Check Out This 2003 Article on Zogby's Site

[On the Road]

The Theft of Your Vote is Merely a Microchip Away
- By Thom Hartmann, Berkeley Daily Planet
(8/1/2003)


...“A defective computer chip in the county’s optical scanner misread ballots Tuesday night and incorrectly tallied a landslide victory for Republicans,” announced the Associated Press in a story on Nov. 7, just a few days after the 2002 election. The story added, “Democrats actually won by wide margins.”

Republicans would have carried the day had not poll workers become suspicious when the computerized vote-reading machines said the Republican candidate was trouncing his incumbent Democratic opponent in the race for County Commissioner. The poll workers were close enough to the electorate—they were part of the electorate—to know their county overwhelmingly favored the Democratic incumbent.

A quick hand recount of the optical-scan ballots showed that the Democrat had indeed won, even though the computerized ballot-scanning machine kept giving the race to the Republican. The poll workers brought the discrepancy to the attention of the county clerk, who notified the voting machine company.

“A new computer chip was flown to Snyder from Dallas,” County Clerk Lindsey told the Associated Press. With the new chip installed, the computer then verified that the Democrat had won the election.

---snip

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=5501



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The Berkeley Planet article discusses a couple more incidents, including the 18,181 Comus County situation and an Alabama gubernatorial race that I can't remember ever hearing about, possibly because the party roles were reversed.

And what is this thing about "defective computer chips"? Bad hardware usually causes a widespread failure, not an incorrect total.