North Carolina Activists & Issues

Buncombe opts for optical scan voting
Asheville Citizen

Buncombe County voters will cast their ballots using optical scan machines when they go to the polls in November.

County commissioners Tuesday approved a recommendation from the Board of Elections to purchase the new voting system.

The county also will return touch-screen machines used during the primary and runoff, and will instead use Automark machines for those with disabilities.

“I think what is best for the (election) workers and what is best for the voters is one system,” Trena Parker, elections director told members of the Elections Board on Tuesday.

The county is working to comply with a new state law that requires a paper trail that voters can verify when they cast their ballots.

Election Board members originally recommended the county purchase touch-screen machines, but county commissioners rejected that recommendation.

Commissioner Carol Peterson predicted the optical scan system would boost voter confidence and voter turnout.

“I hope you’re right about turnout,” Jones Byrd, chairman of the Elections Board told Peterson. “I really do.”

This is a great victory for NC. The state is now 76% OpScan, which is a severe drubbing for the pro-BBV election officials.

I would encourage all the folks in NC to call or write the Buncombe Co. Commissioners and thank them for listening to their constituents.

Update: I took this report down for a few days because of objections about my having taken this job in the first place by unnamed individuals in Raleigh. A dustup has ensued in that some people were angry that I stated my opinion of DREs. Now my opinion of DREs is the same as it has always been and is not going to change. Why this shocks some folks in the establishment I have no clue.

In view of these objections, I will not be taking ANY compensation from PrintElect, even though I had planned on donating the money to charity. I doubt it will be possible for me to work with them in November given the hue and cry.

That said, I am proud of my state and its election officials. They deployed a brand new system with VERY few problems, none of which were more than minor wrinkles. I also commend PrintElect for the hard work they did in making things run smoothly. Rather than follow the tried and true Diebold formula of denigrating your critics, lying and keeping your actions cloaked in secrecy, PrintElect let someone like me in to observe, creating greater, MUCH NEEDED transparency in our election process. I am disappointed that some election officials find this openness intolerable, but that's their problem, not mine.

While many states (Ohio comes to mind) were pulling their hair out with machine failures and the fruits of poor training, North Carolina came through with flying colors.

Problems with ES&S hardware were identified BEFORE the election and remedial actions taken. Why did that happen? Because our law, the law the voters helped pass, REQUIRED that the state be made aware of such problems as soon as they occur. In the past, vendors would have been allowed to hide such problems, which they often did.

In short, our law worked, and we are leading the nation in how it should be done.

Kudos to the voters, the voting activists and our election officials in Raleigh and locally (even the cranky ones). Congrats to PrintElect (but I still don't like DREs) for being open and remembering that "it's the transparency, stupid!" Special thanks to Linda Mundy and her very fine staff in Taylorsville. I appreciate them taking time to show me elections from their side of the table.

***

Joyce McCloy of NC Verified Voting sent me a link to a job listing about a month ago for people to act as "rovers" during the NC primary election. The rover's job (one per county)was to assist county election officials with any problems they encountered with voting machines (OpScan and DRE) on election day.

While technical experience was preferred, it was not necessary. Pay was $300 a day plus mileage, meals and hotel expenses for two days. Training would be provided the week prior to election day.

Disclosure: All funds I receive for my efforts will be donated to charity, and documentation posted to certify this. My intention was to get a close look at ES&S systems and procedures as a citizen activist and to provide competent technical assistance if it was needed, not to make money. I was reluctant to take this job on since I knew it would give ammunition in some quarters that "David is in the pay of a voting machine company" and I really don't need THAT headache.

However the opportunity was too good to pass up, so I am risking it anyway.

I would welcome suggestions on who to donate the money to. I am leaning toward a cancer Charity in memory of Andy.

The training session was divided into two classes, one for OpScan and one for DRE. When I arrived, I didn't know this and walked into the first room with lots of ES&S people. I got through most of the I-Votronic class, before they realized I was set to work in an OpScan county.

The DRE training was eye-opening. Working the machine is complicated, with each voter needing to have an electronic cartridge to initialize the machine before they can vote. The number of things that can go wrong, while not extensive, is certainly much more problematic than on an optical scan system (the sheet for trouble shooting DREs is about six pages, for OpScan two).

