Palm Beach County Voting Glitch - Imagine That

[Jeanette in FL]

Having lived in Palm Beach County during the fiasco of the 2000 election, this does not surprise me in the least. I had personal experience of problems during the election early that day before the media was involved. It is incomprehensible that they are still in such a sorry state of disarray.

There are some classic quotes in the article, but because of DU rules, they all cannot be included in this post.

Glitch leaves early voters waiting
By JENNIFER SORENTRUE and HECTOR FLORIN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Several Palm Beach County voters who tried to cast ballots early Friday were turned away, and others were forced to spend extra time at the polls because of a computer problem at early voting sites.
The wireless Internet cards that poll workers use to quickly verify voters' political affiliation, which ballot they should receive and whether they are actually registered to vote stopped working properly for about three hours late Friday morning. Imagine That

Because of the problem, poll workers had to call the supervisor of elections office to verify each voter's status. Nearly all elections office employees were reassigned to field the calls, officials said. Imagine That

The problem won't affect Tuesday's election because wireless cards are used only during early voting when residents can vote an any sites. They are not used at neighborhood precincts. But Friday voters were forced to wait as poll workers called the office. Several said there were told to come back later. Imagine That

~~snip~~

Still, Friday's glitch was a painful reminder of the problems the supervisor of elections office has experienced since 2000, when the infamous "butterfly ballot" began the presidential election fiasco.Imagine That

~~snip~~

Chuck Hamby, a Verizon Wireless spokesman based in Florida, initially denied that the problem was caused by its system, but later said the company were still trying to identify how it occurred. Poll workers could connect to the Internet but could not link to the elections main computer server, Hamby said.Imagine That

~~snip~~

"You'd think of all the things we've been through, they'd have some backup system," Bodick said.Imagine That

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/26/s1c_voting_0126.html

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. Considering that my senior citizen,forever Democrat mother wound up voting for Pat Buchanan in 2000

in West Palm Beach, I can of course, Imagine That!

[flordehinojos]

2. and one county south of Palm Beach we have not yet had any reported glitches with early voting.

though our supervision of elections who was initially appointed to the post by jeb bush has had plenty of glitches to show up throughout all of the election cycles that she has presided. i won't be surprised that glitches will show up anytime, as soon as they are caught by some willing to tell press person... although i voted in early voting yesterday, i don't trust brenda snipes and her perpetual claim that there are no glitches to be had, no glitches to be tolerated and no glitches to her perfectly snowwhite supervision of the elections. as chriss matthews might say: Ha!

[Orsino]

3. Paper doesn't need to be plugged in.

That is all.

[tgnyc]

4. Pa.Per.

[LiberalFighter]

5. Same place the Coulter witch lives?