| Date |
Problem Type |
State
|
Vendor
|
Description
|
| 11/14/2006 |
Malfeasance |
PA |
ESS |
Centre County. Office of Elections told poll workes to begin voting on two machines without printing the zero tapes that show no votes are already cast, because the iVotronic that prints the zero tapes was not working.
Story
Archive |
| 4/22/2008 |
Malfeasance |
PA |
|
Philadelphia. In violation of the law, a sample ballot urging voters to support Hillary Clinton, Bob Brady, John Dougherty and William F. Keller was handed to voters inside the polling place at First Ward, 8th Division.
Story
Archive |
| 11/14/2006 |
Poor design |
PA |
ESS |
Centre County. As many as 50 voters walked away without completing their ballots by pressing the Vote button.
Story
Archive |
| 4/22/2008 |
Poor design |
PA |
Sequoia |
Northampton County. Confusing ballot on the Sequoia Advantage. Delegates under the Democratic Presidential candidates are listed in tiny print AND don't necessarily support the candidate they are listed under. One voter reports: "In the lightest italic, smallest print under the delegates .... It states who they are committed to. And it is the tiniest print in the whole space, and they're mixed. Had I not read the sample ballot, I wouldn't have known. I would've voted for all the wrong people,"
Story
Archive |
| 5/21/2009 |
Poor design |
PA |
Danaher |
Bucks County. Using the Shouptronic 1242 for write-in votes confuses voters. A red flashing button must be pressed to reveal the write-in window. Instead, some voters tried to force the shutter open manually or with a pencil, wrote names on the face of the machine itself or stuck paper slips in the slot. ... In the 2007 primary, machines had to be reset on 37 occasions due to problems with write-in votes.
Story
Archive |
| 5/21/2009 |
Poor design |
PA |
Diebold |
Armstrong County. Problems with write-ins on the TSx touch screen machines, and problems getting the machines to accept voted ballots were blamed on voters.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Provisional ballots |
PA |
|
Allegheny County. Dozens of precincts ran out -- or ran low on provisional ballots -- this afternoon. Voters were turned away.
Story
Archive
|
| 4/22/2008 |
Provisional ballots |
PA |
|
Philadelphia. Many reports of voters who switched parties and whose names did not appear on the rolls of the new party. In some instances, voters whose names were missing were not being offered provisional ballots.
Story
Archive |
| 4/22/2008 |
Registration errors |
PA |
|
Philadelphia & Montgomery Counties. Longtime Democrats in both Philadelphia and Lower Merion Township who arrive at their polling places to find that they are registered in the poll book as Independents. Independents can only vote on ballot questions, not for presidential primary candidates.
Story
Archive |
| 4/22/2008 |
Registration errors |
PA |
|
Philadelphia. "Numerous" registration snafus were reported to the Committee of Seventy, said its election coordinator John David. The bulk of those complaints have come from voters who switched parties and whose names did not appear on the rolls of the new party. The city has been inundated with calls, said David, adding: "It's swamping the voter-registration office."
Story
Archive |
| 10/8/2004 |
Registration fraud |
PA |
|
Berks County. Director of elections Bellman said his office has had numerous calls from people who were registered through a group called the Association Communication Organization for Reform Now (ACORN), complaining that those taking down the voter information deliberately put inaccurate information on the form. Bellman said he also received a batch of registrations from Citizens for Consumer Justice in Allentown that contained several hundred forms, including ones that have been held since July and ones with fictitious names and addresses and even wrong counties. Story
|
| 10/21/2004 |
Registration fraud |
PA |
|
Meadville. Sproul and Associates of Chandler, Arizona, was hired by the Republican National Committee to canvass Pennsylvania and register new voters. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that some canvassers claim they were given instructions to avoid adding anyone to the voter rolls who might support the Democratic presidential nominee.
Story1 Story2 |
| 5/16/2007 |
Too few machines |
PA |
ESS |
McKean County. Long lines with low turnout on the iVotronic touch screen. "voters experienced long waits at polling locations - the voter turnout was 26.11 percent, according to Director of Elections Judy Ordiway."
Story
Archive |
| 10/31/2004 |
Voter challenges |
PA |
|
In Philadelphia, Republicans planned to contest 10,000 registered voters who were sent letters by the GOP but whose letters came back undelivered. When The Philadelphia Inquirer asked for the list, the GOP provided just six names and addresses, with photos of vacant lots or buildings.
Story
Archive
|
| 11/14/2004 |
Voter intimidation |
PA |
|
York County. Officials received complaints of Hispanics being treated badly at the polls by poll workers.
Story |
| 11/15/2004 |
Voter intimidation |
PA |
|
In Philadelphia, the Republican Party hired local people including down-and-out addicts as neighborhood poll watchers, paid the poll watchers to challenge their neighbors' voting, and sent visiting teams of burly enforcers in window-tinted vans in a mixed strategy of intimidation, pay and misinformation to suppress voting on November 2, according to a Brooklyn law student working with Election Protection.
Story |
| 4/22/2008 |
Voter intimidation |
PA |
|
A constable working the Bethesda Presbyterian Church polling place was allegedly not letting supporters of Obama inside to vote and ordering those there to leave. A court order for City Ward 13, District 8 told election officials there to "refrain from discouraging or prohibiting, in any way, any elector from entering the polling place."
