Hobson's Mischief

By Caitlin Decatur

Welcome to Columbus, Ohio, winner of the Smart City Challenge and home to countless public servants, such as Ellen Matthews - a Software Engineer with spunk and a wayward car. After Ellen uncovers election tampering on Primary election day, telling anyone about it isn't as easy as it seems, and powerful special interests are trying to kill her.<

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Nov 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781636496153

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Hobson’s Mischief

Caitlin Decatur

atmosphere press

Copyright © 2021 Caitlin Decatur

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Beste Miray Doğan

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the author.

Hobson’s Mischief

2021, Caitlin Decatur

atmospherepress.com

Dear Reader,

This is a work of fiction and I hope you enjoy it, but be mindful that the EVEREST report is real, and the Final Report is dated December 7, 2007. The report is available on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s website: https://www.eac.gov/documents/2017/03/21/everest-report-state-voting-systems-voting-technology/

TUESDAY

CHAPTER 1

I like to think my choices are my own and, since I make mindful choices, the consequences that follow are expected, but, actually, a lot that happens in our lives is brought about by the enigmatic choices of others followed by circumstances the consequences of which we cannot fathom. At any moment, we may not grasp what just happened, let alone perceive what’s going to follow. Sometimes, we’re unmindful, even when patiently told time and time again of planned misfortunes and rampant corruption— past, present, and looming— because, well, it’s inconvenient to be mindful. It’s all too worrisome. We have to narrow down our focus in order to live our lives. So we keep our scary deduction that it’s hopeless at bay, and we hope. And because it’s all so inconvenient, we deceive ourselves and even assume others will do what needs to be done to affect corrections and all will be better for our fellow women and men in the future.

I understand. It’s the same for me. I haven’t protested. I haven’t written any letters or called anyone. Until that Tuesday, my best efforts had been donations in amounts of chicken scratch. On that day, I was unmindful, so I was as disconcerted as my co-workers by what happened at the Isabella Parsons South Recreation Center polling location. I want to tell you about it and about what followed. I promise to keep the telling blithe. I’ll divulge the unpleasantness off camera. I’ll do my best to be amusing. I promise I landed on my feet.

Even though I work for the Ohio Secretary of State, in the Information Technology division, it barely registered with me that it was an election day. I’d voted weeks earlier, so I didn’t need to make a trip to my polling location. I’d noticed a few co-workers wearing voting stickers that morning, but my mind was on my work. At least, it was until I became aware of the commotion.

First it was all the sirens. I have an office with a window and a few co-workers in cubicles came in to look outside, but we didn’t see anything unusual. Everyone began checking their phone for news about what was happening in downtown Columbus.

The print media was scant at first, just a few lines. Youths, armed with squeaky toys, horns, oversized foam bats, and water guns had attacked poll workers and voters. They’d soaked the poll workers and voters. They’d ripped ballots. They’d tried to damage optical scanners.

Eventually, someone turned on the tv in a corner office, and news apps began squawking on phones and laptops. I listened to competing media personalities gravely report what little was known, indicating the direction of the recreation center from their current locations near media trucks, vans bearing satellite dishes, and police barricades.

The eyewitness interviews came later. They said many of the youths had shaved heads and were covered in tattoos. The youths had tormented poll workers and voters by vocalizing an endless litany of nonsense syllables and, in the cacophony, dealt frenzied, but feeble blows and mimed vicious hits to the poll workers and voters or squirted them with water. They’d trashed everything in their paths, breaking or trying to break tables and plastic booths and chairs. Groups of them had worked together, hammering the metal casement of optical scanners with their fists, peeling away protective casing. Others had ripped and scattered ballots.

I managed to do office work while I kept an eye out for media updates. I was engrossed in my work when, in the afternoon, the Director of Elections surprised me. He came into my office and said we were going to the Secretary’s office, meaning the office of the Ohio Secretary of State himself. My surprise morphed into mounting nervousness along the way.

I’m a Software Engineer and a voting machine subject matter expert, also known in the business as a SME, but I’m still a grunt. I don’t fraternize with the executives in my line of work. My boss does. He’s the Director of IT Development. My boss did not accompany the Director of Elections and me to the Secretary’s office.

On the executives’ floor, we passed a lot of offices along the way to the Secretary’s corner office. Everyone seemed subdued. They were all seated alone at their desks and had their heads down, doing something or pretending to be doing something.

The Secretary was sitting behind his desk. I recognized him from the office intranet and tv. Both the Secretary and the Director of Elections are tall, husky men. They were attired in nearly identical suits with red ties and flag pins on the lapel. Neither was smiling.

The Director of Elections motioned for me to sit at a round conference table across from the Secretary’s desk and the Director sat with me. Both the desk and the conference table were expansive but did not begin to fill the spacious office. The décor was mostly window walls. An image of a cartoonish version of myself teetering on a plateau about to be plastered or bumped over the edge by a couple of stern-faced animated bowling pins popped into my mind.

The volume of the tv mounted in a corner was muted, but I saw in multiple frames, activity on streets, reporters reporting, and chyrons rotating. There were white panel vans and people in jumpsuits with booties and hoods. Investigators, I thought, searching the sidewalk and street, collecting evidence.

Still seated at his desk, the Secretary spoke. He said, Thank you for coming, Ellen.

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I stayed mute.

The Secretary spoke in the stilted manner I’d heard before from other SOS staff, like he’d memorized a formal definition or a corporate answer to a frequently asked question. He said, in a measured tone, Due to their weight and size and the amount of human handling it will require in moving them, the optical scanners will be photographed and checked for trace evidence and fingerprints in place, as though they are fixtures.

