If you were to read the response the state and county attorneys have made to the SC Safe Elections group’s lawsuit requesting Cast Vote Records, you would think the state attorneys think they are speaking another language, requesting something that is completely off the wall and unheard of.
South Carolina has ES&S voting machines. This is on their FAQ page. Read the 3rd question down: “Does ES&S support post-election audits?” https://www.essvote.com/faqs/
Judging by the above, it appears the Cast Vote Record is a standard report election officials run.
Last fall, Palmetto State Watch submitted a FOIA request from the SC Attorney General’s office. Contained within 100 pages of e-mails, was this nugget: an e-mail from SEC General Counsel Thomas Nicholson. It appears they do in fact know what a Cast Vote Record is.
We just wanted you to be informed in the event you hear opposing counsel claim they don’t know what information is being requested while you watch the hearing in the morning.
Oh, and one more thing, please tell me where it says below that the information contains personally identifiable information. Which is the other argument that the state is falling back on. (Did you know that it is against SC law for a ballot to contain information that could reveal the identity of the voter?)
Question: Why is the state so intent on spending so much money on legal fees preventing citizens from accessing information that is readily accessible either freely or via FOIA in over half of the other states?
Don’t forget to call in for the hearing tomorrow morning:
CVR Hearing is Tuesday the 14th at 9:30AM in the virtual courtroom of Judge R. Lawton McIntosh.
To access the virtual courtroom, go to www.sccourts.org click on “calendar” and then “monthly view”. That will bring up the February calendar.
From the calendar, click on “circuit” on the 14th, and scroll through the list of Judge’s to find Judge McIntosh.
Where is ‘personally identifiable information’ found in election records? — in the voter registration database, which also contains a record of which elections the voter voted in.
Where is ‘personally identifiable information’ _*not*_ found in election records? — on ballots, and records of ballots cast … the Cast Vote Record (CVR).
Definition of Cast Vote Record:
Sure — there might be many different _variations_ on the *exact* definition of a Cast Vote Record … exactly which data fields are included, the exact format of each data field, and so on.
But the notion of and definition of Cast Vote Record is a *very* well-known item within the field of elections administration, and in particular, the area of elections audits.
In fact, there is a technical standard, published by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Commerce. Details below.
Absolutely correct about ‘personally identifiable information’. Any person mentioning ‘personally identifiable information’ as being an issue with release of CVR data is totally off the mark — perhaps they are confusing records of votes tabulated (CVR) versus records of voters who voted.
The SC voter registration database does contain records of which elections a voter voted in. That record would necessarily contain ‘personally identifiable information’ … like the voter’s name and residence address.
Given that a Cast Vote Record is a record of each *ballot* cast in an election, containing, presumably, every detail about the ballot recorded by the ballot scanner (the ES&S DS-200), then the CVR would *never* contain any personally identifiable information whatsover. Ballots do not contain name, rank, serial number or any such personally identifiable information.
~~~
~~~
NIST Special Publication 1500-103
Cast Vote Records Common Data Format Specification
Version 1.0
Software and Systems Division Information Technology Laboratory, NIST
https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1500-103
November 2019
INCLUDES UPDATES AS OF 03-31-2020
[ https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1500-103.pdf ]
https://www.nist.gov/publications/cast-vote-records-common-data-format-specification-version-10
CITATION
Wack, J. (2019), Cast Vote Records Common Data Format Specification Version 1.0, Special Publication (NIST SP), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1500-103 (Accessed February 17, 2023)