| Date |
Problem Type |
State
|
Vendor
|
Description
|
| 11/16/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
OH |
ESS |
Sandusky County elections officials discovered some ballots in nine precincts were counted twice. [ES&S optical scan] The county doesn't yet know how it happened.
Story
Archive |
| 11/16/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
WA |
ESS |
Grays Harbor County. Elections officials started recounting about 28,000 ballots on Tuesday after the ES&S Unity reporting system showed too many votes. After ballots were counted, the results were saved on computer disks and downloaded into another computer to keep a running tally. Some of the disks were apparently downloaded twice by mistake. The Unity software is supposed to prevent that from happening.
Story1
Archive1
Story2
Archive2
|
| 11/13/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
Orange County absentee ballot tabulator (ES&S) started counting backwards after 32767 ballots, causing the posted precinct-by-precinct results to show a 9,227 margin of victory for Kerry while the county summary report showed only a 827 margin of victory for Kerry. A similar discrepancy affected vote totals posted online for the U.S. Senate race between Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Betty Castor.
Story
Archive |
| 11/11/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IN |
ESS |
Vanderburgh County. A power cord malfunctioned, delaying the vote-counting on ES&S iVotronics.
Story
Archive |
| 11/10/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
AR |
ESS |
Carroll County. A ballot programming error by ES&S caused the ballots to be counted incorrectly. ES&S will supply a new chip for the Model 115 optical scanners and the county will rescan the ballots.
Story
Archive |
| 11/10/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
AR |
ESS |
Carroll County. Skewed results in the JP District 2 race were found to have been cause by a misprogrammed optical scan chip supplied by ES&S.
Story
Archive |
| 11/10/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
NC |
ESS |
In Guilford County, ES&S early voting machines had capacity problems, which affected anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 ballots.
Story
Archive
The totals were so large, the tabulation computer threw some numbers away. Retallying changed two outcomes and gave an additional 22000 votes to Kerry. Story
Archive
ES&S explained that the Unity 2.2 tally software reached 32,767 (32K) and began subtracting from the totals (same as in Broward County). ES&S had known about the problem but not told its customers. Letter from ES&S (603K) |
| 11/9/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
NC |
ESS |
Craven County. Problems with Electronic Systems and Software Inc. iVotronic voting machines surfaced in one-stop early voting, requiring all screens to be replaced.
Story |
| 11/9/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
NC |
ESS |
Craven County. "A master terminal at the Vanceboro one-stop voting site did not require a password and resulted in an incorrect total in the presidential returns there." ES&S again.
Story
Archive |
| 11/5/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
CA |
ESS |
San Francisco. Troubles began on Wednesday after the election when the ES&S software failed to accurately count votes in the city's new ranked-choice voting system, which eliminates the need for expensive runoff elections. the problem stemmed from a safeguard in the software that converts optical scans of ballot results into data that the computer system uses to calculate winners. The conversion software shutdown when the amount of data entering the system had reached a level set by the vendor. (This sounds similar to the Election Management Systems' 32,767 vote limit encountered in NC, and FL.)
Story
Archive |
| 11/5/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
NE |
ESS |
Sarpy County. A computer problem doubled the votes in half the county's precincts, adding over 10,000 phantom votes to the totals. The county uses ES&S vote tallying software. As of 11/4, the cause had not been determined. The disc loaded correctly on one computer, but not on another.
Story1
Story2
Archive1
Archive1 |
| 11/4/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
Broward County. ES&S vote tabulating software used for absentee ballots "is not geared to count more than 32,000 votes in a precinct. So what happens when it gets to 32,000 is the software starts counting backward. Amendment 4 passed in Broward County by more than 240,000 votes rather than the 166,000-vote margin reported Wednesday night. ES&S has known about the problem for two years and done nothing about it. The same software is used in Martin and Miami-Dade Counties.Story Archive |
| 11/4/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
Collier County. Central computer added test votes to the tally on the ES&S tabulation software.
Story
Archive |
| 11/4/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IN |
ESS |
LaPorte. Software flaw reported the total for every precinct to report 300 registered voters. That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters. The county still doesn't know the cause of the problem and is waiting to get a patch from ES&S.
Story
Archive |
| 11/4/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
NC |
ESS |
In Craven County, all vote totals in nine of the county's 26 precincts were electronically doubled, increasing the totals for president by 11,283 more than the number of votes cast. Correcting the mistake changed the outcome of at least one race. ES&S Votronic machines used. Automatic warning of double-counting didn't work.