Since I’m a voting machine SME, I knew the scanners were free-standing and are four feet high at the back of the machine, each measuring two and a half feet across and three feet deep.

The Secretary said, The Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, Jerry Foster, and the detective in charge of the local investigation, and agents from various federal agencies that arrived today, did not agree, at first, about the immediate future of the scanners. The Secretary looked down at notes on his desk. There are twelve SecureVote Optima 9000 optical scanners that were . . . attacked.

I’d met Jerry Foster. We’d attended some meetings arranged by co-workers. I continued to hold the Secretary’s gaze, attentively.

He said, Since transportation has already been arranged by Director Foster . . . since it had been intended that the scanners would be returned to their secure storage location after the polls closed, it has been agreed that the scanners will be transported as arranged by Director Foster, but separately from the other scanners that need to be collected and transported from other polling locations.

Still nothing for me to say, I thought. The moment felt awkward and uncomfortable, and I hoped it didn’t show and that I looked as attentive and interested as I was trying to look. Beside me, the Director of Elections barely seemed to breathe. I kept my eyes on the Secretary.

The Secretary continued, The scanners will be temporarily stored in the Swann Building in a ground floor room with a street-side loading bay.

I’m familiar with the Swann Building. It’s a mostly empty, non-descript office building, cater-cornered from the Greater Columbus Convention Center. I’d been told it was used primarily for storage for overflow from convention center events.

The Secretary said, Ellen, I want you to go to the Swann Building now and examine the scanners. There should be an officer there from the Columbus City Police. Director Foster said someone would be on duty 24/7 to watch over the scanners. I want a report from you by Thursday with any information you can provide from your examination today. Can you do that for us?

Yes, sir, I said quietly.

Then the Director of Elections stood, and I stood, too, and followed him out of the room. I returned to my office, gathered my SOS-issued equipment, and left immediately.

CHAPTER 2

I let my car find a vacant space and handle the parking. I got out a block from the Swann Building. A semi-truck was parked in front of the building and a man pushing an empty dolly emerged from an oversized cargo door several feet from the pedestrian entry and began wrapping and tying off the dolly’s belt. The enormous metal door shut behind him with a bang. There was a single media van that appeared deserted parked a little farther away. I looked up and down the street and listened. The city itself seemed to be in a state of stunned silence.

I shouldered my purse and laptop bag and entered the building. Inside, a wide hall was empty except for two middle-aged men seated on folding metal chairs, flanking each side of a glass door on the left. They stopped mid-conversation and stared at me expectantly. I held out my Secretary of State official ID for the two men to see.

One of the men pulled a clipboard from under his chair. There was a pen and sign-in sheet caught under its clip. He handed the clipboard to me. I signed in and handed the clipboard back. The man motioned into the room and asked, Do you know Jerry? I nodded once and entered the room.

The twelve SecureVote Optima 9000 optical scanners were arranged in a row near the back wall and were spaced so that each could be examined on all sides. Near the scanners, several folding metal chairs had been haphazardly scattered. Three of them were occupied by men who glanced over at me and then continued conversing, ignoring my presence.

A uniformed police officer stood by the large metal door to the street. The officer took a few steps toward me, and I held out my ID badge for him to see.

All right, he said. This young woman is from the Secretary of State, the officer announced.

Jerry Foster glanced over at me again and then away before slowly rising from his chair, all the while continuing to speak to one of the other men. Then he turned and walked toward me and said, Good afternoon. I’m Director Jerry Foster. I know I’ve met you before, but I’m very sorry, I can’t recall your name.

Ellen Matthews, I said. I’m with the IT division. I held out my hand and continued, The Secretary wants me to do a preliminary assessment of the damage.   

Jerry smiled politely and shook my hand.

Gesturing toward the older of the two men who remained seated near the scanners, Jerry said, Well, Ellen, this is Ken Warren. He’s on our Board of Directors.

I smiled and nodded my head at Ken. Ken did not get up or acknowledge me, other than with a slight gesture in my direction without making eye contact.

Jerry introduced the other seated man as Larry Rice from the Franklin County Board of Elections IT division and the police officer as Officer Hunt. Larry and Officer Hunt were a little more personable and both uttered a friendly, Hi.

Jerry motioned toward the scanners and led me to the first in the row. In truth, I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. Neither the Secretary, nor any of his staff, including some thirty lawyers, nor the Director of Elections had given me any instructions for the assessment. I had read and revised many disaster recovery plans, but I couldn’t recall any in which this situation had been addressed.

I didn’t know of any protocol I should follow to assess the damage, so I was uncertain what I was allowed to do and what I was not. However, the Secretary himself had instructed me to report back to him with a preliminary assessment of the damage, so, apparently, I had the authority to evaluate the damage. I did not share my concerns about protocol with Jerry and hoped I projected purposefulness.

I walked slowly around each of the scanners and examined the protective housings and liquid crystal displays. I knelt by each port for close examination. The doors covering the ports of the first four scanners were unlocked. Three of the scanners with unlocked port doors were missing a memory card.

After looking over all twelve scanners, I returned to the one with the unlocked port door and the memory card still in its place. I examined this memory card more closely. It appeared mauled. With some difficulty, I ejected the card.

Too late, I realized I’d just contributed to the vote tampering. I felt a little panicky. I thought the mauling probably meant that the memory card wouldn’t be used for counting votes anyway, but I did not want to chance further damage to the data by forcing the card back into its slot in the machine. Jerry had not moved away, and I glanced quickly in his direction to confirm he was still watching me. All I could think to do to save face was to perform some diagnostics. I