Via Kleinheider, there are reports of Republican voters in Decatur County experiencing similar problems.
Can we please have a voting system that everyone, regardless of their political affiliation, can have confidence in? Is that asking so fucking much?
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BradBlog reports on problems with the ES&S iVotronic In Nashville last week:
My wife, Patricia Earnhardt, had an early voting experience here in Nashville, Tennessee, where she saw her vote momentarily flip from Barack Obama to Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. She voted on a touch-screen paperless machine. Here is her story:"A poll worker directed me to a touch screen voting machine & instructed me how to use it. I touched "Obama" for president & nothing lit up. I touched 2 or 3 more times & still nothing lit up. I called the poll worker back over to tell him I was having a problem. He said I just needed to touch it more lightly. I tried it 2 or 3 more times more lightly with the poll worker watching & still nothing lit up. The poll worker then touched it for me twice --- nothing lit up.
The third time he touched the Obama button, the Cynthia McKinney space lit up! The McKinney button was located five rows below the Obama button. The poll worker just kind of laughed and cancelled the vote. He hit the Obama button again & it finally lit up. I continued on to cast the rest of my votes.
After completing the process & reviewing my votes, I went to the VOTE page, hit the VOTE button & nothing happened. Again after several tries, I called the poll worker over & he finally got the machine to register my votes." Patricia Earnhardt - Friday, Oct. 17 - Howard School Building - Nashville, Tennessee
The Earnhardts are the people behind the election-integrity documentary “Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections.” It may sound a little too coincidental that this couple should experience problems with their vote, but there have been all sorts of reports of unlikely folks experiencing voting problems, such as Congresswoman Corrine Brown of Florida yesterday.
Nashville is not alone in having these problems, either. Vote switching has occurred with ES&S touch-screen machines in in West Virginia, Florida was plagued with a "brew of administrative bungling and mysterious technological failures ” one month before the election, and check out what happened in Arkansas during the primary:
Bruce Haggard, an election commissioner in Faulkner County, Arkansas, is baffled by a problem that occurred with two voting machines in this month's state primary elections. The machines allocated votes cast in one race to an entirely different race that wasn't even on the electronic ballot. The problem resulted in the wrong candidate being declared victor in a state House nomination race.
The machines used in this Arkansas county? The ES&S iVotronic -- the same ones we use here in Davidson County.
I thought Davidson County was supposed to get paper ballots. I guess it didn’t happen in time for the presidential election. The Davidson County Election Commission should never have approved spending taxpayer money on a verified, flawed system like the ES&S iVotronic, which has been plagued with issues for years and has been decertified in several states.
The Davidson County Election Commission’s Republican Commissioner Lynn Greer apparently said that
"paper ballots are the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on America."
Really? I thought that was an Acorn canvasser registering Mickey Mouse to vote.
I think as far as partisan players like Lynn Greer are concerned, the greatest fraud is when Democrats vote and their vote is actually counted.
Anyway, a warning to Nashville voters: the ES&S iVotronic is a problem-plagued machine. People using them in Davidson County are reporting the machines switching votes. So be very careful when voting that you check and double check that the screen did not switch your vote.
But as far as what happens when you push the “Vote” button? Well, it’s all a big mystery, isn't it? We’ll just have to trust that what the machine records is what we voters intended.
Trust. Yeah. Sorry, but a faith-based election isn't really what our Democracy is all about , is it?
