From Saturday’s Miami Herald:
Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen — the final voting step. […]
Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.
“I’m shocked because I really want . . . to trust that the issues with irregularities with voting machines have been resolved,” said Reed, a paralegal. “It worries me because the races are so close.”
Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it’s not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot — essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual. […]
Joan Marek, 60, a Democrat from Hollywood, was also stunned to see Charlie Crist on her ballot review page after voting on Thursday. “Am I on the voting screen again?” she wondered. “Well, this is too weird.”
Marek corrected her ballot and alerted poll workers at the Hollywood satellite courthouse, who she said told her they’d had previous problems with the same machine.
Poll workers did some work on her machine when she finished voting, Marek said. But no report was made to the Supervisor of Elections office and the machine was not removed, Cooney said.
Workers at the Hollywood poll said there had been no voting problems on Friday.
Mauricio Raponi wanted to vote for Democrats across the board at the Lemon City Library in Miami on Thursday. But each time he hit the button next to the candidate, the Republican choice showed up. Raponi, 53, persevered until the machine worked. Then he alerted a poll worker.
Happy early voting everyone.
Update [2006-10-30 9:45:0 by Steven D]: Via Brad Blog, several other states are also experiencing the phenomenon of vote flipping to Republican candidates:
Here are three different reports over the last day or two of touch-screen votes flipping from Democrats or Libertarians over to Republicans.
– In Texas…
– In Arkansas…
– In Missouri… (via Email. See below.)
From: [redacted for privacy]
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:38 PM
Subject: Vote Miscount in MO
[snip]
A friend of our family’s went last Friday to early vote in Maplewood at Sunnen Park. He voted for Claire McCaskill, but each time he, the election worker, and the election supervisor pressed the screen for Claire, the screen said he had voted for Jim Talent.
I sent this info along to a friend that works in Claire’s campaign. I have the name and number of the guy this happened to if you are interested.
