EARLY VOTERS BE AWARE BALLOT GLITCHES/DOUBLE CHECK BALLOT

[MagickMuffin]

http://www.bushwatch.com/

"There have been reports in Austin, Texas that those pressing the straight Democrat button on the electronic voting machines have been making last-minute checks before finalizing their votes, only to find that every vote was for the Democrat, except the machine had them voting Bush-Kerry for president. Please be sure to double-check your ballot, item by item, before finalizing your vote, and report similar glitches to the workers and relevant party headquarters."



This info is posted on Bushwatch's main page. I have not seen this reported anywhere. Please check your ballot several times to ensure your vote will not be spoiled! We have to become very aware of the dirty tricks that will be going on in this election cycle!!!!

[sui generis]

1. it's easy to tell what's going on

When you change an underlying dataset like that (all dem except for Bush/Cheney), the "objects" that display the results of your vote merely display what's in the data.

A programmer has to write a bit of override code that "fakes" the presidential choice, otherwise the original value from the dataset will show. It seems like in this particular case the override code did not work and the data is accidentally being shown as it will actually be counted, even though a straight democratic ticket was selected.

I doubt a "cheater" would make every machine do it - but if even a small number of machines do it regularly it's enough to throw a close election.

:tinfoilhat:

[sonias]

2. Always review your ballot

Especially in electronic voting. Errors can be made. One of my pet peeves is that our county registrar, who is a Democrat, will not admit the possibility of software error. She is just oblivious to bbv voting issues.

Then she wonders when you have this kind of problem why people are skeptical of her explanations.

Anyway this is being reported widely by e-mail and the county party sent out this response via e-mail:

(snip)
It has come to the attention of the Travis County Democratic Party and to the attention of Dana DeBeauvoir, our Travis County Clerk, that an e-mail is circulating stating that a Travis County voter cast a straight Democratic ballot and when proofing their ballot, saw a vote marked for Bush.

To dispel the rumor: This appeared to have happened and was corrected before the ballot was cast. This was not a machine malfunction.
However, user-error can cause ballot casting errors.

The TCDP has been working closely with Travis County Elections Division and here are some facts:

-- As of Thursday evening, over 63,000 had placed their vote in Travis
County
-- This total will more than likely exceed 75,000 by Friday night
-- Travis County Elections Division has received only a handful of problems/complaints and after thoroughly checking into each one, have determined that these resulted from user-error and were not machine problems.

The County held a voting machine demonstration with the press earlier today. We have complete faith in their system in that this has been an isolated case or two and is not some sort of conspiracy as is being indicated by the e-mail.

As conscientious voters, I am sure you did or will thoroughly review your ballot before hitting the 'cast' button. If you have any questions while placing your vote, please do not hesitate to let the Election Judge on duty know BEFORE hitting the send button.

*** What happened in the case stated in the e-mail was voter error and not a machine malfunction. ***

When pressing ENTER after marking Straight Democrat, some voters inadvertently turned the SELECT wheel one click through the ballot while meaning to go to the final "PROOF" page. If you hit ENTER at that point, your cursor is over the first candidate on the ballot: Bush/Cheney.

So, the answer to this problem is this:
TELL EVERYONE TO PROOF THEIR BALLOT. If there is an error, page back and fix it and/or ask for assistance in doing so. You must fix these things BEFORE you hit CAST BALLOT.

We thank everyone who has written or called in with their concerns. We understand these concerns considering what happened in Florida in 2000. But here in Travis County, Texas in 2004 there is nothing to worry about.
(/snip)
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Sonia