Severe Election Problems Seen In 10 States

[Hissyspit]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102606Z.shtml

Severe Election Problems Seen in 10 States
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 26 October 2006

A nonpartisan organization tracking election reform across the United States released a report Wednesday warning that 10 states are likely to experience severe problems on November 7 because of electronic voting machines and new voter identification laws that could call into question the results of some races.

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Electionline.org issued a 75-page report, "Election Preview 2006: What's Changed, What Hasn't, and Why," which claims that a handful of the midterm election's hotly contested campaigns in states such as Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Florida and Indiana may face particular trouble because of the transition to electronic voting machines. The machines have been proven unreliable in choosing the right candidate, as demonstrated by numerous tests cases in the years that the machines have replaced paper ballots.

"This was supposed to be the year - and the election - when the voting process nationwide was more secure, more technologically advanced and more trusted by the citizens and candidates participating," Electionline.org said in a summary of its report. "Yet as the mid-term elections approach, machine failures, database delays and foul-ups, inconsistent procedures, new rules and new equipment have some predicting chaos at the polls at worst and widespread polling place snafus at best."

Computerized voting and the technological problems related to the system had already been realized before hanging chads became a household phrase. In November 1998, an election in Hawaii was held using state-of-the-art computers designed by Electronic Systems & Software, a company with close ties to Republican lawmakers in Washington, DC.

Seven of ES&S's 361 voting machines used in Hawaii on Election Day in November 1998 malfunctioned (five units had lens occlusion, one unit had a defective cable and one unit had a defective "read head"), which led to Hawaii's first-ever statewide election review and a first in the history of the United States. Hundreds of people who used the machines complained mightily to local election officials that the candidates they picked did not register in the computerized system.

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