Story
Archive |
| 11/7/2006 |
Voter intimidations |
PA |
|
Allegheny County. Charges of voter intimidation at three or four polling sites in the North Hills, including one in Franklin Park. Voters said a partisan group set up tables outside the site and were "interrogating" voters before they went in, asking whether they had proper identification. The judge issued a countywide order for all such activity to cease. She also sent sheriff's deputies to patrol the sites in question.
Story2
Archive |
| 11/15/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
RI |
ESS |
Pawtucket. Disabled voters find AutoMARK difficult to use. Ballot-scanners don't accept the ballots.
Story
Archive |
| 11/3/2006 |
Ballot printing |
SC |
|
Charleston County. 5,000 ballots were misprinted, showing a bond amount as $250 million, instead of the correct amount of $205 million.
Story
Archive |
| 10/23/2008 |
Ballot printing |
SC |
|
Beaufort County. Absentee ballots didn't include necessary directions for voting in city and town council elections.
Story
Archive |
| 12/6/2004 |
Canvass anomalies |
SC |
ESS |
In Sumter County 111 more voters cast ballots than signed in on poll books and that 1,055 more ballots were cast than have been accounted for. This discrepancy could cause a state Senate race to be decided by the Senate instead of the people.
Story
Archive |
| 12/3/2007 |
Canvass anomalies |
SC |
ESS |
Florence County. 108 blank ballots were recorded by ES&S iVotronic machines in last month's one-contest election. Florence County Elections Director Mike Young wants to find out what caused that phenomenon.
“I’d like to know why 108 people would go into a polling place and go through all the trouble of signing in, showing their identification, and going into the voting booth and casting a blank ballot,” Young said.
Story
Archive
Note: High "undervotes" on iVotronics are common, and in some elections, lost votes and inaccurate tallies were proven to be caused by machine malfunction. For example, Raleigh, NC, 2002, and LaPorte Co, IN, 2004, and Waldenberg, AR, 2006.
|
| 11/2/2004 |
Election law |
SC |
|
Voting a straight party ticket DOES NOT include a vote for president. This is by state law in North Carolina and South Carolina only. Voters must vote for a presidential candidate separately.
Story |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
One polling location in Mauldin, S.C., was forced to switch to paper ballots because of equipment troubles.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Problems were reported in a handful of precincts in two counties using electronic machines. Officials said voters were forced to switch to paper ballots while technicians got the ES&S iVotronic touch screens up and running within about 90 minutes.
Story
Archive
|
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Machines at about five precincts in Georgetown County were down when the polls first opened, and voters had to cast paper ballots.
Story
Archive |
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Horry County. The Carolina Forest precinct had four voting machines for 2,003 voters, but one went down around noon, and poll manager Mary Baldwin said technicians were notified but were not able to fix it.
Story
Archive |
| 11/4/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
Unilect |
Lancaster County. A malfunction stopped the computerized tally late Tuesday night about a third of the way through, and elections officials said they were unable to restart the procedure. After hours on the phone with technical support people from the manufacturer of their Patriot Unilect voting machines, a printout of each voter's ballot was successful, they said. However, results had to be counted by hand.
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
Unilect |
The town of Lexington has 200 votes stuck in a Unilect Patriot electronic voting machine that malfunctioned and they can't figure out how to retrieve the data.
Story
Archive |
| 11/10/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
|
Georgetown County. The initial count showed 64 more ballots than the recount on the Unilect Patriot electronic voting machines. "After Friday's recount, the number of total votes cast in the election changed from 25,848 to 25,784."
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2005 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Georgetown County. Ballot programming error. Touch screen machines weren't programmed with the legally required straight-party voting. The problem was discovered during testing, but not until after several voters had voted absentee. (ES&S iVotronic touch screen.)
Story
Archive |
| 11/8/2005 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Georgetown County. Candidates' names did not appear on the review screen of the ES&S iVotronic touch screen. "Our voters had no confirmation for whom they had voted." State officials said this is just the way the machines operate. (In 2006, this operation will be a violation of federal law - HAVA).
Story
Archive |
| 11/3/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Charleston County. ES&S iVotronics fail to allow voters to review their choices in contests where they can vote for more than one candidate -- in violation of HAVA.
Story
Archive |
| 11/5/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Vote-switching on the ES&S iVotronics. Computer scientist's votes for one candidate were switched to another on the review screen.
Story |
| 11/13/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Greenville County. The county had problems with five of its approximately 1,000 iVotronic voting machines. Some of the machines had loose connections and another had power source problems. The repairs to the machines required a technician from ES&S to drive from Charleston on election night.
Story
Archive |
| 11/13/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
|
Greenville County. The county had to count by hand at least 600 absentee ballots that optical scanners failed to count.
Story
Archive |
| 11/20/2006 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Kershaw County. ES&S ballot programming error in the iVotronics. The machines were set up to prompt for two votes in a "vote-for-one" contest.
Story
Archive |
| 1/19/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Horry County. iVotronic touch screen machines. "Poll workers in Horry County tell CNN voting machines have been down since polls opened Saturday morning throughout the county — the machines are not reading an activation card." All 100 precincts in the county have been affected. Some voters have been turned away when paper ballots ran out.
Story
Archive
Story2
Archive2
Story3
|
| 1/20/2008 |
Machine malfunction |
SC |
ESS |
Horry County. iVotronics touch screen machines refused to print results at the end of the day. "The machines' pre-programmed poll-closing time was incorrect, and technicians had to follow a multi-step procedure to manually shut them off before counting could begin. The closing date for the machines was set for Jan. 26, the date of the Democratic primary, instead of Saturday night."
Story
Archive |
