Get Ready for Vote Fraud and Chaos

Newsmax, UPI ^ | November 5, 2002 | Newsmax Staff, UPI Staff

[Truth Telling Guy]

Get Ready for Vote Fraud and Chaos

NewsMax.com

Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2002

MIAMI – Election chaos like the seemingly endless hassle in Florida two years ago could break out again in several states in today's off-year elections, including the Sunshine State.

The biggest problem: Florida and other states are trying out voting systems for the first or second time.

Doug Chapin, director of Election Reform Information Project, said three states bear the most watching.

"The potential hot spots are obviously Florida, especially south Florida; Georgia is rolling out new touch screens to all 169 counties; and the state of Minnesota has all kinds of concerns because of absentee ballots after Sen. Paul Wellstone's death."

More than 100,000 absentee ballots were sent out before Wellstone, D-Minn., died Oct. 25. Democrats last week decided to replace Wellstone with former Vice President Walter Mondale. Democrats want an absentee vote for Wellstone to count automatically for Mondale, even though the voter might not have wanted Mondale.

There are also other states that could get into trouble, Chapin said.

"Missouri has new provisional ballot rules, a close race and a history of distrust between the parties," he said. The 2000 election was marred by massive Democrat fraud, especially in St. Louis, where, for example, polls were illegally kept open late in Democrat-ruled slums.

"Texas is also using new machines in Harris County; E-slate touch screens.

"Another state that has had minor problems is Maryland, but it's nothing like Florida," Chapin said. Both have had problems with touch screens.

"Other states to watch, not so much for chaos, but because they could be interesting are Colorado and California that have questions on ballot on Election Day registration," Chapin said.

Democrats so far have been implicated in vote fraud in South Dakota, Maryland, Detroit and Arkansas.

Flori-duh

Nowhere will the spotlight glare more relentlessly than in Florida, which set the standard for voting chaos in the 2000 presidential election campaign. This year, Florida features a heated battle for governor between Tampa attorney Bill McBride and Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's younger brother.

Florida has spent millions trying to repair the problems of the 2000 election by buying the new voting machines, but in the Sept. 10 primary elections things fell apart in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in south Florida, the state's most populous area.

Volunteers were late, many of them were not properly trained and were so baffled by the ATM-like voting devices, they couldn't turn them on. Polls were late opening by as much as four hours in some locations.

After the polls closed, transmission of the ballot counts and printouts took hours and hours. The result of the Democrat primary was not known until a week after the election.

On Tuesday, the polls and their surrounding areas will be packed with people trying to ensure it doesn't happen again.

There will be plenty of voters to be sure, but there will also be media with cameras, voting-machine technicians, police officers to keep the peace and official monitors from all over the globe.

"It's going to be a circus out there," said Jim Kane, editor of the "Florida Voter" newsletter.

Albanians and Russians Look On

Ten of the observers are from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, including some from Russia and Albania where they have a history of election problems of their own.

They say they will look at Florida's electoral laws and their application. They also want to know the ways U.S. practices fall short of the standards imposed on emerging republics around the world.

Center for Democracy, which has never monitored a domestic election before, also is in Miami. Other teams are from Congress, the Justice Department, "civil rights" organizations, both political parties and voters' rights organizations.

Dems Block Effort to Stop Vote Fraud

Led by former Clinton attorney general Janet Reno, Democrat-ruled Miami-Dade County has managed to stop a delegation from the Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride, from entering the polls and told the police to remain outside the precincts.

In addition, counties will be using their Emergency Operations Centers, the same ones used during hurricanes, to help the monitoring process.

"We have to deal with this as if it were a hurricane or the Super Bowl," said Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas. "We have no margin for error."

Help stop Janet Reno's efforts to allow vote fraud.

[Truth Telling Guy]

Nothing will be done from an action policy to reduce the fraud...

Nothing will be done to prosecute and jail those involved in this vote large scale fraud conspiracy either.

[dhfnc]

VOTE THE RATS BACK TO THE STONE-AGE

EXACTLY - couldn't have said it better.

EVERYONE PLEASE VOTE!

[Steely Tom]

Contrary view:

Vote fraud huts Democrats more than GOP. How? By increasing voter apathy, which it seems to me is more a problem for D's than it is for R's.

Why rouse yourself out of bed or off the couch to go vote when the party is taking care of it with dead voters and absentee ballots?

