General Election 2020: Bruce Crocombe

I received the following in my inbox today. It is a complaint laid before the Ombudsman about the General Election 2020.

Post: The Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143

Summary of Actions required to satisfy my complaint regarding the 2020 Elections:

Stop the election 2020 Ballots, and all associated documents, being destroyed in April 2021.

The “Certificate of Results” forms should be made available to the Voting Place Managers, Justice of the Peace and Returning Officers to validate their signatures. The “Certificate of Results” should posted on the Electoral commission website for public scrutiny (alongside the other two already available, computer generated documents).

Reasons for my concern:

I was a Convener for the 2020 elections. The polling station I voted in was set up in a way to promote Maori views and promote the Labour party narrative that “this is a COVID election”. I laid a complaint to the returning officer who forwarded it to the electoral commission. That complaint was not even answered. Due to this lack of action I furthered my investigations. I became aware that the election process has many failures which led to these elections being illegal. In my discussions with others I was concerned that their observations also questioned the integrity of the election.

Who is affected by my observations and concerns?

This affects me personally as I now consider that this election win was gained by fraudulent activity. My faith in democracy is crushed! This affects the integrity of the people working in the voting places, Justice of the peace and scrutineers. It also affects all voters who may have had their vote ignored, swapped or never had it counted. It affects all New Zealand who did not vote for this Government.

My Complaint: There is no way to check that the vote count in the electorate polling place on 17th of October 2020 is reflected in the final results published on 5th November 2020.

My observations have covered the entire voting arena however am focusing my complaint on what I consider to be the most critical flaw. There is no way to check that the vote count in the electorate polling place on 17th October 2020 is reflected in the final results published on 5th November 2020. The integrity of the process, from voting to publishing results, does not allow a manual audit trail. It appears to be designed to impede any audit, stop observational assessments to be made on voting trends and allow easy access (at many stages) for fraudulent activity.

Actions I wish to be taken in the interests of this being an open, auditable, government Election:

1st

Stop the Ballots, and all associated documents, being destroyed. [As per section 189 of the Electoral Act 1993 - “Despite subsection (2), a packet or parcel may not be destroyed so long as the packet or parcel is, or may reasonably be expected to be, required for the purposes of an investigation into, or a prosecution of, an offence against this Act”].

An “Execution of stay” should be imposed on the ballots, and all associated documents, as they are legally allowed to be destroyed six months after the election. Ie. 3rd of April 2021 if they (sneakily) take it from the original election date. 17th April 2021 if from the actual date of the election.

These forms should be made available to the Voting Place Managers, Justice of the Peace and Returning Officers to validate their signatures, then posted (alongside the other two already available documents) on the Electoral commission website for public scrutiny.

I wish the public to view and copy for analysis all of the preliminary vote counts done by the Polling Place Managers and recorded by hand on the “certificate of results” forms.

2nd

I wish to firmly establish that this is not a request for a recount! It does not follow any existing pre described procedure. The objective is not to correlate the ballot count to the “Certificate of results” The object is to manually compare the many “Certificate of results” counts generated by the polling places to the “spread sheet” compiled electronically and printed of from the “Election Management System” (CATALYST). Then to compare the totals calculated from the “Certificate of results” to the “Official results certificate” for each electorate.

The information on each electorate’s forms should match that recorded on the computer generated spreadsheet. If not, a forensic audit of the actual ballots should be undertaken by an agency independent from any Government pressure as this would be a case of Government sponsored election fraud!

3rd

This is an investigation into a part of the electoral process. It should be done independently from any electoral commission interference, under the scrutiny of well briefed Conservative and Labour Party scrutineers. An independent party must manage the procedure (outlined in the 2nd part) to be followed. Do not allow the Electoral Commission to redirect or change the focus the process.

There is absolutely no reason that this additional document cannot made public.

The information (“Certificate of Results” form) represents ‘open Government’, is part of the election process and does not in any way compromise the publics privacy. The scrutineer’s handbook states that the results of the early count can be disclosed after 7 pm on Election Day (if you can get a copy of it). This information is not deemed sensitive after this time. The very same information, all be it printed from a computer data base, is available on the Government web site.

Evaluation Brief:

1) Compartmentalisation of vote counting – That is, the votes are handled in parcels, which will not allow tabulation of these parcels with other parcels during the preliminary count, Official count or recounts. Votes are counted, recorded then all information secured for that count. I understand the electoral process and am clear that counting the votes is deliberately compartmentalised in this way to control the availability of information. This was further compounded when additional voting places were set up. This stops people working in the process from observing more than one count and forming an opinion on voting trends. It means that any observations made in one voting place cannot be shared to get an overall electorate assessment. There is no way to get an evidence based assessment of results in one voting place (two counts and specials), or a total for the electorate. All people are forced to accept the computer controlled data without audit.

