as the returns were being loaded into county computers, it became evident the glitch had little effect on the initial tallies.
Votes were reported at a record pace, with the last precinct having its totals uploaded to county computers shortly after 11:30 p.m. Voting reports in the spring primary took much longer to generate because of delays in closing the polls and traffic tie-ups around the courthouse.
Despite a higher voter turnout on Tuesday, about 54 percent, polls were able to close on time. And traffic was not an issue, officials said.
Now comes the task of certifying the results, a process that could take several weeks.
Ceraso said elections officials will take flash cards from each voting machine and compare them with the cartridges on which the ballots and votes are stored. Officials will look to see if vote totals reflect the number of voters who cast ballots.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/rss/s_478935.html
Additional reading
Electronic Voting Was Rife with Errors on Nov. 7
By Brad Friedman, Computerworld. Posted November 13, 2006.
Did Election 2006 mark smooth transition to electronic balloting? Not so fast, America
http://alternet.org/story/44217/
The Dems' pre-emption strategy
Posted: November 8, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Finally, Democrats have a battle plan. This month, they went to war – on the American electoral process. Their pre-emption strategy? Call into question the results of the midterms even before Election Day had begun...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52831
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