Laptops Stolen from Tonsler on Election Night

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 6, 2008 in Crime, Government and Politics. 11 Comments

The bad news: Two laptops containing personal information about every voter in Charlottesville have been stolen, Henry Graff reports for NBC-29. The good news: The data was encrypted, so there has almost certainly been no breach of privacy. On election night, after things shut down for the evening, somebody tossed a cinderblock through the front door of Tonsler and made off with the two systems. Voters’ names, addresses, birth dates, and driver’s license numbers are stored on the computers. Laptops’ portability make them common targets of theft, and it’s inevitable that government systems containing confidential information will be stolen now and again. But if best practices are followed, and the data is encrypted, it’s not a disaster.

11/07 Update: The more I think about this, the more I figure that this story is fear-mongering on the part of NBC 29. (Compare to WINA or the DP’s coverage.) Wanting to know what else was in place, other than encryption, I checked with Charlottesville election official Rick Sincere, and he told me: “The laptops require multiple passwords to make them operable. The passwords are complex and difficult to remember.” They’re using Datacard’s Electronic Poll Book Solution, which you can read about in Rick’s October 2006 blog entry on the topic. Rick favors electronic voting, while I think it’s a security nightmare, but this is an example of everything apparently being done safely. If there’s reason to think that anybody’s confidential information has been breached here, Henry Graff hasn’t provided it—NBC 29 should stop making this claim if they can’t back it up.

UVA to Compost Food Waste

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 5, 2008 in UVa. 6 Comments

O-Hill is going to start composting their food waste, Aaron Lee wrote in the Daily Progress yesterday. They account for half of the food served at the university, sending 5,000 pounds of food to be composted into soil, rather than to sit in the anaerobic environment of a dump, where food generally can’t biodegrade. Steve Murray’s Earlysville-based Panorama Pay-Dirt will be hauling it off beginning Tuesday.

The Drawn-Out House Vote-Counting Battle to Come

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 5, 2008 in Politics. 65 Comments

Those hoping to find out who won in the Goode/Perriello race will have to wait a while longer—until around Christmas, if the 2005 recount in the Creigh Deeds/Bob McDonnell race for attorney general is any guide. Historically, the best source of data has been straight from the SBE, rather than from third parties like CNN, etc., so those are the numbers to look at. Though at this moment Goode is up by a hundred-odd votes, we’re in the territory where minor adjustments from precinct officials can and will toss the race back and forth. Following this from hour-to-hour will drive you nuts.

That said, many of us are bound and determined to be driven nuts. And to that end, electronic voting expert and UVa professor Bryan Pfaffenberger provides an explanation of what we’re seeing here today:

I just did an analysis of the changes due to Veris [the new (and controversial) state voter registration database system] malfunction (?). In Danville, Tom Perriello’s vote totals (”original value”) were REDUCED by 308, while Virgil Goode’s vote totals were INCREASED by 1819.

I do not understand why vote totals would have been affected by VERIS “going down after midnight,” as the VBE update page states. It seems the system is used to report vote totals. So precincts were able to report vote totals before midnight (presumably, these are the “original values”), but were prevented from finishing until this morning, when (it seems) the system was rebooted. Why, then, would vote totals have been decreased as well as increased?

There will certainly be a recount, and that recount will require volunteers from both campaigns to go stomping around in sheds and barns to witness the audit of the voting equipment over the course of a half a day. If you want to help, get in touch with your candidate of choice and offer to observe come the appointed day. I did it for Sen. Deeds, and have volunteered to do the same for Tom Perriello.

Those of y’all who are as eager to keep up with the fluctuations of numbers as I am are welcome to post the changing numbers here as they settle down in the coming days.

Election Results

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 5, 2008 in Politics. 37 Comments

It was a good day for Democrats here in Virginia. Barack Obama has won the presidency, of course, with spontaneous celebrations breaking out in the streets of cities across the nation and the world, but he also won the state of Virginia, with about 51% of the vote with 95% of precincts reporting right now. Mark Warner won John Warner’s Senate seat handily, defeating Jim Gilmore. Both candidates easily won Charlottesville and Albemarle.

Less clear is the outcome of the race between Rep. Virgil Goode and and Democratic challenger Tom Perriello. Though Perriello is ahead, there are two outstanding precincts that historically have gone heavily Republican, so Goode is likely to emerge about two hundred votes ahead, by my math. But that’s before the provisional ballots are counted, and that’s before the inevitable recount. Expect this one to stretch out for a while.

It’s Election Day

Published by Waldo Jaquith on November 4, 2008 in Politics. 34 Comments

It’s election day, kids—go vote. There are no constitutional amendments, just president, Senate, and House.

Here in Stony Point we had 49 people in line at 6am—probably ten times what we’ve ever seen here before—with steady, heavy traffic ever since. Over two hundred people had voted by a little after 7:00. Nobody has needed to wait more than a few minutes, and the election workers are as efficient and friendly as ever. The rain has held off so far in the northern half of the county, which has surely helped turnout.

What are you seeing at your precinct?

10am Update: Albemarle County reports that 17,556 people voted by 9am, just over 26% of the electorate. That’s compared to to 10% in 2007 and 17% in 2006. (I’m afraid I have no figures for 2004, the last presidential election.) Jeff Uphoff provides photos of Walker in the city—between the donut wagon, the school band, and the bake sale, it seems like quite a hub of activity.

7:00pm Update: “There also have been reports of fake robocalls instructing voters in the Charlottesville area to go to the wrong precincts, allegations that the Virginia State Police are currently looking into.” So says the Washington Post. The results are going to start coming in shortly—follow the returns at the SBE’s website.

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