This is a nightmare scenario for DRE voting machines and a compelling reason to eliminate them. An error like this, even if detected, can mean there is no way to determine after the fact what the voters’ intended choices were. “Recounting” doesn’t help.

Not enough information to determine what happened here, but there are several plausible possibilities, including malicious tampering, a software bug, or a provisioning or ballot definition error. DRE machines lend themselves to such problems, which can be fatal to an election.

If I had to GUESS (and it would only be a guess at this point), I’d pick a ballot definition error as the most likely cause here. But that’s only one of a number of plausible scenarios that could cause this behavior.

Official explanation (which I don’t fully understand). https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2018-35.shtml …. HT @isaach

Even if the final screen shows the names of the candidates for whom the ballot will be cast, this is still an unrecoverable error. A straight party voter might not KNOW the names of individual candidates on a party ticket, but want to vote for whoever the D or R is in each race.

... so that means a bug like this (whatever the underlying cause) can mean there’s no way to know what the voters’ true intentions were. Again, this is the nightmare scenario for DRE failure.

So the big question is, what should Texas (officials and voters) do at this point? For voters who’ve already voting, probably not much can realistically be done. (Election remedies are very hard). Those who’ve not voted yet should avoid the straight party option.

For future elections, answer is clearer: Texas should follow the recommendations of the National Academies study and get rid of DRE machines. Precinct counted optical scan coupled with risk limiting audits provides high assurance.

I’ve posted this before, and it’s about a year old, but this is my best effort at a summary of the current issues in voting security and integrity. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Blaze-UPenn-Statement-Voting-Machines-11-29.pdf …

Claims by some that a decade-old known bug in the Hart system that can account for this behavior should be dismissed as “user error” are frankly baffling to me.

You can follow @mattblaze.

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