Peace Action New Mexico
"Local Folks with a National Voice"

Voting Machine Problems

Elections are always complicated and difficult to run accurately. Under non- electronic procedures, ballot boxes get lost or even stolen, or get locked with keys inside, and hand miscounting is endemic. Most major mistakes are made by election officials and poll workers. In 1996, Bernallillo County accidentally sent a voting machine cartridge to Santa Fe, and found a box of 6,888 uncounted ballots in a county warehouse. In 2000, Bernallillo Cty discovered its voting machines weren't programmed to count straight party ticket votes in every race, resulting in hand counting of 67,000 ballots. In 2000, Dona Ana Cty poll workers found missing ballots the day after election that swung the state's vote to the Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore. Following are problems experienced with electronic voting machines nationwide:

Software Glitches

Alabama Governor Race 11/02
Initial count had incumbent Democrat Siegelman winning with 19,070 votes. Republican regional director discovered a machine software "glitch" that led to election of Siegelman's Republican rival by a 2,752 vote margin.
Presidential Election 2000
In Volusia County FL, Diebold uploaded a "replacement" set of vote totals that cost Gore 16,022 votes; an alert poll worker noticed the Gore vote going down and blew the whistle.
Florida Gubernatorial Nomination Race 2002
Janet Reno noted that in South FL precincts where she was strong, ES&S voting machines were recording no votes in the governor's race. In some poll sites where there were over 1,000 votes cast in other races, there were no votes for governor.

Other "Glitches"

11/03, Boone County Indiana, MicroVote Machines counted 144,000 votes cast in a county that has less than 19,000 registered voters.
Washington, FL In city runoff election, winner beat the opponent by only four votes, but 78 electronic ballots were blank. Election officials defended machines, saying these voters came to the polls and then chose not to vote in the only race on the ballot.
Middlesex Cty, NJ, A Sequoia's machine was taken out of service after 65 votes had been cast without registering a choice for either of the candidates. Sequoia blamed voters for coming but not voting.
2000, Bernallillo Cty NM, Thousands of early-voting and absentee ballots had to be withdrawn from initial tallies because of a computer glitch.
11/03, Fairfax Cty VA spent $3.5 million to buy 1,000 touch-screen machines and experienced severe malfunctioning, prompting Republicans to complain.
Montgomery Cty MD had a similar disaster in 2002.
2002, Palm Beach Cty FL 3% of ballots in city council election went unrecorded on E-V machines.
2002, Scurry Cty TX Following landslide wins for two Republicans on optical- scanned ballots, county clerk held two manual recounts and one electronic recount (using flown-in replacement chip) that resulted in Democratic candidate victories by landslides.
2003, Lake Cty IL No votes were recorded in a precinct where the Democratic candidate voted for himself.
8/02, Clay Cty Kansas E-V machines reported Jerry Mayo lost in a squeaker with 48% of the vote; a hand recount showed he won by a landslide.
Davison Cty SD The Democratic election auditor noted that the machines were double- counting votes, and had a new chip brought in.

Misaligned Touchscreen

11/02, Florida Governor Race In one precinct, voters reported touching screen for the Democratic candidate and seeing it record for Republican Jeb Bush. In another polling place, poll workers kept count of 713 voters, but the E-V machines counted 749.

Illegal Use of Modem During Election

3/5/02, San Luis Obispo Cty CA At 3:31 pm on Election Day, Diebold machines in 57 polling places simultaneously "called home" to corporate headquarters and reported the mid-afternoon tally, which went up on a Diebold web site, in time for interested partisans to mobilize their voters.
Dallas TX Because of misalignment, 18 touch-screen machines registered Republican votes even though Democratic screen buttons were pushed. Unknown how many other machines were affected. Democratic Party went to court over this.

Defective or Misprogrammed Chip

11/02, Canal County, Texas State Races

Major Discrepancy Between Pre-Race Polls and Voting Results

2002, Georgia 1st state to use nearly all-electronic voting, 6 big Republican upsets, Diebold applied software patches to all machines just before the election, without inspection by election officials.

2002, Georgia Senate Race Dem. Sen. Max Cleland & Rep. Saxby Chambliss -- 12 %, change from Poll results to voting results with Democrat losing: no polls predicted loss for incumbent (Cleland)

2002, Georgia Governor Race Dem. Roy Barnes & Rep. Sonny Perdue -- 16 % change from Poll results to voting results with Dememocrat losing: touchscreen voting, no paper trail, no polls predicted loss for incumbent (Barnes) Perdue is lst Rep. governor since Civil War end.

2002, Minnesota Senate Race Dem. Walter Mondale & Rep. Norm Coleman -- 11 % change from Poll results to voting results with Democrat losing: no check of chip, no request for new chip.

1996, 2000, Nebraska U.S. Senate Races Chuck Hagel left job as head of ES&S voting machine company to mount long- shot bid for US Senate seat. His own company machines were used to tally the vote and showed stunning and unexpected victories in primary and general. Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities who had never before voted Republican. He was the first Republican in 24 years to win the seat. In 2002 Hagel won a landslide re-election bid with 83 % of the vote. Four out of five votes cast were counted by computer-controlled voting machines built by, programmed by, and with chips supplied by Hagel's former company.