Letter: Recounts show the Clark County voting system is worse than we thought

Area resident Rob Anderson shares details of his complaint filed with the Washington Secretary of State that Clark County’s voting system is operating outside federal accuracy standards

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

Recently, I filed an official complaint with the Washington Secretary of State because the Clark County voting system is operating outside federal accuracy standards. However, recently I’ve found out that the error rate is even worse than I first thought, way worse. I’ll explain later, but my original complaint reads as follows:

On December 13th, 2022 the Clark County Canvassing board certified amended results from the November 8th, 2022 election based on a partial hand recount of select precincts of District 5 in Clark County totaling 9,471 ballots. This partial hand recount revealed a two ballot error in which two votes were not counted by the voting system. These amended results reveal an error rate of 0.0211149%.

Likewise, on December 20th, 2022 the Clark County Canvassing board certified amended results from the November 8th, 2022 election based on a full machine recount of US Representative, 3rd Congressional District totaling 207,112. This machine recount revealed a 14 ballot error in which 14 votes were not counted by the voting system. These amended results reveal an error rate of 0.0067594%

These results show a clear violation of The Help America Vote Act of 2002 Sec. 301 (5) Error Rates which states “The error rate of the voting system in counting ballots (determined by taking into account only those errors which are attributable to an act of the voter) shall comply with the error rate standards established under section 3.2.1 of the voting systems standards issued by the Federal Election Commission which are in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.”

Voting System Standards by the Federal Election Commission states in section 3.2.1 Accuracy Requirements that “for each processing function indicated above, the system shall achieve a target error rate of no more than one in 10,000,000 ballot positions, with a maximum acceptable error rate in the test process of one in 500,000 ballot positions.”

Based on these standards above, the recent recounts of the November 8th, 2022 election show an error rate grossly above the accepted target rate of one in 10,000,000 (.00001%) or the maximum acceptable error rate of one in 500,000 (.0002%). The partial hand recount revealed a .002% error rate and the machine recount revealed a .0067594% which are well above both target and maximum error rate standards.

It’s equally troubling that the Clark County Auditor, Greg Kimsey, has not taken any action to date to acknowledge or remedy these unacceptable error rates in the Clark County voting system.

A full audit should take place immediately to reveal the full understanding of error rates throughout the entire voting system and then appropriate remedies should be planned and taken to correct the voting system before the next election.

It’s clear, the Clark County voting system, built and led by Auditor Greg Kimsey, is not functioning to Federal standards … not even close. Clark County’s voting system needs a deep cleansing, and it starts with a full forensic audit by a citizen-based third party to identify all the issues and offer resolutions in order to restore our voting system and the voters’ confidence.

At the time the complaint was filed, Kimsey made no public statements regarding these problems nor had taken the recount revelations seriously. Does Kimsey not know that a large percentage of people have lost confidence or are losing confidence in the integrity of our elections process? You would think that he would care. You would think he would want to boost confidence and not decrease it with silence and stonewalling.

I did send a public records request trying to find out if they’ve taken corrective actions and Cathie Garber emailed me back with a link to documents that don’t represent documented changes and a disheartening statement of “The errors that occurred in the Benton and Kent recount were human errors, not system or tabulation errors.”

So, does this mean “human errors “are somehow more acceptable? She did go on to say that they changed a routine policy which should fix it from happening again, but what other errors that we don’t know about? Remember, the only reason we discovered these errors in the first place is because of the recounts by Benton and Kent and not because of their internal processes or tests.

After every election, the auditor runs a test where they run 600 ballots through the machines. This means that the current testing can only reveal an error rate of .16% or greater. Yet, the maximum error rate allowed is .0002%. So, this means that our voting system must break down to a dismal one out of 600 ratio (.16% error rate) before anyone becomes aware of voting system problems and this test didn’t catch the ones mentioned above. After the 2022 election, they ran the same old test and agreed … all is good. But that’s not reality, and it shows that the current 600 ballot test doesn’t bring them to Federal compliance and is not catching errors throughout the entire voting system.

Now, let’s address the new development that makes our voting system look completely broken. Originally, when I filed my complaint I was under the impression that the Kent Campaign conducted a full machine recount of all 207,112 ballots but I was wrong. The Kent campaign only recounted the undervotes totaling just 2,404 ballots. With this new realization, the error rate becomes an astounding .582% instead of .0067%. Remember, this only represents undervotes in just one race. Houston, we have a problem… a really big problem.

Action must be taken immediately, but Kimsey has stated in the past that he’ll only act under a court order. A hearing could result because of my complaint, but we shouldn’t wait until this possible outcome. Over a hundred people have already joined my complaint and call for action by Kimsey to authorize a full forensic audit by a citizens-based third party to produce a public report, offer remedies to the problems discovered and then call for more regularly rigorous audits that will truly test the voting system accuracy. Sounds reasonable, right? Join the one-hundred-plus Clark County citizens by clicking HERE [https://sendfox.com/lp/m85gv8] add your name to the amended complaint and call for the audit (you’ll also get email updates).

The following Clark County citizens have already joined the complaint and call for the audit:

Katie Johansen, Theissa Johansen, James Thomas, AG Lefebvre, Brad Marti

Kerrie Gunter, Justin Larson, Wendy Whitt, kari Fields, Kirk VanGelder, Sarah Akey, Alicia Pomeroy, Lisa Pierce, Wesley Irvin, Kelly Roest, Ray Davis, Traci Kelly, Lewis Smith, Valerie Weinhart, Debra Ponder, Christi Lazzaretto, Leslie Wuitschick, Colleen Gudge, Steven Iltz, Rita Scott-Kezar, Gayle Kalian, Jennifer Holbrook, Richard Barile, Lloyd Squires, Katherine Coker, Lorena McFarland, Kelly Burbank, Chelsea Ochoa, Chuck Christensen, Phillip Hogan, Kimberly Sherertz, Vanessa Huffman, Lori Rone, James Klarenbach, Carolyn Price, Mark Heagy, Janna Meyer, Carmen McCarver, Joy Duran, Clayton Buerkle, Jason Campbell, Jennie Vaughn, Larry Harrell, Jeffrey Miles, Theresa Clark, Rhonda Gibson, Christopher Young, Judy Glenney, Natasha Georgescu, Joanne Parrent, Chuck Williams, Michael Terry, Deborah Royko, Michael Jelineo, Stuart Missfeldt, Angela Daniels, Saundra Weaver, Megan Clark, Rob Anderson, Myrna Leija, Phil Van Eynde, Walters Shauna, Harold Hanson, Maureen Horn, Gary Wilson, Sharon Long, Frank Alonzo Jayde Hamilton, Erik Winegardner, Linda Hampton, Alan Svehaug, Katie Thompson, James Klarenbach, Gary Gray, Diane Kong, Lana Gibson, Nancy Holbrook, Debi Dabasinskas, Julie Wieting, Gary Smith, David Nelson, Mike Dorthalina, Teri Moyer, Keith Winsell, Joseph Smith, David Dunn, Donald Tingley, Tina Swab, Edward Rush, Lauren Colas, Vannette Shangrow, Martha Nyemaster-Schelb, Michael Grossnickle, Brian Wuitschick, Melissa Wellborn, Patricia Bellamy, Dori Miller, Lance Kulla, Kathleen Sproles

Join your name to the complaint and call for the audit by clicking HERE [https://sendfox.com/lp/m85gv8]

Rob Anderson