Election Day Report From ABC News: A Number Of Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported

Wow. Here’s one I missed from ABC News that was published on Election Day (Nov 2, 2004).

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported

By ABC News.

Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.
The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.
But there were also several dozen voters in six states – particularly Democrats in Florida – who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine’s checkout screen, the coalition said.
In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website – news – bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website – news – bio) , the group said.
After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night…
The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.


Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1104/184856.html
Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
UPDATED – Tuesday November 02, 2004 11:23pm
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