Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 10/01/04 - 10/02/04)


Orange County, California. March, 2004. Hart Intercivic.
Massive dienfranchisement; no paper ballots.

The complexity of operating elections using the new electronic voting machines leads to more human error, rather than less human error as those who propound the computerized voting claim. Once the errors are made, there are no paper ballots available to correct the problems.*

Poll workers struggling with a new electronic voting system in last week's election gave thousands of Orange County voters the wrong ballots, according to a Times analysis of election records. In 21 precincts where the problem was most acute, there were more ballots cast than registered voters.

... At polling places where the problem was most apparent because of turnouts exceeding 100%, an estimated 1,500 voters cast the wrong ballots, according to the Times' analysis of official county election data. Tallies at an additional 55 polling places with turnouts more than double the county average of 37% suggest at least 5,500 voters had their ballots tabulated for the wrong precincts.

... David Hart, chairman of Texas-based Hart InterCivic, which manufactured Orange County's voting system, said it would be impossible to identify which voters cast ballots in the wrong precincts because of steps the company had taken to ensure voter secrecy. For this reason, an exact account of miscast ballots is impossible.

... Orange County election officials have traced the problem to poll workers who were responsible for giving each voter a four-digit code to enter into the voting machines.

* 7,000 Orange County Voters Were Given Bad Ballots. Los Angeles Times. March 8, 2004. By Ray F. Herndon and Stuart Pfeifer Times Staff Writers.

See: Hart Intercivic in the News


News stories make it rapidly apparent that
electronic voting is not reliable, accurate, or secure.
Any one who claims otherwise is either ignorant or deceptive.
~ Joseph Holder