Lisa Anderson   The Swamp Baltimore Sun   19 January 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C.—It was man, not machine, who fouled up the electronic voting machines in Myrtle Beach and elsewhere in Horry County in the eastern part of the state today, according to Chris Whitmire, public information officer for the State Election Commission.

Some of the county’s 127,000 registered voters were turned away and told to return later because some voting machines were locked and could not be used. Technicians have been dispatched to remedy the situation before polls close at 7 pm.

Whitmire said the problem came when election officials, who test the machines by placing dummy votes and checking that they are recorded, forgot to complete the last step of the test in some cases. That last step clears the machines in preparation for actual voting.

As a result, some machines were locked and unusable when voters arrived to cast their ballots. Whitmire said he didn’t know how many of the county’s 118 polling stations were affected.

However, given the sensitivity about electronic voting, he said, he emphasized that “The voting system performed as it was supposed to. It was a human error.”