Voting Machine Mess-up Du Jour (Displayed 10/22/04)


Tarrant County, Texas. October, 2004. Hart Intercivic.
Electronic voting machines froze when voter access code was entered.

Machine malfunctions disenfranchised voters when they froze instead of accepting the access code entered by the voters.*

On Tuesday, ... a set of voting booth computers shut down.

"It looked like a couple of older guys were still voting when the computer screens completely shut down," said Cam Sanders, an Arlington teacher. "I think they were talking about whether their votes were lost."

In Fort Worth on Tuesday, Singer said his wife and their friend waited nearly 1-1/2 hours to vote at the Southwest Subcourthouse. But when their friend punched in the access code, he said, the machine froze.

Singer said their friend was not given another chance to vote.

"I'm concerned because I wonder how many others were treated that way," he said.

* Voting problems are surfacing. Star-Telegram. October 21, 2004. By Max B. Baker.

See: Hart Intercivic in the News


No one votes unassisted on a computer;
everyone is "assisted" by anonymous programmers.
~ Mark Ortiz
former candidate for U.S. Representative
North Carolina, 8th District