The trickiest part of the system is the VVPB printer. Since they are using thermal paper, you have put the paper roll in correctly. This was stressed repeatedly during training. The easiest way to be sure you where feeding the printing side correctly was to scratch the paper's surface with a finger nail. The treated side will leave a mark, the untreated side will not. We were also warned to keep an eye on the tape during operation to be sure that it was in fact printing (the paper was fed in correctly and had not jammed).

Jamming was a concern for obvious reasons, but distressingly the system does not appear to detect jams, so the DRE will keep functioning even if the tape has jammed or is not printing. This is, of course, unacceptable. After the election, we had reports of paper being fed incorrectly in eleven machines in Mecklenburg Co. (Charlotte). I did not attend the training session for that county, or the training session for poll workers, so I do not know how well the issue was stressed.

When the printer is working, it records each and every action on the system. Move into supervisor mode, this is recorded. Each and every button you push is recorded, which is how it should be.

The downside is that it burns through paper, meaning you have to change the roll about every 100 voters. And of course, changing the paper roll, while simple enough for those familiar with the process, can be a major hurdle when performed by the unskilled under the stress of an election day. Older poll workers with poor manual dexterity or eye sight are going to have problems.

All of this demonstrates why DREs, even ones with VVPB, are a bad choice for elections:

1) You have to have multiple machines per precinct. OpScan requires one machine per precinct.

2) Only as many people can vote at a time as you have machines. With OpScan, any number of people can vote at the same time, as long as they have space for the ballot and a little distance for privacy.

3) Deployment of multiple machines means trucks must be hired for delivery. OpScan will fit in the trunk of a car.

4) If a machine fails, voting cannot occur on that machine. If battery problems ensue, or power is lost for a long enough period of time, voting STOPS. With OpScan voting occurs whether the scanner is working or not. The ballots are placed in the ballot box and scanned later.

5) The procedures for starting up DREs is a bit involved. Rebooting a hung machine is time consuming, and there are electrical cords and cables to keep track of.

Votes are stored on paper, on a compact flash memory card, and inside the machine. The flash card has a seal over it which must be broken to remove it. Removing the card during the election will halt the machine, and require supervisor intervention, and action by the judges at the polling place.

I was told that the supervisor password for the units would be the same for the entire state. It was explained that this was being done to help with deploying a brand new system statewide for the first time, and that in the future, it would be up to the counties to set the passwords.

OpScan training was a breeze compared to DREs. The AutoMark unit was particularly impressive, as it is the unit for use by the disabled. It has an audio feature for the blind, (with standard headphones supplied, but I noted that it had the old RCA-style audio jack as well). It also had a standard connection of sip/puff paddles for use by those with mobility problems. You can turn the screen off so no one can see how you are voting. I did this and closed my eyes, in order to see how well I could cast a ballot.

Child's play.

The electronic voice is a bit creepy, but the system worked as advertised. You insert your ballot in the slot (orientation is irrelevant, the system can work with the ballot no matter what way you you insert it, as long as you insert it straight. Insertion can be done by a poll worker since the ballot has yet to be marked).

Once it is in, the system prompts you on how to use the controls, then reads each race off to you and names the candidates as you scroll through them.

When you are through making your choices, you are given and opportunity to review and make changes. When you cast you vote, the ballot is marked and ejected for the voter to take (or an assistant or poll worker can take it and run it through the scanner for tallying. A person with problems using their hands will still need help at this point).

BTW, ANYONE can use the AutoMark. Poll workers are instructed to ask no questions if someone requests to use the machine to cast their vote (the machine would also allow the illiterate to vote). Once the ballot has been created, but before it is submitted for tallying, you can still change your mind, spoil your ballot and get another one. Once scanned, it goes automatically into the locked ballot box and alea jacta est.

You cannot overvote with the AutoMark (provided the ballot is programmed correctly). You can undervote, but it is a bit harder to do accidentally, since the machine reads off each race.

For the rest of us, voting is like the SATs. Take the ballot and mark it with a pen.

Problems with OpScan and the AutoMark were pretty much in the paper jam department. Correcting them was pretty simple.

The OpScan unit was pretty simple to use, but had one flaw which has caused ES&S trouble of late. It uses a battery-backed SRAM PCMCIA card to store its votes. Why ES&S chose this type of card mystifies me. Compact Flash (which requires no battery) is a much better choice. In fact, it is what they use on the AutoMark. I hope to get an answer from ES&S on this issue.

