One of the Verified Voting Foundation’s most successful creations has been a national database of election mishaps of all kinds—not only electronic ones—called the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS). In November 2004, EIRS provided real-time reports of election incidents, so technology professionals and attorneys from Verified Voting Foundation and partner organizations could immediately go to the scene of problems.

Amazingly, until the EIRS, no one systematically collected and preserved election problem reports. The U.S. has been spending billions of dollars trying to improve elections with no clear picture of what the problem is!

What Is EIRS?

EIRS is a web-based software application that helps voter-protection organizations collect reports and respond to all types of voting issues.

Initiated by executive director Will Doherty, EIRS 2004 was and is VVF’s opportunity to lead, and to forge important links between the community of technologists interested in election reform and the traditional civil rights community organizations engaged in election protection activities.

EIRS Partners

With financial support from the Quixote Foundation and others, VVF partnered on the technology side with Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility to develop the EIRS software quickly by building on existing open-source software. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Online Policy Group assisted with EIRS development and marketing.

Election Protection

In 2004, EIRS made it possible for hotline volunteers to log incident reports from more than 25,000 election protection workers—and many more voters—who experienced problems up to and including Election Day. Hotline volunteers took 175,000 calls and logged more than 42,000 incident reports into EIRS.

EIRS Analysis

Problems were reported with all e-voting vendors and across most of the states. Electronic voting machines lost votes in North Carolina, miscounted votes in Ohio, and broke down in New Orleans, causing long lines and shutdowns at polling places. Thanks to EIRS, thousands of volunteer attorneys and technologists were able to go to polling places across the country.

This wealth of incident reports has already resulted in a variety of policy and research initiatives, including a request by members of the U.S. Congress for an audit of the 2004 election by the General Accountability Office (GAO), which is now underway. Time Magazine, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and others covered the Verified Voting Foundation’s role in protecting elections. Additional research based on the reports in EIRS is in the works related to verified voting and other policy initiatives, as well as lawsuits directed at election reform.

EIRS Future

The VVF plans to keep EIRS running to analyze data and publish reports from the 2004 election cycle, while preparing for select 2005 elections and nationwide elections in 2006 and beyond.

More EIRS Resources

Election Incident Reporting System Outcomes

Election Incident Reporting System Media Coverage