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2. Humboldt County, California, November 2008In November 2008, election officials in Humboldt County, California implemented a post-election“Transparency Project,” whereby a separate scanner not manufactured by the voting machine vendorelectronically counted every paper optical scan ballot during the election. The purpose was to verify theofficial vote totals and to post ballot images on the internet in order to allow any member of the publicto conduct independent recounts. 47The Transparency Project turned up a counting error on Humboldt County’s voting machines: theyfailed to count approximately two hundred ballots. 48 According to Humboldt County Clerk CarolynCrnich, the first batch of absentee ballots scanned into the voting system, known as “deck zero,”disappeared from the totals produced by the voting system before officials finished scanning all ofthe ballots and certified the vote totals. 49 Upon learning of the problem, Crnich contacted the votingsystem vendor. 50wired and computerworldmagazines have reported that thevoting system vendor was aware ofthe “deck zero” problem for years,but did not notify the electionassistance commission, the nationalassociation of state electiondirectors, or the californiasecretary of state, california’s chiefelection official.Crnich states that after examining copies of the county’sdatabase, the vendor told her that a programming errorin its election management system, the software usedto aggregate the votes from all of the county’s votingmachines, caused the problem. 51Wired and Computerworld magazines have reportedthat the voting system vendor was aware of the “deckzero” problem for years, but did not notify the ElectionAssistance Commission, the National Association of StateElection Directors, or the California Secretary of State,California’s chief election official. 52 Instead, according toa report issued by California Secretary of State Bowenafter the Humboldt County incident came to light,the vendor sent “a vague e-mail to election officials” inCalifornia that used the software with the programmingproblem, recommending a “workaround” procedurewithout identifying the problem or the potentialconsequences (i.e., lost votes) of failing to implement theworkaround. 53The voting system vendor has testified that once it first identified the software problem in October2004, it “communicated” its findings, and “a simple procedure workaround to mitigate this issue, viaemail to all California counties then affected.” 54 Carolyn Crnich does not dispute that the vendor mayhave informed her predecessor of the problem. She is certain, however, that her predecessor did notleave any documentation about the problem when she took over, or institute procedures that wouldhave prevented the problem from causing the voting system to lose votes. 55Nor did the vendor report the problem to the California Secretary of State’s office. As the vendor noted intestimony, at the time there was no “mandate for reporting issues of this nature” to the Secretary of State. 5612 | Brennan Center for Justice