These are facts behind a Monmouth County election error | Opinion
Many readers know by now that Monmouth County determined in January 2023 that some votes from the November 2022 election were double counted. What readers may not know are the facts regarding how this unfortunate mistake came about.
With my team and with the county, we closely examined the data to determine what occurred. The data yielded the facts: This was a case of human error in multiple places.
I realize, based on what has been said in some news outlets, readers may assume the voting equipment was the cause of the incorrect reporting. Yet the evidence clearly shows that the equipment and software worked just as humans told it to. The technology was sound.
The truth is that an election official inadvertently loaded vote totals twice, not once, into a software reporting module. And the double loading of votes was not flagged. Simple enough, but how can it happen?
After voting is complete at the polls, election officials tally the vote totals. They record votes from all the polling places on secure USB flash media — also called thumb drives or sticks. Then, they gather those secure USBs and securely transport them to a county office or regional results reporting site where they insert the USBs into the county election office secure computer system, called an election management system.
This election management system is not a voting machine where you mark a ballot or anything that a voter would ever interact with. Think of it like the computer your accountant uses to do your taxes. Your accountant takes the information you provide and tallies it up on their system so you know your tax bill to Uncle Sam. But even if you gave your accountant the right information, they could enter your information incorrectly in their system. For example, say you told your accountant you had $2,000 in charitable contributions to be deducted, and your accountant entered $4,000 of deductions. Your accountant’s mistake has now caused you to under report your tax bill, and you’re now in trouble with Uncle Sam. In the same way as the accountant doubled up your information, an election official inadvertently doubled up the vote totals by inserting individual USB thumb drives twice into the election management system.
Here’s what happened next: The software on the election management system is designed to notify and block double loading of votes. But that didn’t work right, either. ES&S created this software, and it works flawlessly across the country. However, when we put this software in place for Monmouth County last July, our technician missed an installation step that makes the software flag double loading.
To top off those two mistakes, each by a different living, breathing human being, we know there are county election reports that showed this error. But those reports were missed by humans as well. The post-election canvassing checks and balances failed.
For subscribers:Monmouth has spent $13.2M on company that fouled up vote count; will it seek punishment?
So, what now? Thanks to the paper ballots used in Monmouth County, officials were able to recount the races. Paper ballot systems provide auditable ballots that can be reviewed by both the human eye and machine. The votes are always secure and can be accurately reported.
Even with that ability, we must prevent this kind of mishap from ever happening again. Here’s what we have done: a) We reloaded the election management software for Monmouth County to make sure it works correctly. So now, if someone loads votes twice, that person will see an error message, and b) we have updated documentation and training materials to emphasize the importance of post-election auditing to ensure the integrity of vote counting.
There are multiple ways to check vote count accuracy. A canvass of election results, when performed properly, would always clearly show that the vote totals were loaded twice.
Humans are fallible, and human errors in elections do happen no matter what system is used. That’s no excuse. Just reality. That’s why we need to check, double check and triple check election results, through a combination of ways. Our company has a duty in that, and even though this instance was isolated to Monmouth County, we fully own our part of the process.
Voter confidence is the lifeblood of our democracy, and something we are always striving to bolster. Our hope is that the reiteration of the facts creates a more transparent and accurate understanding of the situation. Voters have our pledge that ES&S will do everything in its power to prevent such an error in the future.
Chris Wlaschin is senior vice president of security and CISO at Election Systems and Software.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth County NJ election error explained
