Posted on 11/07/2006 6:18:05 AM PST by Timeout
Edited on 11/07/2006 6:29:22 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Voting machines began wreaking havoc the minute the polls opened Tuesday, delaying voters in dozens of Indiana and Ohio precincts and leaving some in Florida with little choice but turn to paper ballots instead.
In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new voting machines that they couldn't get to start properly.
"We got five machines - one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a trouble shooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.
Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., planned to seek a court order to extend voting after an apparent computer error prevented voters from casting ballots in 75 precincts. Delaware County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the machines were programmed incorrectly.
"We are working with precincts one-by-one over the telephone to get the problem fixed," Wenger said.
With a third of Americans voting on new equipment and voters navigating new registration databases and changing ID rules, election watchdogs worried about polling problems even before the voting began Tuesday.
Although turnout generally is lower in midterm elections, this year was the deadline for many of the election changes enacted in the wake of the Florida balloting chaos of 2000.
The 2002 Help America Vote Act required or helped states to replace outdated voting equipment, establish statewide voter registration databases, require better voter identification and provide provisional ballots so qualified voters can have a say if something goes wrong.
"There has not been an election in decades that has had this much change," said Wendy Weiser, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school.
Control of Congress is also at stake this year, with all 435 House seat and 33 of 100 Senate seats are up for grabs, along with 36 governors' offices. Because individual congressional races are generally decided by fewer votes than presidential contests, any problems at the polls are more likely to affect the outcome.
According to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm, 32 percent of registered voters were using equipment added since the 2004 elections.
Nearly half of all voters were using optical-scan systems that ask them to fill in blanks, with ballots then fed into a computer. Thirty-eight percent were casting votes on touchscreen machines that have been criticized as susceptible to hackers.
Election experts say both types of voting machines are bound to cause trouble.
Touchscreens may display incorrect ballots or fail to boot properly. Voters using optical-scan equipment might circle a name instead of filling in a box.
Poll workers also might not be adequately trained to handle the unexpected, which can cause delays as voters were already discovering Tuesday.
Voting-machine vendors said they had thousands of workers on the ground and special command centers to handle any problems.
"Elections have hundreds and hundreds of moving parts, and most of those parts have to do with humans," said Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. "There will be isolated issues throughout the nation I'm sure. That's just the normal part of elections. Overall we feel confident things will go pretty well."
Just getting to the right polling place with all the right identification posed a challenge for some voters.
Excerpt. Continues Forbes
Seems everyone wants to show how modern they are -- look at us, we use these fancy electronic gadgets to count votes. Like when cell phones first became available -- even today, I think some people flash them around just to show how "hip" they are.
I don't necessarily object to technology, but there are times when it's not an improvement over the old ways.
We have the mark the ballot with the special pen, run it through the machine here in rural Lowndes county, Alabama. This is a heavily democrat, black county. We manage quite nicely, voter ID included. I can't understand why it can't be standard practice nationwide. It gives you a paper ballot and machine reading and counting. If Lowndes county can afford it and make it work, it'll work anywhere. Unless evil forces don't want it to.
Jean Schmidt couldn't vote for herself in OH-2 this morning. The scanner machines were broken. They just are storing the paper ballots, going to get machines that work, and feed them all in later as a group.
Cuyahoga County
DemocRAT bastion of Ohio. always the last to report so they know how many votes they need to get from the graveyard.
I think you meant to type "It's" vs. "It'd" correct? Anyway, I voted straight R in Ohio this morning and when I pushed the print button... a straight D ballot appeared in the window. I asked the poll worker what was wrong and they opened the machine and said the paper roll was jammed. I'd say that was a tool malfunction vs a craftsman error, wouldn't you?
You should report that to GOP HQ as well as the elections office.
Never know when your county might be the next Palm Beach!
And then people would be buying and selling votes. You cannot have a receipt saying how you voted for that reason.
In my FL county early voting started on Oct. 23. I voted on that day on an electric machine and had no problems whatsoever. No stories of the machines breaking down in the weeks since.
Likewise in Republican outpost in democratic People's Republic of Lake County
I voted in Clermont County, Ohio. Had to wait a half-hour, but no problems. We have the fill-in-the-dot, scantron ballots -- Two pages, both sides. The showing of the ID's is taking up most of the time.
I voted on a wacky Diebold machine today in Cuyahoga county (Cleveland and burbs). The person before me complained that it put the X on the wrong candidate. She called a poll worker over. Neither of them could get it to register the correct vote. The poll worker called over a couple other workers and said in a loud voice, "She wants to vote for XXXXX (D) and it won't register." Everyone in the place heard her vote. So much for the private ballot. She never could get that vote to register. I thought, oh, no, the Repubs will get blamed for her vote being locked out.
Then it was my turn to vote. Guess which machine I got? I hesitated but then figured, "I'm not stupid. I can get this to work."
All went well as I voted for Blackwell. When I got to the sec'y of state, it wouldn't register for either candidate. It just beeped. I hit it about 10 times. No deal, just beeps. I called over the worker and said, "Watch. It won't register." Of course, it DID register that time. Oh, well.
It happened on a few other candidates but it found you just have to mash the touch screen really hard and then it works. This was the only machine that was bad. My wife on another machine said just a light tap was all that was needed.
So, either I, RightWingAssault am a moron or the machines do have some issues. I'll let you decide.
There were lines since a lot of people never voted in the primary where the machines were first used, so people were really slow.
Some people are just slow voters anyway. They insist on reading the whole 2,000 word issue followed the the 500 word issue, followed by the 1,000 word issue. Nice to come prepared.
Had 4 Diebold touchscreens the lines were out the door and only 1 machine was in operation.
I heard no positive remarks about the new machines.
On a positive note they did want picture ID to vote. And there was no electioneering outside the polls.
Yes, it is a good thing.
I voted early here in NM and offered twice to show my photo ID (Drivers license). Both times I was ignored.
My "brand new shiny voter ID card" was taken and I was found in the system. Don't know what would have happened if I had forgotten to bring that.
The hacked program that DemocRATs loaded had a bug in it - my guess
Also, the machine I mentioned in post #72 did several incorrect votes. I hit my candidate and it ended up for the Dem. A second hit corrected it. Again, as far as I can tell, it was just that machine since my wife had no problem nor did anyone else complain.
From previous experience, reinforced today, tools break.
We have people living in space, but we can't get a voting machine to work correctly. I don't believe it.
I heard that too. Sounds like the dem clerk Dana De-bu-wah couldn't get her stuff and story straight.
Imagine that, a Dem with no brains...
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