Julie-Beth at il-sorted ephemera has come up with one of the earliest examples of e-voting 'problems'. In Austin, Texas, the home of the eSlate voting machine, Democratic voters are finding their presidential choice 'accidentally' changed from Kerry to Bush. 'Accidentally'. Republican election officials concluded it was 'voter error'.

Travis County election officials have responded to complaints that voters casting straight-party Democratic ballots are discovering, when performing a final check of their ballots, that their votes for president have been changed from Kerry/Edwards to Bush/Cheney. The officials say that, after trying and failing to replicate the problem on its eSlate voting machines, they have concluded the vote changes are due to voter error rather than mechanical failure.

Gail Fisher, manager of the county's Elections Division, theorizes that after selecting their straight party vote, some voters are going to the next page on the electronic ballot and pressing "enter," perhaps thinking they are pressing "cast ballot" or "next page." Since the Bush/Cheney ticket is the first thing on the page, it is highlighted when the page comes up – and thus, pressing "enter" at that moment causes the Kerry/Edwards vote to be changed to Bush/Cheney.

I don't know, but if it was me and I was used to using computers, I'd think that after making your selection you had to press 'enter', wouldn't you? But apparently you don't, and if you do, you change your vote. This is either deliberate fraud or inept design (funny how either of those somehow always leads to a Republican vote, isn't it? How come voting machines never screw up favoring the Democrats? Just luck, you think?).

Fraud

# eSlate is manufactured by Hart InterCivic, an Austin-based company with heavy ties to Bush. CEO David E Hart has raised over $100K for the Bush campaign.

# eSlate voting machines in New Mexico are doing exactly the same thing.

Kim Griffith voted on Thursday— over and over and over.

She's among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.

It's a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves— people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot.

For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.

She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.

Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush's name. That's how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.
She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry.

She faced the same problem repeatedly as she filled out the rest of the ballot. On one item, "I had to vote five or six times," she said.

Michael Cadigan, president of the Albuquerque City Council, had a similar experience when he voted at City Hall.

"I cast my vote for president. I voted for Kerry and a check mark for Bush appeared," he said.

He reported the problem immediately and was shown how to alter the ballot.

Cadigan said he doesn't think he made a mistake the first time. "I was extremely careful to accurately touch the button for my choice for president," but the check mark appeared by the wrong name, he said.

Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she doesn't believe the touch-screen system has been making mistakes. It's the fault of voters, she said Thursday.
(emphasis added)

'Voter error.' That's something when the goddam President of the City Council doesn't know how to use the machine he probably chose for the city to buy.

# From David at Black Box Voting comes another story from Alamagordo, NM, about a man who tried to vote for a Democrat for County Clerk and saw that his vote had been switched to the Republican candidate. He reported it as a problem to the election official present at the time. When that official was asked about it later, he said he had a statement from the man that he 'was satisfied'. The voter, contacted later, was anything but, and his statement of 'satisfaction' wound up in the County Attorney's office. (eSlate not responsible for election-official ass-covering, I'm just saying: it's all part of the GOP Grand Plan. Maybe.

Incompetence

Again from Black Box Voting, we have the report from last Friday about difficulties with eSlate. It seems that in early voting in Austin, half their voting machines didn't work.

I arrived at Highland Mall at approximately 6:15 and arrived at my early voting place, I was astounded at the fact that there was a line to vote. I thought to myself that this was great, record turnout! No, the line was there because 6 out of 11 (Voting Booths #6 through #11 which was one specific side of the voting half circle) Hart eSlate machines were down.

While I was still waiting in line the person who was supposed to look at the machines showed up, he examined the eSlate in booth #6 or #7 and walked off talking on his cell phone. As I was in the voting booth (Booth #1 to be specific) at 6:34 casting my ballot the person who had shown up to examine the machines came back and had a conversation with David Fitzgerald and explained that he couldn't do anything to fix them and he would have someone come out in the morning to look at them.

I interpreted this to mean that the "technician" they sent out to fix the machines was incompetent himself, or unequipped by his employer to do anything because he didn't appear to be carrying any equipment or tools with him.

Shortly after that someone waiting in line to vote struck up a conversation with David Fitzgerald about the problem with the machines, and he further explained and I heard clearly being in Booth #1 which is closest to the machine where they hand you the slip of paper with the confirmation number on it (The post that David Fitzgerald was manning) that the voting machines which presumably worked yesterday went down today because they started pulling up the ballot for the LAST election instead of the current one. David Fitzgerald then lamented that he wished they (Hart) would give them some sort of diagnostic device/software to allow them to troubleshoot the machines without having to wait for someone to come out.

Ah. Well...Yes. Be nice, ay?

So is it deliberate fraud, manufacturing screw-ups, or a combination of both? BBV's suggestion for a tech support answering machine message on voting day (good for Diebold, ESE, eSlate--everybody):

Thank you for calling Acme Voting Machine tech support. Your call is important to us, so please choose from the following menu:

If your voting machine has frozen, press "1".
If your voting machine will only vote for Wally O'Dell press "2".
If your voting machine only lets voters play "Democracy for Sims", press "3".
If angry voters are torching your voting machine...

Austin, we have a problem.....