OH: "OpScan System Will Fail in May Primary" Predicts Election Official

[Wilms]

'Optical-Scan Voting System Will Fail in May Primary' Predicts Election Official

Summit County, Ohio Elections Director Says He Can't Assume Anything Else

by John Gideon

4/19/2006

If you recall The BRAD BLOG has reported on the Summit County memory card failures in the recent past; most recently on April 4. Summit County's memory card (PCMCIA) failures have not gotten any better according to an article in this morning's Akron Beacon Journal...

Now, in what is clearly a show of "No Confidence" in their voting machine vendor ES&S, the county elections director is predicting failure with the system in the May 2 Ohio state primary.

Summit County Board of Elections Director Bryan Williams is predicting Election Day failures with the memory cards in the county's new optical scan voting system.

``I don't think we can assume anything else,'' Williams said at a meeting Tuesday, where the elections board reviewed the latest list of troubles.

snip

Does anyone believe that all bad memory cards only went to Summit County, Ohio as if the county was a magnet for bad memory cards? Does anyone believe that the poor programming of the AutoMark voting machines is only an isolated incident?

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002710.htm

[NEOBuckeye]

1. Akron-Summit is a Dem Stronghold

It wouldn't surprise me at all.

[salin]

2. If they expect it - are they planning

for hand counts of the optical scan ballots? One would think that if they are working from this assumption that they are making contingency plans ...

[mod mom]

3. This may be a blessing.

If the machines fail and BOE Officials are skeptical, it will bring much attention to the issue bfore the midterms. On the other hand, this is an ES & S machine, and Blackwell pushed for Diebold, so perhaps this is Blackwell's sabotaging to further his stock profits with Diebold. Too complicated before coffee.