Radio calls on voting machine problems bogus
It turns out the calls to the local AM station about problems with electronic voting machines were just activists behaving badly:
Actually, it would be impossible to have those kinds of problems in Dauphin County because we are using the same machines we've used since I was a kid, although the callers I heard did not identify the county. In Dauphin, we use a lighted push board. You push the button by your candidate and a flashing red light appears next to his/her name, and then you push a green "Vote" button. My parents took us into those booths when we were kids, a tradition carried on this morning by my wife with our daughter.
Meanwhile, the polls are going to stay open an extra hour in Lebanon County due to operator failure:
And the Department of State is happy with the electronic voting machines, which is a relief:
Andy in H-burg
In Dauphin County, a group of people opposed to the use of electronic voting machines called in bogus reports to a local radio station. Several callers said they voted for one party but their votes were recorded for the opposite party.
Dauphin County election chief Steve Chiavetta said there were no such problems in Dauphin County.
Chiavetta said the callers had targeted Lancaster, Dauphin, Cumberland and York counties with false reports about problems with electronic machines.
Actually, it would be impossible to have those kinds of problems in Dauphin County because we are using the same machines we've used since I was a kid, although the callers I heard did not identify the county. In Dauphin, we use a lighted push board. You push the button by your candidate and a flashing red light appears next to his/her name, and then you push a green "Vote" button. My parents took us into those booths when we were kids, a tradition carried on this morning by my wife with our daughter.
Meanwhile, the polls are going to stay open an extra hour in Lebanon County due to operator failure:
But by mid-morning, Ludwig isolated the voting machine problem to faulty disks her staff prepared for each of the county's voting machines.
"It was our fault," Carpenter said, not the voting machine manufacturer.
And the Department of State is happy with the electronic voting machines, which is a relief:
"Overall, we're pretty happy with the way things are going," said Department of State spokeswoman Cathy Ennis. Out of the 9,271 polling places and the more than 25,000 voting machines (across the state) it's a very small percentage of problems. And most of those were technical glitches when the polls opened that have been resolved."
Andy in H-burg
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 11/07/2006 02:21:00 PM
1 Comments:
It somehow doesn't reassure me that a legitimate problem was the fault of the people preparing the data rather than the voting machine manufacturer's. It's still scary how easy it is to mess with the functionality of the machines.
As a programmer, I know all too well that logic errors are the hardest things to find and fix.
Let's hope that any other real problems found are just as easy to fix.
And for the false reports: I hate it when a small group of people decide to try something altruistic in a bad way. It just "crying wolf" and makes it harder to get people to see the real problems (if any) that occur.
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