News Releases

Election 2004 E-Voting Incidents

Summary:

• Significant e-voting problems

• Almost all vendors’ products and models

• Most jurisdictions where e-voting installed

• Impacted at least tens or hundreds of thousands of voters

Results:

• Calls fielded by Election Protection Hotline: 175,213 (87,841 on E-Day)

• Incident reports in EIRS: 34,000+ and counting (23,726+ on E-Day)

• “Machine Problem” incidents: 1,876+

• E-Voting incidents: 895+

• Preliminary findings from sample that’s still growing, yet not statistically robust

Notable Incidents / Clusters:

• Florida: Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach Counties

• Louisiana: Orleans Parish

• New Mexico: Bernalillo County

• North Carolina: Carteret County

• Ohio: Franklin and Mahoning Counties

• Pennsylvania: Dauphin, Mercer, and Philadelphia Counties

Next Steps:

• Further analysis and reporting of e-voting problems as well as other voting technologies

• Discussions with election officials, voting technology vendors, and policymakers to improve elections process, technology, and regulation

E-Voting Problems Reported:

• Machine breakdown
  (total malfunction, sometimes entire polling places, power/battery failures, machines locked, long lines, voters turned away)

• Misrecording (Kerry recorded as Bush and vice-versa, touchscreen calibration)

• Vote switched

• Overcounts and undercounts

• Wrong ballot or race/candidate/party slate missing or not working, no write-ins

• Prefilled ballot choice

• Straight ticket sticking

• Unintended deselections

• Forced votes to complete ballot

• Indicates “challenged ballot”

• Not responding to human touch, just pencil eraser

• Disabled accommodation disables other machines at polling place

• Non-"accessible” voting machine, audio component not working

• Premature casting

• Overwritten votes (prior uncast)

• Switched language (English to Spanish), or Spanish-only

• Vote card times out, rejected, stuck, not reset, or cancels ballot

• Claims vote cast after card removed

• Blank screen / screen goes dark

• Missing or poor distribution of machines

• Audio offers only one candidate

• No paper ballot alternative

• Paper ballots treated as provisional

• Told to use demo machine

• Inadequate poll worker training

• Not zeroed out at beginning of day

• Security seals broken

• Infrared port available

• Cascading error in machine cluster

For more information:

• EIRS incident database at:
  http://voteprotect.org/epc/ (click on "Research/Maps")

• More about Verified Voting Foundation and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility joint development of the EIRS:
  http://verifiedvoting.org/eirs/

• Election Protection Coalition member organizations:
  http://www.electionprotection2004.org/coalition.htm

 

Site Map | Privacy Policy | About Calvoter.org

This page was first published on November 18, 2004 | Last updated on January 27, 2006
Copyright California Voter Foundation, All Rights Reserved.