Richland County Election investigation findings

From reading these reports, it sounds like the election fiasco here last November was due to purposeful(?) sabotage by one person, as well as to a lack of oversight and checks & balances.

But why did this person do what they did? This still seems a mystery, and hopefully law enforcement will be able to find the answers.


Report: Plenty of Blame for Richland County Election Mess (Dec 7, 2012)

In the summer, the election director and staff decided that 864 machines would be needed to keep to a state mandate requiring one machine for every 250 voters.

He [Hamm] then discussed a spreadsheet which had been presented as evidence at an earlier meeting of the Richland County delegation. The spreadsheet shows a listing of precincts, a column that states "number of machines" that's filled in with numbers in black. It also has a third column with handwritten numbers in red with different numbers than the previous column.
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The report states the numbers in black added up to 864, and appear to be the number of machines that should have gone out on election day. The numbers in red add up to just 605.

Hamm said an e-mail written by an employee to several staff members on July 3rd stated that McBride had given that person a revised list of machines. However, Hamm said he has no evidence that McBride actually revised the number.

In fact, Hamm believes the employee who sent the e-mail wrote the numbers in red. But right now, he's not sure why the employee changed the number or where he got his information.

According to Hamm, that spreadsheet became a "roadmap to the election" and directed employees to distribute an inadequate number of machines.

So how did no one notice there was a problem? Hamm says in his report that a lack of communication among election staff was part of the breakdown. He said it wasn't that staff were indifferent to doing their jobs properly; instead, there was a failure to employ a review and checking of procedures.

Eight Months Later, Richland County Election Mess Explained – Kind of (Jul 3, 2013)

That one elections worker, Hamm found in his investigation, had coaxed another employee into writing down wrong numbers on a spreadsheet, drastically reducing the number of voting machines that would be allocated to Election Day precincts.

Interim Report on the Nov 6, 2012 General Election (Dec 6, 2012) - The appendix of this report includes copies of the afore-mentioned email and spreadsheets.

... no record of on-going and regular Director and staff reviews of voting machines allocations in the months and weeks leading up to the General Election despite the fact that the voter registrations for Richland County were continuing to increase right up to the day of the Election. It is hard to reach any other conclusion or judgement other than the fact that a part-time election staff worker was allowed to proceed and to establish the distribution of the number of voting machines without any system of checks and balances as part of the election preparation process. This situation reflects an unfortunate application of the concept of an assumption "someone else" had specifically approved a voting machine usage number well below the 864 machines total initially identified in June.

Based on the spreadsheets, my precinct was supposed to have 9 voting machines. But (because of the numbers in red) only 4 were originally provided, while 2 more were sent during the course of election day.

Even ignoring the sabotage that occurred, while the law indicates that there should be at least one voting machine for every 250 registered voters, the spreadsheets show that the number of machines is often rounded down rather than up. For example, a precinct with 956 voters was allocated only 3 machines rather than 4 (although 2 other precincts with 995 and 998 voters were each allocated 4 machines).

I also want to make clear that my on-going review of the General Election, with all the problems, continues to lead me to conclude that the results of the November 6th elections reflect the will of the voters and that a new election, as some believe appropriate, is not required based on my application of state law and Supreme Court decisions. This initial conclusion is also supported by the election data when you compare the actual number of votes cast against the number of signatures by voters appearing at each polling location to case their ballot. See Exhibit C.

In saying this, Hamm seems not to realize that at many precincts, you have to wait in line for a considerable time before even getting to the tables where you sign your name. During the last election, I estimate that half to two-thirds of my (over 2 hours) time waiting in line was even before I got to sign my name.


Final Summary Report (Jun 27, 2013)

Prior to the November 6th General Election, Richland County poll workers and others repeatedly expressed their concerns to election staff orally and in writing regarding the number of voting machines assigned to various precincts. Despite these repeated expressions of concern, NOT ONE ADDITIONAL VOTING MACHINE WAS ASSIGNED TO ANY PRECINCT prior to the General Election. Just as important, there was no established procedure to log or record those contacts in order to follow up and confirm that anyone actually did anything to assess the actual merits of the issues raised.

This Report lists a set of guidelines that should be implemented to prevent election problems. I hope they do end up being implemented.


Next time, voting in about an hour in Richland County? (Jun 27, 2013)

Attorney Steve Hamm on Thursday gave the Richland County Election Commission a blueprint on how to run a smooth election, saying it is crucial that the office regain public trust after November’s election "disaster."

"As we now know, there was a significant failure to place a sufficient number of voting machines in precincts," Hamm said in an afternoon meeting at the county administration building.

But he also said that a former part-time staffer’s decision to reduce the number of machines at precincts, even if that person’s actions did not change the outcome of any race or ballot question, was serious. He said he passed what he learned along to law enforcement agents, confirming what many have suspected since an FBI agent attended a public review of the botched election in December.

well I hope my toes aren't broken

Dear Target,

After waiting 6 months for the nasty smell on the Teal Accent Cabinet to completely dissipate, I got angry, and it happened to be standing right there, so I kicked a hole in its side. Now it's definitely of no use to me. Could I have a refund?

Thanks.

...

Why do I have to clean up other people's junk?
Why does the sunroom have to keep having moisture problems?
Why do I have to spend all my "free" time cleaning and fixing and sewing and such?
Why does non-work begin to feel like work, when I do it?
Why is the dog back, and why does it have to look like it's starving again?
Is it morally acceptable to me, to put out bait/poison in the garage, to stop getting piles of roach shit in there?
Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?