You can under/over vote, which is a big disadvantage. Supposedly, the OpScan's are being set to detect overvotes and reject the ballot. It could also be set to reject under votes but this is not being done by order of the SBoE. I am trying to learn why.

On to election day.

There is not really much to say about it. Monday I drove down to Taylorsville, NC (Alexander Co.) and met Linda Mundy, the county election director. She was very solicitous, very dedicated, and very serious about avoiding problems. She was concerned about the memory card problems, and had an entire set of spares on hand to cover each precinct.

Alexander Co. is small, with only 16 precincts. Ms. Mundy loves her OpScan units and said that DRE was never an option in her county. Her voters are older and would not have welcomed DRE.

Election day came and the memory cards behaved themselves. There were a few minor hitches, the most frequent being that the OpScan unit was not seated correctly on the ballots box (the OpScan unit sits on a box the size of a small filing cabinet. This is the ballot box and is locked and sealed). These problems were all solved on the phone without the need for an on-site visit.

The day went on with nary a problem. At the end of the day, the PC cards were brought in (along with poll tapes and poll books), the cards read, and the resulted transferred to a separate machine which transmitted the results to Raleigh. The results were also phoned in for comparison.

And here we have the weakness of the system. I saw no indication that the resulted transmitted were encrypted. The file was straight ASCII and went, as best I can tell, by an FTP protocol. Handling the cards is a "chain of custody" issue, and the folks in Alexander followed the rules as best I could tell.

NC law mandates random audit of a percentage of precincts in each county. This recount allows us to double check the machines for accuracy and as a guard against fraud. If the hand-eye count shows deviation from the digital count, the paper count is taken, the digital count discarded. Any unexplained deviation can trigger a larger hand recount. While OpScan systems can experience deviations in the count due to improperly marked ballots or scanner calibartion issues, DREs should match hand counts 100%. Deviation on a DRE means that either: 1) You miscounted the paper. 2) The software/hardware malfunctioned, or 3) Someone tampered with the results.

The NC SBoE did follow the law, but broke security by announcing which precincts would be counted to the election directors PRIOR to the election. This was stupid and must not be repeated. A letter has been sent to the state director asking for an explanation of this decision.

All in all, this was a pretty smooth deployment. It was also NOT indicative of what could happen in November, as the general election will involved a LOT more voters. Hand-counting DRE's VVPB will be an inconvenience in the primary, but a major pain in a general election. Look for lots of whining from counties with DREs.

I predict that counties with OpScan will have fewer problems than counties with DREs in November.

I don't know if I will be able to serve in this capacity in the Fall, as the powers that be in Raleigh were not exactly happy to learn I was out in the field. They are still convinced my only purpose in life is to make them look bad. It never occurs to them that I might actually care about fair and accurate elections.

Note: I got an email from a reader inquiring as to my credentials, which I realize aren't posted on the site. So for those who wish to know. Here they are:

I am an MCSE, a Compaq ASE and have a number of vendor tech certifcations from Okidata, HP, Compaq and IBM. I have written freelamce about PCs and had a regular tech column at one time in a regional paper. I taught computer courses and worked as a tech/SE for over 20 years. I spent eight years working for a company that wrote software for banks. In 2004-2005 I served as a member of the NC Joint Select Committee on Electronic Voting that drafted S223, the Public Confidence in Election Act.

The bad news first:

The Guilford County Commisioners voted 8-2 to sepnd $7.5 million of the taxpayer's money for the privlege of being guinea pigs for ES&S' untested TS system. While a few commissioners did bother to question the issue, several who shall remain nameless were so solicitous of the Gilbert and his gang, I thought they were going to offer to massage their prostates.

Despite providing hard evidence that Gilbert had cooked the numbers, the commissioners never bothered to ask about this. Most were just content to accept the BoE's "expert" opinion and agree with whatever they proposed. The only sticking point was the issue of voting centers.

As you know, we have been mentioning the stupidity of shutting down 40, or so, precincts in favor of large voting centers that voters would have to travel to in order to cast their vote on election day. We have made a point to include criticism of the plan in our communications with commissioners about DREs versus OpScan. Our scorn for voting centers seems to have found a receptive audience, even if our concerns about DREs didn't.

