Voting Irregularity Tracking Thread - Volunteers Needed

[ALIPAC]

Ok folks,

We are picking up numerous reports of voter machine failure, malfunction, and other ballot anomalies.

We also have this wild story about illegal aliens pouring white out on the voter books in Philidelphia precincts.

Details at
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=45909

Please help us scan the web and collect up any and all voting problems we can pick up on.

Please provide links, quotes, and sources here.

W

[ALIPAC]

Election Commission says voters walked off with smart cards

Nov 6, 2006 06:22 PM EST

Election Concerns


Diebold voter cards


Officials at the Shelby County Election Commission defended problems on two fronts Monday, just one day before the November 7th election.

After analyzing the data from early voting, John Harvey, a concerned citizen and friend of Republican state senate candidate Terry Roland, claimed he found 14 double votes and a dead voter casting a ballot.
"This calls into question the integrity of the system," Harvey said. "How do you know your vote went through? How do know that my vote went through?"

The information was turned over to the Election Commission Monday morning. At a news conference, Chairman Greg Duckett said he believes the dead voter ballot can be explained as a mix up in voter identification numbers. "It appears as though, if anything, it was the wife that voted, not the deceased individual who voted," Duckett said. "It appears as though how do we manipulate misinformation rather than present genuine factual information about what's going on."

Commissioners said they forwarded indications of double-voting on to the District Attorney General's office for review.

Election Commission officials also addressed the subject of missing smart cards, saying it was likely that voters were not returning the cards after casting their ballot. "Once the voter casts their ballot, the information is erased," said election commissioner Richard Holden. "So the cards that are missing are blank cards."

Commissioners said the cards are useless once they've been removed from the voting machines, until they've been re-programmed. They are much like hotel key cards , and their disappearance mirrors a hotel visitor's tendency to walk off with their key cards. Still, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Republican Party said there should be concern, because it's indicative of a lack of security at the polls.

Although they wouldn't elaborate on some security specifics, the election commissioners said measures are in place to ensure the integrity of the November 7th election.

http://www.wmcstations.com/Global/story.asp?S=5640483

[ALIPAC]

Voting Machines Fail in Ohio, Indiana, and Florida

Tuesday November 7, 9:48 PM
Voting Machines Woes Cause Early Delays
Voting machines began wreaking havoc the minute the polls opened Tuesday, delaying voters in dozens of Indiana and Ohio precincts and leaving some in Florida with little choice but turn to paper ballots instead.

In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new voting machines that they couldn't get to start properly.

"We got five machines _ one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a trouble shooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.

Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., planned to seek a court order to extend voting after an apparent computer error prevented voters from casting ballots in 75 precincts. Delaware County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the machines were programmed incorrectly.

"We are working with precincts one-by-one over the telephone to get the problem fixed," Wenger said.

With a third of Americans voting on new equipment and voters navigating new registration databases and changing ID rules, election watchdogs worried about polling problems even before the voting began Tuesday. A Man A Woman

A Man A Woman







Although turnout generally is lower in midterm elections, this year was the deadline for many of the election changes enacted in the wake of the Florida balloting chaos of 2000.

The 2002 Help America Vote Act required or helped states to replace outdated voting equipment, establish statewide voter registration databases, require better voter identification and provide provisional ballots so qualified voters can have a say if something goes wrong.

"There has not been an election in decades that has had this much change," said Wendy Weiser, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school.

Control of Congress is also at stake this year, with all 435 House seat and 33 of 100 Senate seats are up for grabs, along with 36 governors' offices. Because individual congressional races are generally decided by fewer votes than presidential contests, any problems at the polls are more likely to affect the outcome.

According to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm, 32 percent of registered voters were using equipment added since the 2004 elections.

Nearly half of all voters were using optical-scan systems that ask them to fill in blanks, with ballots then fed into a computer. Thirty-eight percent were casting votes on touchscreen machines that have been criticized as susceptible to hackers.

Election experts say both types of voting machines are bound to cause trouble.

