Went to vote Tuesday (Cook County IL) we were offered the choice of optical scan or touch screen equipment.
My wifw, who's a CPA and spends about half her time certifying financial applications developed in-house at her company, elected to use the touch screen equipment at the urging of the election judges, who thought it was Really Cool.
She promptly found a design or programing error that caused a vote for a candidate go to go unrecorded (it appeared to have
been accepted, but if you looked carefully at the next step it had not).
Much consternation, four election judges clustering around to try to fix this - so much for the sanctity of the secret ballot.
After a bit, everyone agrees that the system was in fact the problem - much additional futzing, vote still not accepted.
Finally, my wife loses patience and finds a workaround enter a bogus write-in candidate, clear that field and VOILA - vote accepted!
Much wonderment But, it's worked OK for EVERYONE else...
Much befuddlement at the suggestion that possibly "it had worked OK for NO ONE ELSE"...
Well dear American friends,
welcome to the reality of e-voting under the wonderful system that has gotten Chavez re-elected so many times...