Someone on our side will think up a subtle but effective way to put this message across to the right constituent groups.

(steely)

[Wondervixen]

South Florida Dummycraps all but threatened we'd be headed back to the courts days before the election, reminiscent of Rodney King rioters promising "NO JUSTICE-NO PEACE"...Either the election turns out the way they want it to turn out or they'll throw it to the courts.

I say that if they want to play spoiled sport like that, they deserve to be stripped of their right to vote.

[MHGinTN]

Paper trail, yes. Also, restrictions of pre-resgistration to vote, not walk-ins filling out paper ballots that can be repeated from precinct to precinct.

[Truth Telling Guy]

Romney complains of voter irregularities in Boston

By Associated Press, 11/5/2002 15:40

BOSTON (AP) Republican Mitt Romney's campaign filed a complaint several hours after polls opened Tuesday, saying union workers were improperly influencing voters in the city's Jamaica Plain section.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said the campaign's monitors saw more than 40 instances in Ward 11, Precinct 4, where workers approached voters and accompanied them to the voting booth.

State law prohibits political activity within 150 feet of a polling place, but voters may be accompanied into a voting booth if they request help.

Secretary of State William Galvin said he contacted Boston election officials, who told him only one woman was approaching voters at the polling site to offer translation help.

Election officials asked the woman to stay beyond the 150-foot perimeter. No voters complained, Galvin said.

''This is much ado about nothing,'' said Galvin, a Democrat.

Romney's campaign said the people approaching voters at the Jamaica Plain site were members of the Service Employees International Union. An SEIU spokeswoman, Silvia Panfil, said the union was not aware of any wrongdoing and had received no complaints.

Romney complains of voter irregularities in Boston


http://www.boston.com/dailynews/309/politics/Romney_complains_of_voter_irre:.shtml

[Truth Telling Guy]

(Send this document to a colleague)

Glitches Reported Nationwide As Election Day Kicks Off
11/5/2002 12:27:15 PM




(Undated-AP) -- Election Day has kicked off with a mostly smooth start -- but it's not without some glitches.

A computer glitch caused voting machines in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to malfunction in about three-fourths of the township's 46 voting districts. Some voters had to use paper ballots while repairs got under way.

Indiana Congresswoman Julia Carson came to the polls early to vote for herself -- but her machine broke down when she pulled the lever.

Three counties in central Florida reported problems with optical scanners, and machines malfunctioned at a South Miami precinct. The lines are moving along in Florida, but officials say there could be delays because of the unusually long ballot.

In Delaware, elections officials are worried there might be some confusion among voters because of this year's redistricting -- which left thousands of voters in new districts or precincts.

More than 200 counties across the nation are trying out new voting equipment. Federal observers have been sent by the hundreds to polling places in 14 states.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article_lc.asp?storyid=31520

[GOPJ]

No real recounts with optical scanners. No proof of cheating. No paper trail. FOX did some separate exit polls -- thank God.

[Truth Telling Guy]

The company that makes the vote scanners has been involved in vote fraud in Louisiana or I believe. The chairman went to prison. The biggest two companies that make the computerized machines have lots of criminal ties.

[Truth Telling Guy]

