Alabama
Date: November 2002
Area: Baldwin County votes for Governor
System: ES&S
Problem: at close of polls the Democrat had won but next morning 6,300 of his votes had inexplicably disappeared making the Republican the winner - "Something happened. I don't have enough intelligence to say exactly what," said Mark Kelley of ES&S.
Outcome: recount requested and denied
Source: Mobile Register, Jan. 28, 2003, "Voting snafu answers elusive"
California
Date: Nov. 2003
Area: Alameda County
System: Diebold Elections Systems Inc. touch-screen
Problem: Diebold altered the software running in touchscreen voting machines yet neither submitted it for state testing nor notified state authorities of the change
Outcome: Stanford computer science professor David L. Dill disputes state and county assurances that Diebold's recent software changes have no effect on election returns. "How are they going to prove it? They can't."
Source: Oakland Tribune
California
Date: Nov. 2003
Area: Riverside County
System: Sequoia Voting Systems; AVC Edge touch-screen system.
Problem: Software used for placing ballots on voting kiosks and for storing and tabulating results has been left unprotected on a publicly available server, by Jaguar Computer Systems, a firm that provides election support to a California county, raising concerns about the possibility of vote tampering in future elections.
Outcome: Jaguar blocked public access to the FTP site
Source:
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61014,00.htmlFlorida
Date: March 2002
Area: Palm Beach County
System: Sequoia touch-screen machines
Problem: machines froze up when voter selected language
Outcome: Phil Foster of Sequoia said it was software programming error
Source: The Palm Beach Post, Mar. 14, 2002, "Human goofs, not machines..."
Florida
Date: Apr. 2002
Area: Medley town council election
System:
Problem: voting machines gave victory to wrong candidate
Outcome: elections supervisor concerned because computer didn't raise any red flags and humans had to spot the error
Source: Miami Herald, Apr. 4, 2002, "Despite new voting system..."
Florida
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Broward County, Century Village precinct
System:
Problem: There were 7,515 votes in 1994, 10,947 in 1998, but only 4,179 in 2002 although population was stable after complex reach maximum occupancy in 1998
Outcome: suspicious but cause unknown
Source: Miami Herald, Nov. 10, 2002, and call-in from Miami accountant reported in "Black Box Voting" by Bev Harris
Florida
Date: April 2003
Area: Boca Raton (city council)
System: Sequoia touch-screen
Problems: (1) delayed count because of 15 lost cartridges said to have been taken home by poll worker, (2) voters choosing one candidate found check by another's name.
Outcome: independent computer experts not allowed to check machines
Source: Wyatt Olson;
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2003-04-24/feature.html/1/index.html
Georgia
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Atlanta
System: touch-screen, no paper trail
Problem: memory cards for 67 machines misplaced and votes left out of total
Outcome: 56 memory cards found and recorded, 11 still unaccounted for
Source: Atlanta Constitution-Journal
Georgia
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: County Commissioner
System: Optical scanner
Problem: "A defective computer chip in the county's optical scanner misread ballots
Tuesday night and incorrectly tallied a landslide victory for Republicans...Democrats actually won by wide margins."
Outcome: error recognized and corrected by poll workers
Source: Associated Press, Nov. 7, 2002
Indiana
Date: Nov. 4, 2003
Area: Boone County
System: MicroVote
Problem: Computer-generated vote totals showed 144,000 votes from 19,000 registered voters and a "computer glitch" was blamed
Outcome: collaboration between the county and advisers from the software producer was said to have fixed the problem
Source: Indianapolis Star, Nov. 9, 2003
Kansas
Date: April 2002
Area: Johnson County
System: Diebold touch-screen
Problem: incorrect totals in six races, no paper trail
Outcome: recount from internal records changed results dramatically, Diebold tried to re-create the error in hope of correcting it, Diebold President Urosevich said "I wish I had an answer"
Source: investigative Journalist Bev Harris, author of the book "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering In The 21st Century "; also The Kansas City Star, Apr. 5, 2002, "Election errors unnerve Johnson County official"
Kansas
Date: Aug. 2002
Area: Clay County, election of county commissioner
System:
Problem: machines said Mayo got 48% of vote, software programming errors
Outcome: hand count revealed Mayo got 76%
Source: AP report in Wichita Eagle, Aug. 22, 2002, "Mayo won by a landslide...election reversed..."
