Election glitches ‘could get ugly' (USA Today)

[kpete]

Election glitches ‘could get ugly'
New voting equipment, lack of training feed fears
By Richard Wolf
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Eight weeks before elections that will decide control of Congress, a rush by state and local governments to prepare new voting machines and train poll workers is raising the possibility of trouble reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election standoff.

Problems range from delayed delivery of new equipment to an insufficient supply of trained technicians to fix anticipated problems, voting experts say.

Already this year, glitches have occurred in Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia. Maryland became the latest on Tuesday, when technical problems, human errors and staff shortages led officials to keep some polls open an extra hour.

The fall elections shape up as the most technologically perilous since 2000, election officials say, because 30% of the nation's voting jurisdictions will be using new equipment. They include large parts of Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, scenes of key Senate races. “If you're ever going to have a problem, it's going to be that first election,” says Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services.

more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060914/1a_lede14.art.htm

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. "Could"?

Methinks USA Today should get an award for the most understated statement of the day.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Me too.

I think it's goign to be downright nasty!

[jwirr]

2. If there were not enough machines in my precinct I would sue for

extended voting hours even up to several more days. It is not the voters fault that the election officials are incompitent.

[civildisoBDence]

3. Our infrastructure is falling apart, and voting machines

are by far the most important elements in that infrastructure.

Thanks to DUHbya, we're too broke to fix what's broken.

Newsprism

[kenfrequed]

5. Machines are only part of the problem

The re-pukes continue to try stunts and create hurdles to voting. They focused on certain state races to control the election process and monkeywrench the system. In my own native Minnesota Kiffemeyer attempted to throw out voter registration requests based on the paper cardstock weight.

I don't think I need to mention Ohio or Florida or New Mexico to anyone.

But yeah, the machines need to be fixed too.

Demand a paper trail. It is the best protection. Oh yeah, and volunteer to be a judge in your district too. Make this one as hard to steal as you possibly can!

[Stevepol]

16. You have to demand audits too. Paper is meaningless w/o audits!!

[PegDAC]

17. They're desperate! n/t

[Heywood J]

6. #4 (NT)

(NT)

[Kurovski]

7. K&R.(nt)

[subterranean]

8. How much do you wanna bet...

that 99% of the "glitches" will just happen to favor the Republicans.

[redqueen]

9. They better get ready to redo the votes, then.

We will NOT stand for any more stolen elections!

[Higans]

11. You and what army?

[redqueen]

12. Huh? Are you saying you think 65-70% of the people in this country

will sit back and watch the neo-cons flush what's left of it down the toilet?

[Higans]

10. What about 04????

If your ever going to have a problem, it will be lost in software that the public, and even the Election Officials don't have access to. Die bold will own yet another election, and We the People will never again have our votes counted.

[Land Shark]

13. great map and additional articles inside on pages 9-10 n/t

[rudy23]

14. Is this going to cause the protests they're gearing up for?

Because, if we have a bunch of little problems not related to hacked voting machines--i.e. long lines, machines "going down" in Democratic precints, "inadvertantly" discarded ballots, etc. it will cause massive protests. But at that point, if they know they have a majority they can perform some quick swearing in sessions (based on the precedent set in San Diego), and then who's going to do anything about it against a newly solidified, Republican controlled government?

[niallmac]

15. Talk about LIHOP MIHOP Cr*p.

Does anyone doubt for a second that if so desired, this United States of America
could create the best vote counting system on the planet ever in history?

No one wants a valid vote.
I do not pretend to know why.
I just see what I see.

If you answer that absolutely the Democrats certainly
want a valid vote counting system then explain
why we will still not have one once we regain
control. If I am proven wrong in spite of decades of
history to the contrary why I have a recipe for cooked
hat waiting for the occasion.

[jslsingleton]

18. Wisconsin: Waukesha County voting bedeviled

Waukesha County voting bedeviled
Inoperable machines, incompatible computers hamper ballot counts
By Scott Williams, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[e-mail]
Posted: Sept. 13, 2006

Waukesha - Computer glitches, inoperable equipment and other problems troubled Tuesday's primary balloting in Waukesha County, resulting in one candidate mistakenly being posted as winner of a race only later to be declared the loser.

The problems also prevented the county from posting final results of races until the early morning hours of Wednesday, and kept the county from posting results online.

Across Wisconsin, Tuesday's primary marked the debut of 2,800 new handicap-accessible voting machines mandated in 2002 under the Help Americans Vote Act.

In Waukesha County, problems with touch-screen equipment were among a host of snafus.

Christine Lufter, who lost a Republican primary in the 97th Assembly District, said Wednesday that she would not likely challenge the outcome, although she was still trying to sort out what happened.

"There was obviously a huge problem," she said. "And why it affected the 97th race more than any other is confusing."

Computer monitors at the county clerk's office late Tuesday briefly showed Lufter winning her race, as county officials scrambled to correct flawed returns from the City of Waukesha.

Final results later showed Lufter losing to fellow Republican Bill Kramer by a significant margin.

County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said some returns from the City of Waukesha inexplicably had data recorded in the wrong column, which momentarily skewed results.

Nickolaus and her staff resorted to correcting the city's results manually - a process that continued until 1 a.m., with staffers poring over a blizzard of numbers on computerized printouts.

"The best thing to do is go back to paper," Nickolaus said of the tedious process. "And that's exactly what we did."

Waukesha City Clerk Thomas Neill said city officials had been unable to test the county's program for reporting results because they were busy readying their touch-screen voting machines. Those machines arrived just a week ago, Neill said, adding that the new equipment turned out to be inoperable Tuesday.

"There was a glitch that we didn't find out about until election day," he said of the touch-screen machines.



more at:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=497728

[Blue Shark]

19. Best thing that could ever happen...

...I hope for rioting in the streets once people learn on a widespread scale the kind of elections America holds now-a-days.

...So sad that John Forbes Kerry II allowed himself to become George Bush's bitch after he won the 2004 General Election.

[doctor_garth]

20. this is the MSM

already preparing Americans for the idea of Repugs keeping both houses. The fix is in, folks.

[Imagevision]

21. Like when they told us that the exit polls got it all wrong - this time

GOP will state claim that apparently the media was wrong all along...!

Seriously, If Bush simply gives Rove the nod to to the dirty with the voting machines and the same day -> a major news event occurs for the diversion and the next thing ya know it's the next day/week!!!!!!!!!