High turnout puts focus on undecided voters Watch video

Publishing date: 11-05-2002 1:14 PM

By CRAIG GUSTAFSON

Associated Press Writer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - For Minnesota's undecided voters, the Senate race was all about image and the governor's race was all about the issues. With Republicans and Democrats sticking to their candidates in this tight election, the opinions of the people who decided at the last minute mattered most. They hit the polls Tuesday with plenty of information to decide. In the Senate race, there's sentiment over Sen. Paul Wellstone's death, the memorial service-turned-political rally, Walter Mondale's age and Norm Coleman's independence. In the gubernatorial race, there's Tim Pawlenty's fight against terrorism, Tim Penny's solution to the state's budget mess, and Roger Moe's staunch support of education and abortion rights. Tom Calder, a 55-year-old retiree, admitted he didn't know what he was going to do when he entered the polling place near his Roseville home. Originally, Calder was a Coleman supporter, but Wellstone's death and Mondale's entrance changed his mind. Then, he said he soured on the Democrats after the Wellstone memorial service. But he said Mondale's fiery attitude in Monday's debate almost swayed him back. "As it turns out, I didn't vote for either one," Calder said. "I voted for the Green Party." In the governor's race, Calder chose Pawlenty because he liked Pawlenty's stand on terrorism and didn't like Moe's "old-time politics." Ellen Casey, a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student, says she made choices on both issues and emotion when she got into the voting booth. Casey, who calls herself an independent, voted for Moe, a Democrat, and Coleman, a Republican. She said she didn't like Pawlenty's opposition to same-sex health benefits for state employees. And she didn't like Mondale's age, 74. She said she was planning to vote for Wellstone before his death. While undecided voters agonized at voting booths, election officials throughout the state scrambled to make sure they had enough ballots. "The voter turnout continues to be high," said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer in late afternoon. "We're sorry for the long lines but we are happy about the increased voter turnout." She said several counties ordered extra ballots for fear of running out. Minnesota voters were given a supplemental ballot for casting their votes in the U.S. Senate race, in addition to ballots that could be read electronically for other races. A large red X covered the Senate race on the regular ballot, which still included the name of the late incumbent Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash Oct. 25, just 11 days before the election. On the supplemental ballots, Mondale's name replaced Wellstone's. Voters were told to fold those ballots in half and hand them to an election judge for deposit in a separate box to be counted by hand after the polls close, a process that was expected to delay the results several hours.

Early Tuesday, there were complications. Kiffmeyer said there were isolated cases of election judges not finding the supplemental ballots until a few minutes after the polls opened. In those cases, voters were told to write in the name of their choice for U.S. Senate.

---------------------------------------------------------

Why would they have to wait until after the polls closed to count these ballots?
(So they could see how many they needed???)

And why would it take several hours?
(Perhaps to make sure they had all the time they needed to manufacture all the votes they needed???)

[Truth Telling Guy]

Scattered problems mar debut of touchscreens and other high-tech voting systems

ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, November 5, 2002

---

(11-05) 16:22 PST (AP) --

Scattered problems, a few serious but most described as hiccups, marred the debut of touchscreens and other high-tech voting machines Tuesday, including in all of Georgia and in Florida's most election-challenged counties.

The most serious appeared in two Georgia counties where officials said they could result in contested elections and lawsuits. The state has the nation's largest deployment: 22,000 touchscreens.

In one county, ballots in at least three precincts listed the wrong county commission races. Officials shut down the polls at one point to fix the problem but didn't know how many wrong ballots were cast or how to correct errant votes. In another, a county commission race was omitted from a ballot.

Elsewhere, some machines froze up and others had to be rebooted. Dozens were misprogrammed, and cards voters need to access machines malfunctioned.

"They are locking up, and we have to turn them off and turn them on. The voting is taking a little longer," said Mary Cranford, election superintendent in Georgia's Coweta County.

But those troubles did not look to have the potential to cascade into the meltdown seen during the Sept. 10 primaries in Florida, where Democratic gubernatorial contest results were delayed for a week.

Analysts said better planning and training of poll workers in operating the machines paid off, though some cautioned that the new systems' reliability can't be guaranteed.

"A lot of these products were rushed to market," said Rebecca Mercuri, a Bryn Mawr College computer science professor and expert on election technology.

The addition of more than 200 brings to 510 the number of counties nationwide with electronic voting systems, according to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., research company. That's 16 percent of counties representing one in five registered voters.

Analysts expect 75 percent of counties to have such systems within six years, boosted largely by a new $3.9 billion federal law to help states replace outdated equipment.

Election officials were anxious heading into Tuesday, given problems encountered with touchscreens during September primaries in Florida and Maryland. They stepped up poll-worker training to better cope with any machine failures.

"It was definitely an open question on September 10th whether the problem was the machines or the people running them. Now, it's leaning toward the explanation that it was the people," said Dan Seligson, spokesman for Electionline.org, a nonpartisan election-reform group.

In Montgomery County, Md., where results of a tight congressional primary race were delayed by faulty planning, a programming error caused machines at 30 precincts to display a ballot with a header reading "Democratic."

The header would normally be blank, but the glitch does not affect the tally, said Margie Roher, an elections administrator.

In Florida's Miami-Dade County, one of two most troubled during the primaries, machines were misprogrammed at one precinct, meaning voters had to use substitute paper ballots for the first three hours.

Forty to 50 touchscreen machines scattered among more than 5,000 in Broward County had to be taken offline because of incorrectly loaded software or the wrong ballot, officials said. The glitches did not prevent anyone from casting votes, they added.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno, who during the primary had been delayed because machines weren't ready, voted on schedule Tuesday.

