When You Can't Count on Your Vote
| By Joseph Peha - Nov 7th, 2006 at 4:54 pm EST |
| Also listed in: Election 2006 Blog |
As the vote unfolds on this watershed election day, a slew of problems - most of them anticipated - are beginning to rear their ugly faces. Long lines, broken voting machines, and vote-swapping are running rampant nationwide. Here are some of the highlights:
• Florida - Long Lines and Faulty Voting Equipment: The electorally-challenged state is again facing problems in Broward County. In one district, ten of the 14 electronic machines failed to start up, and eventually all of them broke down. People moored in long lines had to leave for work, many of them denied their right to vote.
• Indiana - Failed Electronic Equipment: Marion County experienced a major computer error that shut down electronic voting machines at 75 precincts. Poll workers ended up using paper ballots in more than 100 precincts, almost 20% of the total counties, because the electronic machines were not working.
• Florida (again) - Swapping Votes: Three voters in Palm Beach County, home of the famous butterfly ballot, complained that the machines would mark their votes for other candidates instead of the ones they actually voted for. The precinct worker ran into the same problem while trying to fix the machines.
• Ohio - Long Lines and Faulty Voting Equipment: Just like its sister Florida to the south, this perennially problematic state is facing many similar electoral problems. Electronic machines, whether they're touchscreens or optical scanners, are being used in every county in Ohio for the first time. As a result, more people are experiencing long lines and stifled votes due to the troublesome machines.
• Utah - Machine breakdowns: Whenever a voter uses a touchscreen machine, he uses a card, much like a credit card, to do so. However, 118 voting stations in Utah were hampered by faulty machines that could not create the necessary voter cards required to vote. Voters waited an hour or more for the problem to be fixed.
• Florida (ugh, yet again) - Vote Erasure and Vote Swapping: Even before voting began on Election Day, early elections were experiencing major problems. Touchscreens were flipping votes from the Democrat for Florida's 13th Congressional District to the Republican - or deleting them altogether. When voters reviewed their votes on the summary screen, it said they had voted for the Republican or hadn't voted for anyone at all. Although they were able to alter their votes, the problem was never fixed, just logged.
As the dust clears, more and more problems like these are likely to surface. In the meantime, let's just hope these malfeasances don't sway the official counts from the voters' intent, especially before anything can be done to fix it.
• Florida - Long Lines and Faulty Voting Equipment: The electorally-challenged state is again facing problems in Broward County. In one district, ten of the 14 electronic machines failed to start up, and eventually all of them broke down. People moored in long lines had to leave for work, many of them denied their right to vote.
• Indiana - Failed Electronic Equipment: Marion County experienced a major computer error that shut down electronic voting machines at 75 precincts. Poll workers ended up using paper ballots in more than 100 precincts, almost 20% of the total counties, because the electronic machines were not working.
• Florida (again) - Swapping Votes: Three voters in Palm Beach County, home of the famous butterfly ballot, complained that the machines would mark their votes for other candidates instead of the ones they actually voted for. The precinct worker ran into the same problem while trying to fix the machines.
• Ohio - Long Lines and Faulty Voting Equipment: Just like its sister Florida to the south, this perennially problematic state is facing many similar electoral problems. Electronic machines, whether they're touchscreens or optical scanners, are being used in every county in Ohio for the first time. As a result, more people are experiencing long lines and stifled votes due to the troublesome machines.
• Utah - Machine breakdowns: Whenever a voter uses a touchscreen machine, he uses a card, much like a credit card, to do so. However, 118 voting stations in Utah were hampered by faulty machines that could not create the necessary voter cards required to vote. Voters waited an hour or more for the problem to be fixed.
• Florida (ugh, yet again) - Vote Erasure and Vote Swapping: Even before voting began on Election Day, early elections were experiencing major problems. Touchscreens were flipping votes from the Democrat for Florida's 13th Congressional District to the Republican - or deleting them altogether. When voters reviewed their votes on the summary screen, it said they had voted for the Republican or hadn't voted for anyone at all. Although they were able to alter their votes, the problem was never fixed, just logged.
As the dust clears, more and more problems like these are likely to surface. In the meantime, let's just hope these malfeasances don't sway the official counts from the voters' intent, especially before anything can be done to fix it.
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Something's rotten in the state of Florida. We're down in the count right now by about 360 votes, with the recount just beginning (of course, we can't recount in Sarasota, since they were using paperless touch screens!).
Incidentally, Sarasota voters overwhelmingly decided to scrap touchscreens in last night's election and replace them with voter-verified paper ballots. Good call, it seems...