Lousiana
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: St. Bernard Parish, Justice of the Peace election
System:
Problem: machine ate 35 absentee ballots
Outcome: even technician could not extract them from locked-up machine
Source: The Times-Picayune, Nov. 7, 2002, "Machine snag..."
Louisiana
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Tangipahoa Parish
System:
Problem: 20% of machines malfunctioned according to clerk of court
Outcome: 15 of his employees worked to overcome malfunctions
Source: The Baton Rouge Advocate, Nov. 7, 2002, "Voting machine glitches..."
Maryland
Date: 2002
Area: election for Governor, polling place in Croom
System: Diebold touch-screen
Problem: "I pushed a Republican ticket for Governor and his name disappeared...then the Democrat's name got an X put in it," Kevin West of Upper Marlboro reported.
Outcome: no one will ever know because system is unauditable
Source: The Washington Times, Nov. 6, 2002, "Glitches cited at some polls..."
Maryland
Date: 2002
Area:
System: Diebold touch-screen
Problem: many voters saw a banner announcing "Democrat" at the top of their screen regardless of their choice
Outcome: no one will ever know how those votes were recorded
Source: The Washington Times, Nov. 6, 2002, "Glitches cited at some polls..."
Maryland
Date: Aug. 12, 2003
Area: statewide
System: Diebold touch-screen
Problem: a study by three researchers from the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute and a computer scientist at Rice University analyzed programming code and concluded the system was vulnerable to unscrupulous voters, as well as "insiders such as poll workers, software developers and even janitors," who could cast multiple votes without a trace
Outcome: Maryland expanded the use of these machines from four counties to the entire state another company was contracted to audit the system under a non-disclosure agreement
Source: Brian Witte, ASSOCIATED PRESS
and
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59976,00.htmlNebraska
Date: 1996 and 2002
Area: statewide 85% of votes cast in Senate election
System: ES&S
Problem: Sen. Chuck Hagel, former talk show host had his votes counted by the company he headed until March 1995 and in whose parent company, headed by Hagel's campaign manager, he owns part interest
Outcome: Hagel declined to disclose to the Senate Ethics Committee the value of assets he held in the parent company based on a technicality
Source: Washington, D.C., publication "The Hill", Jan.3, 2003 (
http://www.thehill.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx)
Nebraska
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Gretna
System: ES&S
Problem: machines failed to tally "yes" votes on school bond issue
Outcome: bond issue actually passed by a 2-1 ratio
Source: Omaha World Herald, Nov. 6, 2002, "A late night in Sarpy..."
Nebraska
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: U.S. Senate race
System: optical scan
Problem: Democratic candidate found his ballot had already been filled out for his opponent, Chuck Hagel
Outcome:
Source: Interview with Charlie Matulka, Dem. Candidate reported in "Black Box Voting" by Bev Harris
New Jersey
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Cherry Hill
System:
Problem: 96% of machines couldn't register votes for mayor, despite pretesting and certification
Outcome: up to 100 early voters turned away from the polls
Source: Newsweek, Nov. 6, 2003, "Voting glitches..."
New Jersey
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Mays Landing County
System:
Problem: computer "irregularity" caused 3 of 5 relay stations to fail
Outcome: county clerk was given something resembling cash register tapes for a hand count
Source: Newsweek, Nov. 6, 2003, "Voting glitches..."
New Mexico
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Taos
System: optical scanner
Problem: county clerk noticed computer was counting votes under wrong name
Outcome: programmer told her it was a programming error
Source: Albuquerque Journal, Nov. 7, 2002, "Taos to recount absentee ballots"
New York
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Monroe County
System:
Problem: programming errors confused vote tally and election officials pulled the plug on the vote-reporting website
Outcome: voting machine tallies were impounded and guarded overnight by a deputy sheriff
Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Nov. 7, 2002, "John squeaks out victory..."
