NC: Repairing elections

[sled]

Repairing elections

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/10348922.htm

N.C. needs paper record of ballots, uniformity, training

Mon, Dec. 06, 2004

The Nov. 2 election left North Carolina residents confronting a stark
fact: Our system of voting needs repair and reform.

In many places, the elections system held up admirably under near-
record turnout and a clear enthusiasm for early voting. But in other
places, it failed. That last word is key, because if the elections
system fails anywhere, it fails everywhere.

Consider the record:

More than 4,000 votes vanished Nov. 2 in Carteret County when poll
workers continued to try to store them in voting machines after those
machines -- set improperly by the maker -- reached capacity. That
failure left the state scheduling a convoluted special election that
will surely land it in court.

The findings of a state Board of Elections probe into multiple
irregularities in Gaston County are expected Tuesday. Poll workers
there somehow missed 13,000 votes in the unofficial count. They found
an additional 75 votes in a recount. Then records showed discrepancies
between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters recorded
in more than half of the precincts.

(snip)

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