"They were prepared for me this time," she said.

Many voters offered good reviews in Georgia.

"It's almost too simple," Joe Penley of Barnesville raved. "My 4-year-old granddaughter could do it. It's hard to make errors if you just follow instructions."

Nonetheless, one touchscreen machine locked up and crashed as Mary Perdue, wife of Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Sonny Perdue, was voting. Officials rebooted the computer, and she continued with ease.

"Any time you have that many new computers, you're going to have some problems, but the workers handled it well," she said.

No troubles were reported in the nation's largest county to go all-electronic: Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. Harris' system uses a dial to highlight names rather than a touchscreen.

But in Tarrant County, Texas, which includes Fort Worth, officials said tallies may not be finalized until Wednesday night because of a programming error with older-style machines.

Mercuri warned that some problems with the new touchscreen systems may never be known because they lack paper backups for doublechecking ballots.

Diebold Election Systems, which supplied machines for Georgia and Maryland, said election officials never asked for such features, which worries Mercuri.

She said any misprogramming isn't always obvious, "so there's no way to prove that (a machine) didn't cast a vote for Candidate B when you cast for Candidate A."

---

AP Technology Editor Frank Bajak contributed to this report.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/11/05/politics1805EST0726.DTL

[supercat]

I want a machine that can be double checked. I want a paper trail.

Actually, a properly-designed electronic voting system would allow for double-checking by using media which, once written, could not be altered without such alteration being detectable. This would add a little bit to the cost of elections, since some of the chips would have to go into permanent storage after each election, but it should still be cheaper than paper ballots.

[Truth Telling Guy]

High-stakes vote faces fierce scrutiny

Lawyers hit polls as parties battle to run Congress

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Jill Zuckman and Jeff Zeleny
Chicago Tribune Staff Writers
Originally published November 5, 2002, 8:19 AM EST

To watch for such problems, the Democratic National Committee, for example, has trained and deployed 10,000 lawyers, paralegals and poll watchers for some of the tightest contests, including ones in Minnesota, South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas and Florida.

They also have set up a toll-free number -- (866) VOTE-411 -- monitored by teams of lawyers to allow voters anywhere in the country to report problems at polling places.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee insisted the party has no comparable operation.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-electlede1105,0,5586808.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

THE STUPID PARTY!!!Democrats fight, Republicans roll over....or is it bend over???

[Truth Telling Guy]

Actually, a properly-designed electronic voting system would allow for double-checking by using media which, once written, could not be altered without such alteration being detectable. This would add a little bit to the cost of elections, since some of the chips would have to go into permanent storage after each election, but it should still be cheaper than paper ballots.
32 posted on 11/05/2002 4:57 PM PST by supercat

Who cares if it is cheaper???

We are talking about insuring honest elections here!

Who can insure honest elections right now?

Answer: NO ONE

[Kozak]

It must be some kind of record ... vote tampering before the voting even begins.

BS. My sister was an election judge in Chicago ( our Precinct captain was under the mistaken impression my famiy was loyal Democrat ) as a Republican judge. On election day she would routinely find hundreds of votes already registered on the machines when they went in to open up the polls.

[Truth Telling Guy]

But the real vote fraud is ignored and this stuff below is widely reported and comdemned.



Calls prompt charge of dirty tactics

BY PETER WALLSTEN AND LESLEY CLARK

pwallsten@herald.com

Posted on Tue, Nov. 05, 2002

Thousands of likely Democratic and independent voters received election-eve phone calls from a Republican firm claiming that Gov. Jeb Bush is the only candidate for governor who supports ''traditional'' families, suggesting that Democratic challenger Bill McBride supports gay marriages.

The calls -- one of which was recorded Monday on the home answering machine of a Palm Beach County legislator -- prompted immediate charges from McBride of dirty tactics by the Bush campaign.

''It's just such a wrong thing to do to drive wedges between people,'' McBride said.

Bush, flying around the state Monday aboard the private Boeing 737 owned by South Florida billionaire Wayne Huizenga to lead get-out-the-vote rallies, heard about the calls from reporters and immediately ordered that the calls cease.

Soon after McBride held a press conference Monday to denounce the calls, the GOP realized that Orlando political consultant John Dowless, former executive director of the state Christian Coalition, had initiated the calls without clearing the script with party officials.