Touchscreens may display incorrect ballots or fail to boot properly. Voters using optical-scan equipment might circle a name instead of filling in a box.

Poll workers also might not be adequately trained to handle the unexpected, which can cause delays as voters were already discovering Tuesday.

Voting-machine vendors said they had thousands of workers on the ground and special command centers to handle any problems.

"Elections have hundreds and hundreds of moving parts, and most of those parts have to do with humans," said Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. "There will be isolated issues throughout the nation I'm sure. That's just the normal part of elections. Overall we feel confident things will go pretty well."

Just getting to the right polling place with all the right identification posed a challenge for some voters.

Many states established voter registration databases for the first time, and many found problems as they tried to match drivers' license and Social Security data with the voter rolls.

Someone may have a middle initial or use "Jr." on one list but not the other, or "Doug" and "Douglas" may be interchanged in records. Data entry errors also occur.

Although not required by federal law, some states also passed new voter identification requirements, in many cases calling for a government-issued photo ID, rather than just a utility bill.

Courts have struck down specific ID requirements in several states, but election watchdogs warned that poll workers might still mistakenly turn voters away. Missouri's chief elections official, Robin Carnahan, said she was asked three times to show a photo ID, despite a court ruling striking the requirement down there.

In one of the worst fiascoes, Maryland election officials forgot to send the cards primary voters needed to activate electronic machines at their polling places, and some voters had to cast provisional ballots on scraps of paper.

In New Mexico, some voters complained they had received phone calls giving them incorrect information about where in vote.

Several Florida counties stocked up ahead of the election with extra voting machines, paper ballots and poll workers on standby. Apart from the state's infamous chads in 2000, Florida voters have struggled with poorly trained poll workers, trouble tallying electronic votes and precincts opening late or closing early.

Secretary of State Sue Cobb said she didn't expect serious problems with the touch-screen voting machines this time.

"History has shown that the machines are far more accurate than paper so we're quite confident in it," Cobb said. "There is absolutely no reason to believe that there will be any security issues, any hacking going on."

A coalition that includes the NAACP planned to send nonpartisan poll monitors to some Florida counties. The Justice Department also was deploying polling watchers at potential trouble spots nationwide.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061107/ap/d8l88tj81.html

[ALIPAC]

Ky. Poll Worker Charged With Assault
Nov 07 12:39 PM US/Eastern


A poll worker was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault and interfering with an election for allegedly choking a voter and pushing the voter out the door, an official said.

Election officials called police, and the voter wanted to file charges, said Paula McCraney, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Clerk.

"That about tops off the day," McCraney said.

It wasn't immediately clear what sparked the altercation. The name of the poll worker was not released and a Louisville police spokesman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/07/D8L8C9RO0.html

[loservillelabor]

There were a few problems here caused by the poll workers. One polling place had to turn people away for an hour because workers couldn't find the closet containing voting machines. Another worker brought the wrong precinct book to the polling place. There was a poll worker locked up for interfering with an election.
My polling place insisted I get a 3rd District ballot although I'm in the 2nd District AFAIK. The board of elections answers calls by machine then hangs you up. I voted and wrote the candidate affected.

[2ndamendsis]

Delaware Cty precincts reportedly problems w/ Voting Machine

http://thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /611070318

Court hearing scheduled this morning to consider extending voting hours
By RICK YENCER
ryencer@muncie.gannett.com
StoryChat 5 Comments

MUNCIE -- A court hearing has been scheduled this morning to consider extending voting hours, perhaps by as much as 2 1/2 hours, Virtually all Delaware County precincts reportedly experienced problems with voting machines this morning.

But an officials with the Delaware County Clerks office said all machines are currently working and precincts are open.

ADVERTISEMENT

The problems were caused by the voting cards that are used to bring up the ballots on the electronic touch screen voting machines.