North Carolina
Date: Oct.-Nov., 2002
Area: Wake County
System: Election Systems and Software: touch-screen equipment, called iVotronic machines
Problem: in early voting294 of 2,228 ballots cast on the malfunctioning machines were not recorded, many voters tried to record their choices two, three or four times before it would register
Outcome: elections officials would try to reach everyone in time to let them vote again
Source: Raleigh News & Observer, by J. Andrew Curliss
North Carolina
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Wayne County, House District 11
System:
Problem: mistake in computer programming caused vote-counting machines to skip thousands of straight tickets of both major parties
Outcome: finding 5,500 more votes reversed the election of state representative
Source: The News & Observer, Nov. 9, 2002, "'Winners' may be losers"
Ohio
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Crawford County
System:
Problem: 2 vote counting machines failed
Outcome: workers drove to another county to borrow the use of a machine
Source: Telegraph-Forum, Nov. 6, 2002, "Glitch sends vote count to Richland"
Pennsylvania
Date: May 2001
Area: Pittsburgh's 12th and 13th wards
System:
Problem: councilwoman reported that machines in these and other predominantly black neighborhoods began smoking and spitting out crumpled paper
Outcome: repairs took hours and voters who couldn't wait that long lost their vote
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 4, 2001, "Hearing Gets Landslide of Voting Problems"
South Carolina
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Pickens County
System:
Problem: unable to get totals from two precincts because of computer glitches
Outcome:
Source: Associated Press, Nov. 6, 2002
South Carolina
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: race for state commissioner of agriculture
System:
Problem: 21,000 votes uncounted (55%)
Outcome: fortunately there were paper ballots for a hand count
Source: The Herald, Rock Hill, SC, Nov. 7, 2002, "Machine glitch keeps votes from being counted"
Texas
Date: Nov. 2002
Area: Dallas
System:
Problem: 18 machines found to register Republican when voters pushed Democrat were taken out of action
Outcome: Republican judge quashed effort to investigate accuracy of the tally
Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct. 30, 2002, "Democrats to appeal..."
Texas
Date: 2002
Area: Comal County
System: touch-screen
Problem: three Republican candidates each won with exactly 18,181 votes, called weird (alphabetical equivalent: ahaha)
Outcome: no audit; according to County Clerk "just a big coincidence"
Source: Deseret News, Nov. 9, 2002, "Texans tally triple match..."; and "Lynching by Laptop"by Greg Palast and Ina Howard
Texas
Date: 2002
Area: Scurry County commissioner votes
System: optical scanner
Problem: "faulty" computer chip caused Democratic votes to be recorded as Republican and gave landslide wins to the wrong candidates
Outcome: two manual recounts and a replacement chip in the scanner confirmed the error and the original results were overturned
Source: Houston Chronicle, Nov. 8, 2002, "Ballot glitches reverse two election results"
Virginia
Date: Nov. 2003
Area: Fairfax County (county offices)
System: WINvote computer technology from Advanced Voting Solutions of Frisco, Tex.
Problem: county officials tested one of the machines in question and discovered that it seemed to subtract a vote for a Republican candidate in about "one out of a hundred tries"; Republicans asked a Circuit Court judge to keep 10 voting machines under lock and key that broke down and were brought to the county government center for repairs and then returned to the polls an alleged violation of election law.
Outcome: The judge said the activity logs of all 10 machines will be inspected this week, with members of both major parties present; county officials defended the system--"The new machines get an A-plus. It's the plan to collect the vote that gets the failing grade."
Source: David Cho, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page B01
Washington
Date: 2003
Area: King County
System: Diebold Election Systems
Problem: an internal Diebold e-mail, circulated last month on the Internet, said the county was "famous" for accessing the GEMS election database through a separate software program, Microsoft Access (not software that has been certified for election use)
Outcome: election director ordered the removal of Access and all other nonelection software from the main vote-tabulating computer and a backup computer
Source: Seattle Times, by Keith Ervin, staff reporter, Sun., Nov. 2, 2003
Washington
Date: Feb. 2003
Area: Everett, Snohomish County
System: Sequoia optical scan
Problem: 21.5% of ballots in 28 precincts were missed,
Outcome: Republicans asked for recount, 116,837 absentee ballots recounted
Source: Citizen meeting, Jan. 23, 2003, reported in "Black Box Voting" by Bev Harris