= [100.0] = [100.0] ---calls -- hearing the voice of former national Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed -- before they were stopped.

''I didn't know about the calls, and I don't support them at all,'' Bush told reporters during a break from making personal calls to likely GOP voters during a stop in suburban Tampa. ``It's not true that there's only one candidate who supports the traditional family. That's outrageous. I know that Mr. McBride does as well.''

The calls soured what was otherwise a positive day for Republican strategists -- who believe they have set the stage for a GOP sweep in today's elections, from the Governor's Mansion to the state Cabinet and big wins in the Legislature -- and handed McBride one final weapon to motivate his core supporters against Bush.

It marked an unusual goof for a party that has raised about $50 million for the 2002 elections -- at least twice as much as the Democrats -- and gave a rare glimpse into a side of political strategy rarely exposed to view.

Both parties have spent millions in recent weeks placing similar recorded calls to voters, targeting them with precision based on gender, race, ethnicity, age and geography.

Others making recorded calls for Bush include golfer Jack Nicklaus, football quarterback Bernie Kosar and America's Most Wanted host John Walsh.

SCRIPT NOT CLEARED

Dowless said Monday that he had spoken in a general way with Republican strategists about a message to appeal to Christian conservatives, but that he had forgotten to clear the script before letting the calls begin.

''They came to me because they wanted to address those social conservative voters,'' Dowless said. ``The bottom line is I screwed up.''

SIMILAR TACTIC

The calls were similar to a mail piece sent last week by Dowless' firm -- and paid for by the state GOP -- touting Bush's anti-abortion stance and noting an old McBride quote saying he would consider looking at Vermont's law of allowing civil unions for gays.

McBride, who has campaigned with his wife, Adelaide ''Alex'' Sink, and their children, said Monday he opposes gay marriage and civil unions.

State GOP Chairman Al Cárdenas said Monday that the script was ''not the message we're looking for,'' but said it was a minor mistake.

''We're making millions and millions of calls with dozens of vendors, so this script happening once is a pretty good track record,'' he said.

The calls cap a campaign that, at least on the surface, steered clear of social issues, with both candidates focusing instead on education and taxes -- until now.

The two men differed during a radio debate last month on gay adoption, when Bush supported Florida's ban and McBride called it ``discrimination.''

On Sunday, Bush drew a standing ovation at a Tampa evangelical church when he spoke of his support for protecting life, even that of the ``unborn.''

Two days earlier, in Panama City, Bush told a crowd that he prays every day -- and was serenaded by church choirs chanting, ``Come, Jeb, Come, Jeb.''

Both candidates have moved to their party's core issues in recent days, however, with strategists convinced that the race could be close and the outcome dependent upon the party with the best Election Day strategy to turn out their base.

BUSH IN PENSACOLA

Bush used a three-day bus tour and his Monday fly-around to underscore that point, telling a crowd in conservative Pensacola that, ``You're looking at the first Republican governor [in Florida] to win reelection in modern times.''

He was introduced by U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, a Panhandle Republican, who warned the faithful that ''South Florida liberals'' will be doing all they can to oust the incumbent governor.

Bush held airport rallies in Pensacola, Jacksonville and Orlando, and appeared in Tampa before finishing his day with a glitzy rally in Coconut Grove.

He flew across the state in style aboard Huizenga's jet, which is furnished with plush, baby-blue seats and couches in three rooms, decorated in Art Deco style. The plane cost the campaign $16,000 for fuel and landing fees.

Bush, traveling with Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, first lady Columba Bush and their son, George P. Bush, stopped at a suburban Tampa headquarters to call some voters.

At one point, Brogan brought levity by calling McBride campaign Communications Director Alan Stonecipher -- not known among reporters for a friendly demeanor -- to ask for his vote. Stonecipher replied that he had already voted absentee.

McBride, who has appeared in recent days with Bill Clinton and Al Gore to rally the Democratic Party's strongest supporters -- most notably blacks -- toured key media markets Monday with singer Jimmy Buffett.

The Democratic nominee served as the self-described ''warm-up'' act for Buffett in airport tarmac concerts in West Palm Beach and Orlando.

The bitterness of the final day served as a fitting metaphor for a campaign that grew increasingly nasty as each candidate carved out a message designed to appeal to their base of voters.

GORE IN MIAMI

Gore, appearing Monday morning in Miami with McBride, reached back to his 2000 themes of casting the campaign as a battle between the haves and the have-nots.