Commissioners Alston, Yow and Cashion made it clear that they were prepared to vote against the BoE on their plan to buy DREs if they didn't drop the voting centers idea. Several other commissioners made similar noises without saying it outright. Faster than you could say "Voting centers? What are voting centers?" the BoE jettisoned the plan. It was removed from the agenda by a vote of 10-0, a rare display of unanimity for these folks.

What next? I am mulling this over. I have a few avenues to pursue and see what I can turn up. The issue is far from over.

New voting machines for Chatham County
Ken Bogs
Chatham County Weekly

I am concerned and bewildered with the decision making process Chatham County is going thru in preparation to purchasing new voting machines. I am no stranger to how we vote having been a Chief Judge at a major polling site. Nor am I unfamiliar with the technologies involved having worked in computer systems product development for over 30 years.

The bottom line is that DREs (touch screen/computer based machines) are a bad solution fraught with risks and problems while the latest optical mark machines, supported by a HAVA compliant machine for the disabled, is the current best choice. How do I know this?

Some of the technical reasons for not trusting the DRE results are evident in what has already happened in their use in elections. Note these problems have occurred without the responsible election officials having any idea they were happening at the time.

DREs have lost valid ballots

DREs added inappropriate ballots

DREs have provided the wrong ballots

DRE tabulating has failed to count properly

DREs have handed votes to the wrong candidate

DREs are prone to breaking down during the election

DRE printer results are not usable for a manual recount

A DRE is required for every 150 to 300 eligible voters, which results in a large number of DREs required for every polling site. This increases the time, effort, and complexity of pre-election testing, polling site setup, need for backup machines, security of machines, and associated materials.

DREs require additional poll workers. In some cases, it takes one poll worker for every three machines. Already, Chatham County has had difficulty in obtaining polling place workers. If DREs are used, it is obvious that this situation is made worse and/or the polling sites are under man'd to the disservice to the voters.

DREs require far more training for both the poll workers and the back-office election staff. Contrary to expectations of simplifying the election process, DREs significantly increase the front-end load on both groups. Further, this load is experienced during every election since the setup for each election is unique.

DREs life expectancy is not well understood and could result in the necessity to replace them within a few years. It is commonplace with personal computer system technology, that is the basis for the DRE, that such machines are obsolete roughly every two years.

It will be a sad day if we trust our democracy to these DREs. We can do much better with the opti-scan.

The op-eds and last minute rallying by activists seems to have helped some. Chatham County avoided wholesale folly, but still insisted on throwing good tax-payer money in the trash.

Our BOE decided last Friday to propose a system of pure DREs, based unbelievably) on the rationale of cheaper cost. We found tons of errors, omissions, and bias in their cost estimates. After a flood of hurried grassroots lobbying over the weekend, and a helpful letter from Al McSurely, the BOE backed down tonight and proposed a compromise which was approved by the BOC.

It is the Durham Co solution: Both OptiScans and DREs. The DREs will be used for early voting at 3 or 4 "One-Stop" sites. The OptiScans will be used for precinct tabulation of paper ballots on Election Day only. A number of ADA-DREs will be purchased for use by the disabled in the precincts on Election Day.

Somehow the BOE came up with this complicated proposal that has us buying somewhere between 38 and 45 additional DRE machines, a separate software system, and accompanying long-term support for both, yet it is said to be $12k cheaper than a pure OptiScan system.

It seems that pro-DRE election officials around the state are flat-out fabricating numbers to support their bogus claims that OpScan is more expensive than DRE. We must call them on every lie they tell.

Using numerous justifications long on "truthiness", short on logic, the Guilford County Board of Elections nailed their colors to the mast of George Gilbert's ship, S.S. Titanic II.

Among the "truthy" assertions:

• Forcing poll workers to go back to OpScan equipment would be like telling fighter pilots that since we can't trust computers to fly jets, they must go back to flying Hellcats, a 1943 propeller-driven fighter plane.

This is retarded on so many levels.

First, the avionics package of fighter aircraft undergo debugging and quality testing several orders of magnitude greater than any such testing on voting machines. As computer scientist Justin Moore pointed out, 500 Boeing programmers spent $5 billion and five years on the avionics code used in its 777 aircraft. The annual sales for the entire voting machine industry is less than a fifth of that number, meaning that far, far less money has been spent on debugging TS voting machines.