The machines were used for the first time in the primary and this is the first general election for them to be used in Delaware County.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. this morning with steady rain outside as voters began voting for elected officials ranging from their congressman to Township Trustee. The National Weather Service predicted occasional rain today, with most of it falling before 10 a.m. Today's mid-term election in Delaware County and East Central Indiana comes with Republicans calling the shots in many branches of government, from the White House to the Center Township trustee's office.

And the trustee's race -- between two-term Republican incumbent Richard Shirey and Democratic challenger Marilyn Kay Walker -- could be the baseline race to determine whether the local Democratic organization can take back an office that was long seen as a Democratic stronghold, or whether local Republicans have overcome low popularity ratings for their national leaders.

Other high-profile races being decided today include Indiana Senate District 26 where the margin of victory -- for either Republican Andrew Phipps, Democrat Sue Errington or Independent Pat L. Smith -- could be close, according to past elections, along with the contest for Delaware County Commissioner District 3 between incumbent Republican Larry Crouch and Democrat Larry Bledsoe.

Both of those races were decided for less than one percent of votes cast in the last mid-term election in 2002, when several races produced victory margins of fewer than 150 votes.

The 2002 mid-term election saw 33,526 Delaware County voters cast ballots with 3,131 absentee ballots cast before the polls opened.

At noon Monday, 3,946 absentee ballots had been cast, reflecting a 25-percent increase in absentee voting.

Delaware County Clerk Karen Wenger was not ready to predict a 25-percent hike in total turnout, but said there would be more voters based on heavy absentee voting by both parties and others. State law now allows voters to cast absentee ballots without having an excuse.

Allie Craycraft, vice chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party, said he believed dissatisfaction with the Iraq War, the economy and other issues would trickle down to local races.

"In 1994, we saw that trend in Congress," Craycraft said about a year that saw Republicans virtually sweep national and local races.

Craycraft is retiring after 28 years as Delaware County's senator. He won his seventh and final term in 2002 by 609 votes over Phipps.

But the Craycraft family is represented on today's ballot. The senator's son, Steve, is running for Delaware County clerk, facing Republican Bobby Adams, a friend of Delaware County Republican Party Chairman Kaye Whitehead.

Whitehead does not anticipate the national wave that could put Democrats in control of Congress will impact local Republican officeholders.

"If you look at it, Democrats have not been critical of how Republicans have run county government," Whitehead said. "I think people have pretty much made up their mind."

And Whitehead points to a strong grassroots base of conservative Republicans in Delaware County. GOP officials now preside over nine of 12 Delaware County township governments, and the party has a large voting margin in the Yorktown area.

Basil Davis Sr., a retired auto worker who has run for office as both a Democrat and Republican, agreed with Whitehead's assessment that Republicans have left county government in good shape with a healthy surplus.

Davis and his wife voted absentee on Monday with Davis picking and choosing among Republicans and Democrats.

The races for Senate District 26 and township trustee heated up again as the hours ticked away before the polls opening at 6 a.m. today.

Errington again claimed that Phipps and the Indiana Republican Party continued to go negative with more mailers saying Errington was supported by radical interest groups that supported amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"They must be really desperate to make these wild allegations," Errington said.

Phipps said Democrats had been just as negative, accusing him of supporting school vouchers and wanting to raise taxes.

"I have never said any of that," the Republican said.

Phipps believed the Senate 26 race would be decided by which candidate more closely reflected the values of most people. Errington saw the majority being voters in the mainstream, while Smith believed her support comes from people who don't think government is listening to them.

Crouch on Monday felt his chances of winning re-election were "better than break-even" because of "my experience and availability as a full-time commissioner to continue what we have going."

Bledsoe said the race "could go either way."

"We'll just wait and see what the voters decide," he said. "I just wish everyone well."

That doesn't mean he's wishing for Crouch to win, however, just "to have a good day."

Crouch said of Bledsoe: "He's a decent individual. We have the same backgrounds. He's like me 30 years ago."

Both candidates are Air Force veterans, married, the father of three children and work or worked in factories.

The trustee's race took a turn over the weekend with Shirey and Walker trying to point out who was more accountable to voters.