2) Confusing and illogical ‘access to information’ requirements – Photography is allowed to copy voter sensitive data, yet no photography is allowed of the “Certificate of Results”? The only way to get these results would be to copy them by hand from the “Certificate of Results” form. No mention is made that this can be done however it is previously stated that you cannot touch forms. They need to be presented to you. They are locked away ensuring the tabulation of results is only done by computer. A manual audit trail is made impossible. The Electoral Act 1993 provides for results to be challenged through recounts and petitions on certain grounds. It does not allow for manual tabulation of electorate count totals! It does not provide for auditing a sample of votes. There is also no mandate for forensic audits of samples of ballots (if the name and address is correct they are accepted). When the Electoral Commission is questioned they include confusing references to the naming of forms and redirect your attention to the computer generated data. When comparing the Electoral Act with the procedures outlined in the Electoral Commission web site gives actions happening differently and out of chronological sequence.

3) The “Election Management System” i.e. the vote tabulation software, is supplied by CATALYST. NET LIMITED, NZ Company Number 952897. Its program is “open source” meaning that the programming can be changed by the owner. Catalyst is also on the internet for the duration of the election hence open to hacking or nefarious access. There is nothing secure with this system and the assurances of security, given by the electoral commission, are not backed up with any tangible evidence of security or audit trail.

4) Performing an Audit. Vote counting is compartmentalized so no voter trends can be observed. The only opportunity to audit the integrity of the election results being keyed into the “Electoral Management System” and the numbers being presented to the public as “Election Results” is blocked. Access to the “Certificate of Results” form is restricted as no photographic copy can be made. There is no allowance for a manual tabulation of numbers independent from a computer. Official counts and recounts are also compartmentalized and strictly controlled to stop the totaling of all votes so no integrity audit can be done.

5) The Electoral Act 1993 is written without any references to manual or computer handling of data. There are also no references to a means to audit tabulated election data. This is a very concerning failure of process. An evaluation of the Act is included with this complaint.

6) The Electoral Commission Web site. An evaluation of the Electoral Commission Web site is included with this complaint.

7) The Scrutineers hand book. An evaluation of The Scrutineers hand book is included with this complaint.

Definitions (from the Electoral Act 1993) of the three forms completed during the course of elections.

1) “Certificate of results” is the form filled manually to record the count done on Election Day for either advance votes, counted after 9 am, or for votes cast on polling day, counted after 7pm.

These votes are (generally) counted in the polling place, and each certificate signed off by the Polling Place Manager and a Justice of the peace.

The “certificate of results” forms are lodged with the Clerk of the House in accordance with section 189 of the Electoral Act 1993 and are not available.

2) “Official results certificate” is the certificate “EMS82-FINAL Official Results Notification Form 2020 General Election and Referendums” that is printed from the “Election Management System” Catalyst, on completion of the final count on November 5th 2020. Each certificate shows the result totals for each electorate.

The “Official Results Certificates” can all be found on the Electoral Commission Web Site How are general election votes counted? | Elections 2020 certificates of results (ZIP, 26MB)

3) Two spread sheets breaking down the Candidate and Party vote count can also be generated from the “Election Management System” Votes Recorded at each Voting Place (electionresults.govt.nz)

Publishing all three forms is perfectly feasible as none of these forms in any way compromises the voter information or the vote cast. They report only vote placement statistics.

Evaluation – full

Assessment of relative correspondence:

1) Compartmentalisation of vote counting –

2) Confusing and illogical ‘access to information’ requirements –

3) The “Election Management System”

4) Performing an Audit.

5) Comparison between the Electoral Act 1993 and Electoral Commission Interpretation

6) The Electoral Commission Web site.

7) The Scrutineers hand book.

Copies of relevant forms are available (via links in the document) on the internet.

Copies of relevant correspondence available:

E mail trail to returning officer, forwarded to Electoral commission.

E mails to/from electoral commission.

Foot note - Other incidental observations:

Ballot boxes, though sealed on the top, can be accessed through the base.

One security company is hired for the whole country. Total control of security allowing for strategic placement of personnel (for both security and nefarious purposes).

Some voting centers took ballot boxes home ‘for security reasons’.

Colmar Brunton polling results were not reflected in Nation Party and other privately undertaken polls.

Massive media bias throughout the build up to the election by Government “financially bailed out” compliant (all major) media outlets.

Many electorates had election results which were contrary to the observational assessments. Not “a bad looser syndrome”, more like a betrayal of observational trend analysis. I.e. South Island going red, Auckland Central going Green, Upper Harbour going Labour….. All difficult to explain “wild card” results.