The former vice president, who lost the White House to Bush's brother by just 537 votes after Florida's disputed election, warned of four years of ''division'' that would pit ''one group of Floridians against another group of Floridians, the interests of the powerful against the interests of the state as a whole,'' if the governor is reelected.

Both campaigns ended the day bracing for what could be a messy election, between potential problems with new touch-screen voting systems and lines resulting from time-consuming ballots full of amendments and candidates from top to bottom.

[Truth Telling Guy]

Amendment 1 missing on ballots

Palm Beach Post

November 5 2002

http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/news/1105haverhill.html

The biggest voting glitch in Palm Beach County occurred at Haverhill Town Hall where three of the five voting machines didn't show a ballot for Amendment 1, the amendment authorizing the death penalty for capital crimes. Barbara Thompson, the poll station's veteran clerk, said the screens displayed Amendment 2 in Amendment 1's position.

Voters who didn't cast their ballot on those machines were allowed to cast a ballot on the other two machines or return to the polls later in the day, Thompson said. The faulty machines were replaced by 10:30 a.m.

Ballots cast on them will still have their votes recorded, she said. It was unclear whether anyone could have voted twice on Amendment 2 and if the elections supervisor could exclude those extra votes.

Many voters waited to cast their ballot on the two glitch-free machines.

"They're going to work very hard to not get knocked out," said Rusty Gordon, a precinct captain for the Democratic party who manned a table near the street outside town hall.

[Truth Telling Guy]

(READ THIS STORY BELOW VERY CAREFULLY):

Touchscreen Voting Suffers Setback

Scattered Problems Mar Debut of Touchscreens and Other High-Tech Voting Systems

The Associated Press

Nov. 5 —

Scattered problems, a few serious but most described as hiccups, marred the debut of touchscreens and other high-tech voting machines Tuesday, including in all of Georgia and in Florida's most election-challenged counties.

The most serious appeared in two Georgia counties where officials said they could result in contested elections and lawsuits. The state has the nation's largest deployment: 22,000 touchscreens.

In one county, ballots in at least three precincts listed the wrong county commission races. Officials shut down the polls at one point to fix the problem but didn't know how many wrong ballots were cast or how to correct errant votes. In another, a county commission race was omitted from a ballot.

Elsewhere, some machines froze up and others had to be rebooted. Dozens were misprogrammed, and cards voters need to access machines malfunctioned.

"They are locking up, and we have to turn them off and turn them on. The voting is taking a little longer," said Mary Cranford, election superintendent in Georgia's Coweta County.

But those troubles did not look to have the potential to cascade into the meltdown seen during the Sept. 10 primaries in Florida, where Democratic gubernatorial contest results were delayed for a week. Analysts said better planning and training of poll workers in operating the machines paid off, though some cautioned that the new systems' reliability can't be guaranteed.

"A lot of these products were rushed to market," said Rebecca Mercuri, a Bryn Mawr College computer science professor and expert on election technology.

The addition of more than 200 brings to 510 the number of counties nationwide with electronic voting systems, according to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., research company. That's 16 percent of counties representing one in five registered voters.

Analysts expect 75 percent of counties to have such systems within six years, boosted largely by a new $3.9 billion federal law to help states replace outdated equipment.

Election officials were anxious heading into Tuesday, given problems encountered with touchscreens during September primaries in Florida and Maryland. They stepped up poll-worker training to better cope with any machine failures.

"It was definitely an open question on September 10th whether the problem was the machines or the people running them. Now, it's leaning toward the explanation that it was the people," said Dan Seligson, spokesman for Electionline.org, a nonpartisan election-reform group.

In Montgomery County, Md., where results of a tight congressional primary race were delayed by faulty planning, a programming error caused machines at 30 precincts to display a ballot with a header reading "Democratic."

The header would normally be blank, but the glitch does not affect the tally, said Margie Roher, an elections administrator. In Florida's Miami-Dade County, one of two most troubled during the primaries, machines were misprogrammed at one precinct, meaning voters had to use substitute paper ballots for the first three hours.

Forty to 50 touchscreen machines scattered among more than 5,000 in Broward County had to be taken offline because of incorrectly loaded software or the wrong ballot, officials said. The glitches did not prevent anyone from casting votes, they added.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno, who during the primary had been delayed because machines weren't ready, voted on schedule Tuesday.

