It was just a Glitch - An unabridged collection of links

[DoYouEverWonder]

Every time an error or miscount pops up on these electronic voting systems, we keep hearing the same excuses. It was just a glitch or it was just another one of those human errors. No big deal, it rarely happens.

Miscounting ballots and possible changing the outcome of any election is a serious matter. Calling it a glitch just doesn't cut it after awhile.

So in honor of the GLITCH, here is the start of a collection of famous quotes that will live in infamy. Please fell free to contribute. Thanks.



In November 2002, Broward County officials admitted that software glitches had caused a failure to report 100,000 votes from turnout figures, but claimed it did not affect actual votes in races.

Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood's office says the state's voting system "worked flawlessly" in 2002. But only this summer, Hood's office announced that it was certifying a fix to an anomaly that had shown up in Miami-Dade voting machines in 2003.

The glitch "was rare and all votes were counted," the office said. Other difficulties cropped up when early voting began in Florida this year.

Problems have also occurred outside of Florida. Last November, computer voting machines in Boone County, Ind. somehow recorded 144,000 votes cast in a country where only 19,000 registered voters live. When corrected, it turned out a mere 5,352 ballots had actually been cast.

While the snafus seen so far apparently involve only random errors, critics worry about deliberate manipulation of voting systems.

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:0JELm8MzzpgJ:www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/22/politics/main650884.shtml+Glenda+Hood+touch+screen&hl=en



Secretary of State Ken Blackwell certified George W. Bush as the winner of Ohio's 20 electoral votes on Monday, and praised Ohio's much-maligned election as having "performed with admiration."

"This was an election when you had some glitches, but none of these glitches was of a conspiratorial nature, and none of them would overturn or change the election results," Blackwell told a news conference.

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isvot/1102422647127040.xml


NO MAJOR GLITCHES

Long voter lines were reported nationwide and few major voting glitches were recorded in the final act of the long campaign.

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:OXSbP1CFilsJ:www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml%3Ftype%3DtopNews%26storyID%3D614815%26section%3Dnews+Blackwell+said+glitches+Nov+2004&hl=en



Group tallies more than 1,100 e-voting glitches


http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/1103grouptalli.html

[displacedtexan]

1. I'm so glad you did this!

The official word of the year is "blog," but I think it should be "glitch!"

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Oops, found some more of those pesky glitches

Elko County officials have found 271 votes that were not counted in November's general election because of a "computer glitch" with the new touch-screen machine system.

Elko County Clerk Win Smith says three result cards from machines used at the Elko Convention Center were found to have had problems.

Those votes have since been recovered from the computer cards and added to the final totals. Smith says the recovered votes did not impact any election results.

She says she contacted Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based hardware and software firm that provided the touch-screen system, and the company provided assistance in finding and correcting the problem.

http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2670810&nav=8faOU0ua


More than 11,000 Saline County residents cast their ballots early and the process appeared to have gone smoothly until Monday night when a balloting snafu was discovered.

Unfortunately, 62 ballots didn't get counted by the optical scanning equipment the county used for the early voting process and all of these ballots were being recounted today, Saline County Election Commission Chairman Greg Brown said.

"Gary (Election Commissioner Gary Hunnicutt) and I tried to identify which ballots hadn't been counted, but we couldn't," Brown said.

"We're having to re-run all of them through the counting device," Brown said. "We did 2,000 last night, and we'll do the rest of them today."


http://www.bentoncourier.com/articles/2004/12/06/news/28fnews.txt


From Washington state, where the outcome of the governor's race remains in doubt, to North Carolina, where thousands of voters will recast ballots because of a computer glitch, election officials are working overtime to iron out wrinkles in the voting process.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-01-election-hangover_x.htm?csp=34