By Patrick Colbeck

Americans depend upon the principle that one person has one vote. Would you be surprised to know that the electronic voting systems that tally our vote treat our votes as fractions not integers? Sad but true.

Electronic Voting Systems

Dominion Voting Systems is one of three electronic voting systems approved for use in the State of Michigan.

In their contract with the State of Michigan, they are quite clear about the fact that they report election results using the Election Markup Language (EML). The federal government established EML via the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).

Review of this NIST standard reveals that Vote Counts are tracked in “double” format.

Double is shorthand for double precision floating point data type also referred to as a decimal. Decimals are one way of presenting fractions. So the NIST EML calls for vote counts to be reported as fractions.

Why Would Dominion Report Fractional Votes?

According to Dominion technical requirements assessment document included as part of their contract, the State of Michigan requires compliance with what they refer to as the Michigan Standard Results File (MSRF) format.

1.2.A.15
Shall be capable of utilizing the State Uniform Data Format (refer to Exhibit 6 to Schedule A, Michigan QVF Export File Format).

Contract 071B7700117 Between Dominion Voting Systems and the State of Michigan

Of course, Dominion dutifully cites that they comply with the Michigan Standard Results File Format.

Further examination of the contract between Dominion and the State of Michigan reveals that Dominion dutifully asserts that their Results and Tally Reporting (RTR) module exports files in the Michigan Standard Results File Format.

So what does the Michigan Standard Results File Format look like?

Good question. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer exactly, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I issued a FOIA request on December 19, 2022 for the format specifications for the MSRF.

My request was denied under the dubious assertion that my possession of such information would allow me to hack the “unofficial” election results.

Vote Tally Anomalies

Let’s examine some vote tally anomalies associated with fractional voting.

Edison Research

Edison Research provides unofficial election results to major media outlets. One of the sources they cite for these results are electronic voting systems election results exports. We already know that these exports provide the vote tallies in decimal format.

Edison vote tallies are reported only to 3 decimal places (i.e. 3 significant figures). Doing so introduces significant rounding error for large vote tallies. During the 2020 election, 5.5 Million votes were cast. By rounding the vote tally fractions to only 3 decimal places, the Edison results bake in a 5,500 vote error. For reference, the 2016 presidential race in Michigan was decided by 10,704 votes.

MI Secretary of State

Are there any indications that “rounding errors” may have influenced the official vote tallies? Let’s take a look.

The official 2020 presidential race election results as conveyed by Michigan Secretary of State reveals that there is a 3,285 vote difference if you rollup the results by precinct as opposed to by county.

Could this variance be due to the accumulation of rounding errors? When pressed, the Michigan Secretary of State attributes the variance to “statistical adjustments”.

Antrim County

Let’s not forget the 7,060 vote flip from Trump to Biden that occurred in Antrim County, MI during the 2020 election. No. The 7,060 vote flip was not likely the result of rounding errors or “statistical adjustments”. What Antrim County did reveal, however, was the use of machine-based vote tally adjustment algorithm known as Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).

According to a court exhibit in the Bailey v Antrim County lawsuit, Dominion’s Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) was enabled in the configuration files for the Antrim County Dominion Election Management System (EMS) server.

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) results in fractional votes primarily during the redistribution of surplus votes in multi-winner elections. We are not allowed to examine Dominion’s source code to know exactly how their RCV module works, but here’s how it typically works:

1. Surplus Votes Redistribution: In RCV, if a candidate receives more votes than the threshold needed to win, the surplus votes are redistributed to the next preferred candidates on each voter’s ballot. This redistribution involves transferring a fraction of each vote rather than whole votes.
2. Calculation of Surplus Fraction: The surplus fraction is calculated by dividing the number of surplus votes by the total number of votes the winning candidate received. This fraction is then used to determine the portion of each vote that is transferred to the next ranked candidate.
3. Transfer Value: Each vote initially has a transfer value of 1. When a vote contributes to electing a candidate and becomes a surplus vote, it receives a new transfer value based on the surplus fraction. This means that each transferred vote may carry a value less than 1, depending on the size of the surplus.
4. Example of Fractional Transfer: If a candidate’s surplus is calculated to be 7%, then each vote that contributed to this candidate’s election is transferred to the next choice on the ballot at a value of 0.07 votes. This process ensures that the vote still holds value in subsequent rounds of counting, even though it is less than a full vote.
5. Continued Redistribution: This process of transferring fractional votes continues through multiple rounds of counting until all positions are filled. The fractional nature of the votes allows for a more precise allocation of voter preferences, especially in multi-winner contexts where the goal is to proportionally represent the electorate.

In summary, RCV results in fractional votes through the mechanism of surplus vote redistribution, where votes exceeding the threshold necessary for a candidate to win are transferred to other candidates at a fractional value. This method ensures that all votes contribute to the final outcome in a proportional manner, reflecting the voters’ ranked preferences more accurately.

In summary, RCV results in fractional votes through the mechanism of surplus vote redistribution, where votes exceeding the threshold necessary for a candidate to win are transferred to other candidates at a fractional value.

The configuration of Antrim voting systems to enable use of RCV may not have been an isolated occurrence. We don’t know for sure because Dominion’s contract with the State of Michigan prevents analysis of their source code plus Judge Kevin Elsenheimer ruled we are not even allowed to review their system configuration settings (thus the redaction of configuration logs).

What Do We Know

We know that the NIST has established a election data schema referred to as the Election Markup Language (EML) that reports vote counts as decimals not integers.

We know that the Results Tally and Reporting (RTR) module for Dominion Voting Systems reports vote counts in decimals because they produce an election results XML file that complies with the NIST EML.

We also know that the RTR module complies with the MSRF format.

Since the EML features decimal vote counts and the RTR module exports XML files in compliance with the EML, we can deduce that the MSRF format requires vote counts to be reported in decimals.

Since the Michigan Secretary of State requires vote tallies in MSRF format, one can assert that it is the Michigan Secretary of State that is requiring the reporting of vote tallies as fractional votes.

What Don’t We Know

Why would the Michigan Secretary of State require vote counts to be reported as decimals?

What vote tally errors have been introduced into our previous election results due to reporting of fractional votes?

Conclusion

There is no good reason for our government to track our votes in decimal not integer format. There are numerous bad reasons for them to do so. These bad reasons include the use of machine-based algorithms to modify vote tallies. These algorithms may represent Ranked Choice Voting methodologies or something even more nefarious such as a PID controller.

The bottom line? Fractional votes go hand-in-hand with electronic voting systems in America. Not only should this be justification to eliminate these machines from American elections, it also provides yet another reason for all those who struggled with math in grade school to hate fractions.

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