Minor glitch found in Allegheny County voting machines

[reprehensor]

(Heads up, PA!)

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06088/677611-85.stm

Expert tricks county's new electronic system but calls the problem a minor one

Wednesday, March 29, 2006
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG -- After four hours of testing yesterday, a glitch was found in the voting system Allegheny County is planning to use in the May 16 primary.

"So far, it's not fatal," said Michael Shamos, the Carnegie Mellon University professor who will recommend whether the system should be certified in Pennsylvania.

"You do have some diagnosing to do," he told representatives of Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of the AVC Advantage voting machines tested yesterday.

A week ago elections were disrupted in Chicago and the rest of Cook County because of a rash of problems with two of Sequoia's other voting systems. Problems occurred there when poll workers tried to transfer results from the machines onto tabulators that compile vote totals, said Joan Krawitz, executive director of Vote Trust USA and a resident of Cook County.

more@link

[AtomicKitten]

1. A glitch in voting machines is never minor.

[reprehensor]

8. That's a fact.

More "incompetence theory" at work.

"Jeez, the gosh-darned thang was werkin' last week..."

How many "minor glitches" combined with a tsunami of voter suppression, does it take to swing an American election?

Answer:

Preserving Democracy:
What Went Wrong in Ohio
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml

[Greyskye]

2. come on, it's just a glitch

"I've got the correct vote totals, but I've got a very strange, apparently corrupted audit trail," Dr. Shamos said. "The totals are all correct but the audit trail is completely haywire."

Paul Terwilliger, Sequoia's director of product development, could not immediately fix the problem or say what caused it.

Nothing to see here folks, move along. :sarcasm:

[gratuitous]

5. "I've got the correct vote totals"

That is to say, the Republican wins by a credible, or at least an arguable, margin, but the audit trail keeps giving the game away.

I'm sure it's very strange. Perhaps an evil spirit has become housed in the program. I suggest calling a priest.

[Mnemosyne]

3. My county just purchased the lovely ES&S machines!

I'm trying to find out the model, etc. so I can start raising more hell in the paper. There is a demonstration on the 20th. I'll be there with info on these machines.

This election may be our last best chance and I want it fair this time!

Thanks for posting this rep!

[tanyev]

4. It's just a flesh wound.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. This "minor" glitch would get which Republican elected? nt

[zbdent]

7. The vote actually recorded all the Dem votes as Dems

So, the machine has to be fixed . . .

:sarcasm: