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New Mexico Touchscreen Voting Problems

Posted by michael on from the prelude-to-the-recount dept.

phr1 writes "The Albuquerque Journal reports yet more hassles with electronic voting machines. Early voters pressing the Kerry button have repeatedly found the machine instead putting a check mark next to 'Bush'. The operators of course say it's the voters' fault. It would be just too unfortunate if the machines happened to systematically favor one candidate over the other, heh, heh."

2 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. My vote for Bush was switched to Kerry! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I have to agree with some of the other posters that want to be rid of these machines.

    I live in a mostly Democrat controlled area, but usually vote Republican. When I tried to vote early, I discovered that the machine I was using wouldn't let me vote for Bush. I asked for a paper ballot, and was given one, but it was a strange thing to see.

    After handing the paper ballot in, I felt a lot better knowing it would be faithfully counted.

  2. Re:Non-partisan election commissions by crmartin · · Score: 0, Troll

    Gads, I wish they still taught Civics in American schools.

    I agree that having a non-partisan election system would be good, but your whole argument for it here is based on the ignorant notion that the Florida Secretary of State had any real control over the election. The only influence Harris had over the whole process was to certify the known vote counts on the latest possible date on which she was statutorily required to do so.

    The choice of the voting machines: County Election Commission (Democrat in the contested counties).

    The design of the "butterfly ballot"? County Election Commission (Democrat in the contested counties.)

    Misleading election instructions in Palm Beach? County Election COmmission (Democrat).

    And remember that the methods they were using to count the votes was rejected by the Supreme Court by 7-2, not 5-4 -- the 5-4 was in the remedy phase.

    So, yeah, bi-partisan commissions would be a good thing. You go selll the idea to the county machines in Cook County and Palm Beach.