Second, training people to use a simpler system is more complicated?

Huh?

Is the concept of "pen and paper" now beyond the ken of poll workers?

• We have had some problems with OpScan ballots, and this results in situations like Florida 2000, where we had to determine "voter intent". When the scanner can't read a ballot due to a "technical glitch", election officials must "re-mark the ballot".

First, this is an "apples and oranges" comparison. Problems in Florida involved punch cards, not OpScan ballots. The problems are NOT the same.

Second, could someone explain to me why OpScan systems are subject to "technical glitches" but DRE's aren't?

Third, why is ANYONE re-marking a ballot? If the ballot is marked OK, but the scanner will not record it, it is set aside with other ballots with similar problems and those ballots are then hand-counted. The results of that count are then manually added to the vote tally. Why in God's name is ANYONE re-marking a ballot?

• DRE's are more reliable than OpScan and have fewer undervotes.

The basis for these claims were George Gilbert's numbers (the man who has never given the same cost estimate for DREs twice) and a 9/05 working paper from the Cal-Tech/MIT voting project. So far, I have been unable to locate this paper, but I will keep looking.

I can tell you that DREs having fewer undervotes than OpScan is not supported by the evidence I have seen. I also pointed out to the BoE that a "working paper" is not a "peer-reviewed" paper, and subject to correction.

In the end the BoE sided with DREs using words like "easy", "less expensive", "what we are used to" and tired claims about the greater accuracy of machines versus hand-counting which brings up the paradox that humans are too stupid to handle simple addition, but are absolute genuises when it comes to writing hundreds of thousands of lines of complex computer code.

The fight now moves to the Guilford County Commisioners who must approve the expenditure. It will be interesting to see how many of them will be willing add their fingerprints to this crime against the voters.

At today's meeting of the Guilford County Board of Elections, board member Jim Pfaff took me to task for referring to him on this site as "Mike Pfaff" while engaging in "personal attacks" against him.

I apologized for the error, as it is my responsibilty to get names right no matter what. I just sat down and reviewed the three postings Mr. Pfaff appeared in and determined that I did indeed refer to him as "Mike" once out of the nineteen times I mentioned his name. For the record, I do apologize to Mr. Pfaff for the error.

At the time Mr. Pfaff brought this error to my attention, I afforded him an opportunity to apologize to the hundreds of votings activists across the state who he maligned as "spammers" and "Luddites". While calling computer professionals and people who build sophisticated web sites "Luddites" is silly, calling people "spammers" is a "personal attack" and damned insulting.

Mr Pfaff flatly refused to apologize.

So be it.

Before this post, I commented about Mr. Pfaff in three posts, here, here, and here. You may read these posts and judge for yourself whether he has been subject to "personal attacks". In these posts I quote from a news story about his views on voting machines and point out why his views are wrong or lacking in authority. At no time do I call him any names. I did publish his email address, which is publicly available (and he is allegedly a public servant) and asked people to try and illuminate this man's viewpoints. I did so thus:

Folks wishing to express their polite opinions of this base slander should drop Mr. Pfaff a line at:

JSPfaffLaw@aol.com

Mr. Pfaff complained to members of the press earlier about impolite emails which he received on the issue, and made the same assertion today, yet has declined press requests to show us these emails. This is important if we are to judge whether the emails are in any way abusive, or whether Mr. Pfaff simply classifies people who don't agree with him as abusive.

Mr. Pfaff's behavior in this matter both last week and today tempt me to use words such as "arrogant", "pompous", "assinine", "prig" or even "tin-plated, over-bearing dictator with delusions of godhood" to describe him, but such comments would reasonably be construed as a "personal attack", thus I must refrain.

Mr. Pfaff seems to be unable to differentiate between legitimate criticism from his constituents and personal attacks, which is odd given that he is a lawyer and a public official. This flaw in his perceptions indicates to me that he might be better suited for less stressful pursuits such as organizing a quilting bee, sheep herding or the professional Scrabble™ circuit.

Voting snafu fix creates its own problems
High Point Enterprise

It seems efforts in North Carolina to prevent a repeat of the 2004 voting machine snafu in Carteret County are turning into about as big a fiasco as that equipment malfunction was initially.

