TO: CVF-NEWS FROM: Kim Alexander DATE: November 14, 2002 RE: Midterm election voting tech problems
Hi Folks,
I've spent a lot of time the past week learning about voting technology problems that occurred around the country during last week's midterm elections, particularly in Alabama, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Jersey. Two sites I have been visiting a lot are Electionline and VoteWatch.
Electionline, at http://www.electionline.org, features daily links to election-related news stories. You can search the site or browse through day-by-day postings of stories organized by state. It's an incredibly helpful resource.
The second site, VoteWatch, was set up by Steven Hertzberg, a California IT professional from the Silicon Valley. At http://www.votewatch.us , you can read postings from people all over the country about their voting equipment concerns and problems.We have also added many new stories to our Voting Technology Resources page, at http://www.calvoter.org/votingtechnology.html , and to our "What We're Reading" page, at http://www.calvoter.org/reading.html.
Two examples to share of problems that occurred November 5th:
Louisiana: Ascension and Tangipaho parishes, the only two in the state to use touchscreen voting in polling places, experienced major problems with many of the two hundred ES&S touchscreen machines. Election officials attributed the problem to weather (the machines apparently overheated in Louisiana's warm, humid climate) and lack of electrical current in polling places to power the machines. http://www.theadvocate.com/stories/110702/ele_votronic001.shtml
Florida: Broward county election officials found an additional 103,222 votes that were not included in election tallies released on election night. Officials said the problem was due to their miscalculation of turnout data and also their failure to include votes cast through their early voting program in the election night tally. The revised vote totals changed Broward's overall turnout from 34 percent to 45 percent. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-cvote07nov07,0,1451394.story?coll=sfla%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
-- Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation
kimalex@calvoter.org, http://www.calvoter.org
(916) 452-7706
 |
Back to CVF-NEWS index |
|
Subscribe to CVF-NEWS |
|
Contact Kim Alexander |
This page was first published on November 14, 2002 | Last updated on November 14, 2002
copyright 1994 - 2002, California Voter Foundation. All rights reserved.