Story
Archive |
| 11/4/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
ESS |
Wichita County. More than 6,900 of about 26,000 ballots - mostly early votes - did not record votes for president with 10 of 52 precincts reporting. Similar problems were noted on all other races. Election officials believe ES&S machines are counting votes correctly but that computer programs that process results are malfunctioning. No one knows what the problem is.
Story1
Story2
Archive1
|
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IA |
ESS |
Greene and Harrison Counties reported malfunctions in their ES&S Model 115 ballot-counting machines that delayed counting. Harrison County got its machine fixed shortly after midnight and resumed counting.
Story
Archive |
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
OH |
ESS |
Mahoning County. The glass on top of one ES&S iVotronic electronic screen was too far from the screen, making it difficult for people to use their fingers to cast ballots. A screen went blank on a Youngstown voter while he cast his ballot.
Story
Archive
|
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
OH |
ESS |
Mahoning County. 20 to 30 ES&S iVotronic machines that needed to be recalibrated during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being counted for that candidate's opponent.
Story
Archive |
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
OH |
ESS |
Mahoning County. About a dozen ES&S iVotronic machines needed to be reset because they essentially froze.
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 |
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
ESS |
Wichita County. ES&S punch card machines failed to count votes in many races. Hand counts showed the extent of the errors.
Story
Archive |
| 11/3/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
ESS |
Bexar County. Problems with 19 ES&S touchscreen units delayed the final tabulation until almost 6 a.m. Wednesday. The machines had to be brought to the county's warehouse, where their data was retrieved and counted.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
AR |
ESS |
The Pope County clerk reported a problem with an ES&S central-count vote tabulator but said officials expected that it would be rectified Tuesday night.
Story |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
At least 21 voting machines in Broward County malfunctioned and were replaced Tuesday. Most of them had been used by some voters before being taken out of service.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
Broward County. An improperly calibrated machine at the polling place at 2501 Coral Springs Dr. in Coral Springs was used by an undetermined number of voters before it was replaced. If they did not review their ballots, it is possible that some votes were recorded inaccurately. Possibly other malfunctioning machines were also miscalibrated.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
Broward. Several touch-screen voting machines in Broward County malfunctioned this morning when their batteries went dead.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IA |
ESS |
Scott County. An ES&S automatic absentee ballot-counting machine broke down about 1 p.m. today in Scott County, forcing election officials to start over in counting an estimated 23,000 ballots.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IN |
ESS |
Indianapolis. One of the precinct's voting machines was down for a time, but it had been fixed.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IN |
ESS |
In Marion County, some optical scanners were not working. Still, officials said that did not prevent people from voting, as they were still able to fill out paper ballots that would be fed into the machines when they were operating.
Story
Archive |
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IN |
ESS |
Vanderburgh county. ES&S iVotronic electronic voting machines were on the fritz Tuesday at some polling locations. County Clerk Marsha Abell blamed poll workers for causing dozens of voting machines to freeze. Voting at Dexter Elementary came almost to a complete standstill when three of the four machines crashed. At Tekoppel Elementary, two of the four machines broke.
Story
Archive |
| 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
|
| 11/2/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
ESS |
Uncharged batteries in several ES&S touch-screen voting machines hampered early morning voting at a southeast Bexar County precinct for about two hours today, officials said. Poll workers at Sinclair Elementary School realized just before 7 a.m. that the voting machines were dead. They weren't booted up until two hours later.
Story
Archive
|
| 10/31/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
FL |
ESS |
Broward County. After waiting in line for several hours, several voters were told late Sunday evening that they would have to come back another day to be able to cast their ballot. The machines had broken down.
Story
Archive |
| 10/18/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
TX |
ESS |
Bexar County. iVotronics register incorrect votes. The theory is that voters inadvertently rested a hand on the screen.
Story
Archive |
| 10/17/2004 |
Poor design |
SC |
ESS |
Instructions for using the new iVotronics are incomplete and confusing. Will disenfranchise voters, according to Rep. Clyburn.
Story |
| 10/13/2004 |
Machine malfunction |
IN |
ESS |
Vanderburgh County. ES&S DRE. Ballots on the DREs fail to include numbers beside every candidate - as required by state law. Democrats sue, but county says state law forbids changing ballots in the middle of an election.Story Archive |