With the filing period for the May primaries and the November general election just a few weeks away, commissioners and elections officials in counties all across the state are rushing to select new voting machines with only hopes that the equipment will be in place by May.

Disputes between State Board of Elections officials and voting machine makers over requirements, restrictions and the release of information about machines has resulted in only one company being interested in selling new voting equipment in the state.

And now, some counties – such as Randolph County – are being forced to spend millions of taxpayer dollars for new voting machines to replace voting equipment that has been reliable and verifiable and hasn’t yet worn out.

The kind of voting equipment Randolph County has been using for several years – optical scanners that tabulate specially designed and marked paper ballots – really ought to be the voting-method standard for the state.

The OpScan system may work fine, but the laws, federal and state, have rendered the old systems out of compliance. The vendors, as always, have provided no upgrade path for the older systems and are telling election officials that they must buy new equipment. This is part of the gravy train they have been riding for years.

Optical scanner systems offer the speed and convenience of electronics while providing the reliability of a paper ballot that a voter can hold in his or her hand, mark and insert into a scanner. Then, after results are tabulated, paper ballots remain for recounting by scanner or by hand in case there is some question about an election’s outcome.

But, because of a State Board of Elections decision to decertify all existing voting equipment in the state, Randolph County commissioners reluctantly voted Monday to spend almost $600,000 to replace all of its voting equipment with new optical scanners. The only up side for Randolph County taxpayers in this deal is that the county’s existing machines are 10 years old and federal funding set aside for buying new voting equipment across the nation will cover the entire amount. But Randolph County folks are federal taxpayers, too, and if new equipment wasn’t needed, Randolph officials should not have been forced to buy it.

See above comment.

In Guilford County, elections officials are nearing a decision on what type of equipment to buy to replace outdated touchscreen machines. New touch-screen machines that produce a verifiable paper trail will cost about $5 million. An optical scanner system would cost around $2 million.

We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: For the sake of Guilford County taxpayers and voters, the county elections board should pick optical scanner equipment.

Hello. ... Is anybody home?

Optical scanner systems offer the speed and convenience of electronics while providing the reliability of a paper ballot.

We'll see, we'll see...

Last night's demo of ES&S voting hardware before the public and the Guilford BoE was well attended (about 100 people)m, with officials and the vendor peppered with questions by the voters.

Of the 14 people who signed up to comment of the issue, OpScan was favored 11-3.

Today's vote will be very illuminating.

A New Voting System for Guilford County

Date of Forum: January 12, 2006
Time: 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Place: County Commissioners Meeting Room
2nd Floor
Old Courthouse building
301 W Market St
Greensboro, NC

This will be ES&S showing off their TS and OpScan systems. George Gilbert has made it clear that he will disregard the voter's wishes and buy the more expensive TS systems rather than the cheaper, more reliable Optical Scan systems.

This will be your chance to express you opinion to the Guilford Co. Board of Elections who can overrule Gilbert's folly. Mike Jim Pfaff, the board member who has viciously attacked voting machine activists as "spammers" and "Luddites" might be present, but is a lost cause being just as determined as Gilbert to embrace pricey and unreliable technology. The key to this vote are the other two board members James Turner and Thaddeus Warner.

We would like to use only OpScan in Guilford Co., but unfortunately, vendors (including ES&S) have crippled their OpScan systems so that they can only handle a limited number of ballots. This means that during early voting (which makes up about 30% of Guilford voters) it would be impossible to use OpScan since they cannot handle the over 400 ballots styles that are needed for early voting.

There are long-term solutions to this problem, but we are stuck with dealing with this NOW. The short-term solution is to use TS systems that produce a paper ballot in early voting, and OpScan on election day. I wish we could do it another way, but this is the only realistic scenario for Guilford County at this time.

This compromise limits the harm and expense of TS systems, while building a base for OpScan which will allow us to seek other solutions to the limitations of the OpScan system in the future, and phase out the TS systems.

Please take the time to come over and express your opinion on this matter and endorse this compromise solution.

While the big dog & pony show is Thursday, the actual vote will take place on Friday, January 13th, at 12:00 noon. If you can get away for this meeting, a show of support would certainly help. This meeting will be held at the BoE offices (same buidling as above), so it may, or may not, be open to the public. Regardless, we will be there, even if we have to stand in the corridors.