"They were prepared for me this time," she said.

Many voters offered good reviews in Georgia.

"It's almost too simple," Joe Penley of Barnesville raved. "My 4-year-old granddaughter could do it. It's hard to make errors if you just follow instructions."

Nonetheless, one touchscreen machine locked up and crashed as Mary Perdue, wife of Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Sonny Perdue, was voting.Officials rebooted the computer, and she continued with ease.

"Any time you have that many new computers, you're going to have some problems, but the workers handled it well," she said.

No troubles were reported in the nation's largest county to go all-electronic: Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. Harris' system uses a dial to highlight names rather than a touchscreen.

But in Tarrant County, Texas, which includes Fort Worth, officials said tallies may not be finalized until Wednesday night because of a programming error with older-style machines.

Mercuri warned that some problems with the new touchscreen systems may never be known because they lack paper backups for doublechecking ballots.

Diebold Election Systems, which supplied machines for Georgia and Maryland, said election officials never asked for such features, which worries Mercuri.

(Ofcourse not they want easy vote fraud!!!)

She said any misprogramming isn't always obvious, "so there's no way to prove that (a machine) didn't cast a vote for Candidate B when you cast for Candidate A."

AP Technology Editor Frank Bajak contributed to this report.

[otto13]

Wow I just got done going over a video from a investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker. The video was called the "The Big Fix 2000". And he basically went back and traced were the voting machines involved in the voting so called iregularities came from, and he also looked into the fact that there are only a handful of company's involved in the election process in this nation with Sequoia Pacific responsible for the counting of one third of American voters ballots cast in any election. Sequoia Pacific some time in the past seen fit to change there name to Sequoia Voting systems. My own county just brought in the new touch screen machines wich were produced by none other than Sequoia Voting Systems. Straight from Manhattan Elections Commissioner Douglas Kilner, Sequoia Pacific refused to provide documentation as to the security of it's voting machines, when it was bidding on providing these machines to Manhattan. They also refused to allow any election officials to look at the tabulation code to verify it was accurate and un corruptable. But any computer person with a programming background could quite easily fix the code to tabulate votes in such a way to ensure that what ever candidate they wanted would win the election. And computerized voting machines leave no paper trail to prove otherwise! He also said that Sequoia and other similiar companys are guilty of misleading elections officials as to the security of these systems. He also said some are guilty of bribery. Imagine that! What is even more concerning is who owns these companys. Daniel Hopsicker uncovered that many of these companys are owned by persons that have some very shady backgrounds. Felons & known mobsters, maybe even worse foreigners with criminal pasts. Sequoia Pacific itself is owned by a Dr. Michael Smurfit a extremely wealthy Irish doctory , who has been indicted for fraud in spain & under possible indictment over a leveraged buy out of an american container shipping company tied in some how with Mobile Oil. I went to Sequoia Voting systems web site www.sequoiavote.com and found that Sequoia is now being aquired by another foreign company De La Rue wich is aquiring an 85% share in the company just has Sequoia begins to brach out into all kinds of neat ventures , like fraud proof id's , and fraud proof driver's licenses for the state of N.Y. and I.D. cards for some south american country's. Ian Much chief executive of De La Rue said the Smurfitt would retain 15% interest in the company, and that it's aquisition of 85% interst in Sequoia fits in with De La Rue's traditional business of protecting financial value & personal identity. There considered a leader in secure currency & cash management , with that last bit being that they print one in five of every one of the World's Bank noets! As stated on the Sequoia web site. They also recently got a contract to produce 500million euro's for the European Central Bank! De La Rue is based in Hampshire England! Our system of voting and our very constitution has been subverted by foriegn company's, criminals, and even our past rulers from europe. When will we all take notice, and take back our country and reinstate our constitutional rights as they were meant when our founding fathers wrote them. I suggest anyone interested in taking a look at this video on you're own go to his web site at www.madcowprod.com , he's also looked into many other areas of criminality! Oh yes and those machines that had so many problems in FL. in 2000. Were the same machines that caused similiar problems in Louisiana in a past election. Louisiana was ordered to destroy the machines and not resel them to any other states for election purposes! They first tried to pawn them off to N.Y. according to Douglas Kelner Manhattan Elections Comissioner!

[otto13]

These so called american voting machine company's export this stuff all over the world! So in effect were exporting vote fraud and election fixing through out the world!