Reply #19: It wasn't just a screen glitch. Take a look at #055744

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055744 Washington Snohomish Nov. 2, 2004 2004-11-11 15:48:38 PST Machine problem Reported by

Short version: machine registers incorrect candidate when vote placed

Full report follows:
I am a registered voter in Snohomish county (Everett 49) and had a very strange voting experience this morning that concerns me. The description follows that I sent as a warning to my wife who has not voted yet today:
Just letting you know I had some really curious occurrences when I went to vote. When voting for president they have the presidential candidates on the far left side of the screen and the senate candidates on the right side of the screen (why they don't have separate screens for each vote is beyond me and is a questionable practice in and of itself). Anyway, when I voted for president on the left side of the screen, it did not record the vote for president, but recorded a vote for Patty Murray for senator on the far right side of the screen. I pointed the discrepancy out to the voting people and asked why when I push in a small circle on the left side of the screen that a vote gets recorded on the far right side of the screen and why that vote was for a democrat, their only answer was "well you must have touched that side of the screen with your coat". This was BS as I was using the very pointed voting wand to press the screen in a very deliberate manner. This happened to me TWO MORE TIMES while I was voting for other candidates and being extremely careful not to touch any other portion of the screen with my coat or anything else....each time the vote I intended was not recorded, instead a vote for a democratic candidate was recorded on another part of the screen....it was consistently recording votes for a democratic candidate that I had never selected and for a race that I was not currently voting on. In order to correct these discrepancies you have to physically select the check mark for the candidate YOU DID NOT INTEND to vote for, which then restores that selection screen and all of the candidates are again shown and you can again attempt to vote for the candidate you intended.

Supposedly, at the end after you review your entire ballot and then select to cast your ballot, none of the other selections you were forced to make get sent as your vote ....only the information shown on your ballot review gets cast as your vote, but I am dubious that this is indeed true. This happened to two other people on completely different voting machines while I was there voting. So it was not a unique problem with my screen. I don't think this is by accident....This will confuse people by forcing you to reject a vote for a democrat in a race you are not currently voting on before you can choose your own candidate. Also, some people are easily confused or embarrassed and won't know that they can cancel the unintended vote by actually selecting the check mark for the unintended vote to restore the screen and they won't ask for help to correct it and will likely cast an incorrect ballot to save face. I am very concerned about this obvious pattern....why wasn't a Republican or Independent candidate ever the one voted for erroneously, it was always a Democrat. Something stinks here and I am going to report it.

(edit: apparently something got screwed up here and it was "working" backwards)