Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06

[Judi Lynn]

Posted 3/27/2006 11:36 PM
Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Problems using voting machines in the Texas and Illinois primaries this month have reinforced fears that the 2006 elections may be beset with glitches.

"There's a lot of evidence that some of those fears are coming to pass," says Doug Chapin, president of Electionline.org, a non-partisan group that studies elections. "The theory that new technology results in error seems to be borne out early in the process."

More than 30 million Americans will be voting on unfamiliar equipment this year, after modernization required by the Help America Vote Act. Congress passed the law in 2002 to address problems stemming from the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

Among early trouble spots:

• The largest jurisdictions in Illinois, Chicago and Cook County, encountered problems in the March 21 primary. In some cases, precinct election judges didn't get hands-on training before the election. There were paper jams, misplaced memory cartridges containing election results and long delays in counting.
(snip/...)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-27-voting-machines_x.htm

[Copperred]

1. R people going to finally realize this is the NUMBER ONE ISSUE IN AMERICA

If Indians can vote in villages....why can't we??

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

2. --this is something we never could have foreseen- n/t

[Wilms]

3. Surprised to hear this from electionline. But

John Gideon was riding them two weeks ago for soft-peddling the Texas meltdown.

Since then, they've reported, accurately, that PA may well have a really rough time getting ready for an election. And now Chapin's comment.

The writing is on the wall, Doug. Eh?

[rodeodance]

4. I have heard more than a few say they will stay home if vote not count. I

think the news is getting around.

[mom cat]

5. Glad this is getting press!

[derby378]

6. Solution: Refuse to use touchscreens

If they steer you to a touchscreen, refuse to use it. Demand a VVPB machine. If they still don't offer you one, demand one anyway.

[mopinko]

9. there is no use complaining to polling place workers

they have nothing to say about it. write to your local voting authorities, and find out about any public meetings on the topic and attend.
but don't harass the poor poll workers.

[OzarkDem]

7. About those memory cartridges

Reminds me of how, with the old lever-type voting machines, all the votes used to be counted at each precinct after the polls closed, with the totals sent into the BOE after tally was complete.

Doesn't this still make sense, to tally votes at each precinct before sending them to the BOE for verification? Its understandable how this couldn't be done with punch cards as the cost of putting a tabulator at each precinct would be prohibitive.

But with memory cartridges, wouldn't it be easy to return to the practice of counting the votes at each precinct before sending the data to the BOE?

[mopinko]

8. illinois law

requires this, and afaik, this is still standard procedure elsewhere. poll tapes must be posted publicly. i keep trying to sell people a plan to have volunteers visit their polling places on election night and report those totals so that they can be compared with the reported totals.
someone was trying to do this in '04, but i never heard anything about it afterward.
in primaries, i would have to bet that errors always benefit the candidate with the big money. that's how it worked here in il 6th.

[roseBudd]

10. Here is the yahoo link, rate it up it only has 30 votes....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060328/ts_usatoday/primaryvotingmachinetroublesraiseconcernsfor06;_ylt=AqjA_UYq04d0QCCFyyAJdIms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-