Glitches cited in early voting

[Flabbergasted]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/15869924.htm

Early voters are urged to cast their ballots with care following scattered reports of problems with heavily used machines.

BY CHARLES RABIN AND DARRAN SIMON
[email protected]

After a week of early voting, a handful of glitches with electronic voting machines have drawn the ire of voters, reassurances from elections supervisors -- and a caution against the careless casting of ballots.

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step.

Election officials say they aren't aware of any serious voting issues. But in Broward County, for example, they don't know how widespread the machine problems are because there's no process for poll workers to quickly report minor issues and no central database of machine problems.

In Miami-Dade, incidents are logged and reported daily and recorded in a central database. Problem machines are shut down.

''In the past, Miami-Dade County would send someone to correct the machine on site,'' said Lester Sola, county supervisor of elections. Now, he said, ``We close the machine down and put a seal on it.''

Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.

[flpoljunkie]

1. The 15-step process (to recalibrate the DRE) is outlined in the poll-workers manual!

Unfrigging believable! What kind of democracy uses such a system to cast and count their votes?

How can we possible feel there is any integrity in this process?

[stillcool]

2. it's time to ...

take an axe to these voting machines...and election officials are anything but.