Some of My Favorite "Glitches" (aka "Why I KNOW It Was Stolen")

[IdaBriggs]

The following are a small sampling of the HUNDREDS of REPORTED problems that occurred in the November, 2004 election. Of the 400+ incidents, all but 2 FAVORED REPUBLICANS. (Two Republican Texas judicial candidates who had pissed off members of their own party discovered they couldn't vote for themselves -- was the "message" received?) These don't count the 40,000+ folks who screamed bloody murder when "a glitch" flipped Kerry votes to Bush if they voted for a Democrat anywhere else on the ticket.....Enjoy!

#1 (FL): Group Sues Fla. County Over Ballot Glitch

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Opponents of a measure to add slot machines at south Florida race tracks are demanding a recount in Broward County, insisting there is something strange about a batch of 78,000 absentee votes that helped tip the scales for the proposal.

Gambling opponents said 94 percent of the 78,000 ballots, which were not correctly counted on Election Day, were in favor of the constitutional amendment. That exceeds Broward's countywide approval margin of 70 percent.

"It's a million to one that this could happen somehow by itself," state Rep. Randy Johnson said Monday. "It's bizarre."

<more> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041116/ap_on_el_pr/florida_slot_machines

#2 (UT): 33,000 ballots lost in shuffle

Voters in Utah County had more than a one in five chance that their ballots did not get counted in the initial, unofficial tally from Election Day.

A programming glitch in the punch-card counter dropped 33,000 ballots from the totals - all of them straight-party ballots. That was more than 22 percent of the 145,769 ballots cast in the Republican stronghold.

"The card readers were fine; it was just the way it was programmed initially," Utah County elections coordinator Kristen Swensen said Friday. "It was just off by one letter."

<more> http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2453243

#3 (IN): Voting machine glitch changes election

A recently found computer glitch in the voting machines in Franklin County, Indiana has given a democrat enough votes to bump a republican from victory in a County Commissioner's race.

The glitch in the machines recorded straight Democratic Party votes for Libertarians.

The votes were re-counted last night, by hand.

The company who made the voting machine is also checking into programming of it's equipment in nine other Indiana counties.

<more> http://www.7onyourside.com/Global/story.asp?S=2558518&nav=7CPDT4VX

#4 (NY): As Voting Machines Are Checked, Spano's Lead Shrinks

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- After the first hours of a two-week vote recount, Democrats claimed Monday that their candidate for the state Senate from Yonkers had wiped out almost all of her unofficial deficit and moved within 288 votes of the powerful Republican incumbent, Nicholas Spano.

The GOP's election lawyer, John Ciampoli, acknowledged some gains for Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins but said, "None of this means anything until all the recanvass of the machines is done, over and finished."

The count was partial, with just 15 percent of the machine vote checked by late afternoon. But the quick recovery buoyed the forces of Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester County legislator who took on the Senate's assistant majority leader and a nine-term veteran.

"If this trend holds, we are confident that Andrea Stewart-Cousins will be the next state senator from the 35th Senate District," said the Democrats' election lawyer, Henry Berger, who was at the recount in a machine storage warehouse in Yonkers.

A Spano defeat would mean a third seat whittled from the 38-24 majority Senate Republicans had earlier this year.

<more> http://www.wnbc.com/politics/3902820/detail.html

#5 (NC): Latest Gaston flub: 1 precinct omitted

GASTONIA - Gaston County Elections Director Sandra Page, already struggling to explain why most early votes were omitted from the county's unofficial election results, said Friday that her office had also omitted an entire Dallas precinct.

Responding to a question from the Observer, Page said Gaston's unofficial results excluded 1,209 votes cast at the Dallas Civic Center. She said she learned of the problem one or two days after the election, but did not correct the unofficial results until Monday.

"I guess people are angry with us about this, but it was not done on purpose," she said. "It's astounding, but we just missed it."

<more> http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10171085.htm?1c

NOTE: These stories were all written in the first few weeks after the election; apologies if the links aren't valid anymore.

[gumby]

1. The proposition that Bush EVER won a federal election

is the Mother of ALL Conspiracy Theories. Well, maybe 9/11 ties in the competition. Neither of these Stage Mothers are very attractive. Ugh!

[wli]

2. pure lies, none of these were "accidents"

Those responsible need to be arrested, and their companies dissolved.