When Secretary of State Scott Gessler held his town hall in Saguache March 15, he told county residents that he had requested the distributor of the M650 voting machine to provide him with a report of Saguache election records.
On March 28, Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) sent Gessler a copy of the M650’s Unity software system log and a report on the election tabulation issues for his office to examine. The system log reported the activity on the election reporting software resident on the laptop used by County election staff.
The Unity System software logs were preserved on the hard drive of the laptop accompanying the Unity software County Clerk Melinda Myers’ office borrowed to operate then accumulate report results from the M650 voting machine. The laptop was used to transfer data from the M650 machine via zip disks, which were then transferred to the laptop to be printed out and saved. The data was then compiled into reports to be printed on paper and was saved to electronic files.
Before Myers sent the laptop back to ES&S Dec. 3, she wiped out the tabulation data on the computer’s hard drive. The software system logs, however, were preserved.
The 22-page ES&S report (PDF) released by the Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) earlier this month has been studied by election and voting system experts across the country. (See also ES&S Overview Document – PDF) While most are not willing to go on record yet with their findings until further study is completed, they warn that there are alarming indicators within the system logs that show either serious software malfunctions, significant errors by machine operators, improper activities or a combination of all these.
Full Article: Center Post Dispatch ES&S voting system report raises red flags.