software errors and the election

There were some unintentional software errors.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/recount-shows-wrong-winners-declared-two-wellington-election-races/ZYkE3PtNmVzMjDgXeydqFJ/

Bucher said a software problem caused the actual results of the mayor’s race to be initially reported as the results for the Greene-Hostetler Seat 1 council race. The true Seat 1 results were initially reported as the results for the Seat 4 race between Paglia and Willhite. And the actual Seat 4 results were certified to the state as the results of the mayor’s race.

Bucher placed the blame squarely on computer software. A spokesman from Dominion Voting Systems, which supplies the county’s voting and tabulating equipment, could not be reached Monday night.

“This is not a human error. This is a computer-generated error, one that is on a computer system that is tested and certified by the state of Florida,” Bucher said.

“I’m hopeful that people will hear the real story and not one that is generated by the media and they will understand that it is a software error. We have the engineers at the home office of Dominion looking into it,” Bucher said. “We’ve used the software since 2007 and this has never happened in Palm Beach County.”

The problem was uncovered when the elections office ran a routine audit Monday morning of results from all 16 municipalities that held elections March 13. When actual ballots from randomly selected precincts in each city were compared with the certified results, Wellington was the only municipality with a discrepancy, Bucher said.

Because of the audit, Bucher said she is confident that none of the other cities had discrepancies and that the results of past, similarly audited elections are accurate. She also said she’s confident that future election results will be accurate because she expects the county to get upgraded software.