Walker ran an ad that showed the Center Township Fire Department spent about $184 per capita for fire protection compared to Mount Pleasant Township, which spent $37, and Hamilton Township which spent $28.

Shirey countered with a chart that showed how former longtime Trustee William Chambers, Walker's father, had amassed a $5 million surplus and overtaxed citizens for public assistance.

"That is misleading," Shirey said about Walker's criticism.

Shirey said the fire department offered more than fire protection, including emergency medical and building inspection services.

Walker said she used simple math to figure how many people and how much money was spent on fire protection in other townships to find that Shirey far exceeding other township spending.

"These are the facts," she said.

Look for ground games today to include getting voters to the polls, plenty of telephone banks and lots of poll workers at key precincts in Muncie and Delaware County.

Republican Congressman Mike Pence will stop at Southside High School at 11 a.m. to greet voters with Phipps. Errington will be nearby at Grissom Elementary School , usually a good indicator of countywide voting trends, especially for Democrats.

Reporter Seth Slabaugh contributed to this article.

Contact news reporter Rick Yencer at 213-5833.

[2ndamendsis]

Hundreds Get Wrong Ballots In Central Florida

POSTED: 12:16 pm EST November 7, 2006
UPDATED: 12:37 pm EST November 7, 2006
E-mail this story | Print this story
Hundreds of voters in two Central Florida counties were apparently given the wrong ballots Tuesday, according to a Local 6 News report.

#
Wrong Ballot Hot Line In Osceola -- 407-343-3900

"We have just learned that voters at Precinct 218 ( in Volusia County) were given the wrong ballots," Local 6's Tarik Minor said. "This may be a serious problem but election officials here in Deland do not know the full extent of the problem."

The problem came to light when a woman wanted to vote for state Rep. Joyce Cusack and state Rep. Ronald Cahen but noticed they were not on the ballot. Officials then noticed that she had the wrong ballots for her district.

Minor said Volusia County's supervisor of elections Ann McFall rushed out of the office to Precinct 218 to try to determine how widespread the problem was.

"(McFall) is at Precinct 218 and she is reviewing the voter registration logs to try to verify which ballots go to which voters," said Dave Beck of the canvassing board said.

The report said 200 voters at the Christ Community Church may have received the wrong ballots, Minor said.

Also, Osceola County experienced similar problems Tuesday, according to the Local 6 News report.

People who voted between 7 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. were given Precinct 30 ballots instead of the correct Precinct 29 ballot.

Osceola County officials have set up an hot line for voters who received the wrong ballots. Voters are urged to call 407-343-3900.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
http://www.local6.com/politics/10264165/detail.html

[ALIPAC]

Mississippi: New voting machines pose Election Day problems

New voting machines pose Election Day problems

By TAMMY M. SMITH
SUN HERALD
Voters at several South Mississippi precincts reported problems with the new touch-screen machines as voting got under way in midterm elections this morning.

At Gulfport Little Theater and Biloxi Community Center, for example, voters were handed paper ballots because workers were unable to make to the machines work.

And at Margaret Sherry Library on Popps Ferry Road, three of seven touch-screen machines were working while at D'Iberville Community Center, just four of 13 were working.

Votes cast with the paper ballots will be counted, assured David Blount, communications director with Secretary of State Eric Clark’s office in Jackson.

“Our recommendation to each county was that they have on hand, at each precinct, enough paper ballots for 25 percent of the expected voters for that precinct,” he said. These are new machines, he said, and the paper ballots were recommended as backup in case of any problems.

Poll workers were instructed earlier to have the paper ballots on hand and to call county officials immediately if any problems arose, Blount said, so that repairs or corrections could be made.

The Sun Herald will continue to report on this story throughout the day.


http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/15950953.htm

ALIPAC Discussion At
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... 103#242103

[2ndamendsis]

Poll Workers Struggle With Vote Machines

Nov 07 12:25 PM US/Eastern

By ANICK JESDANUN
Associated Press Writer

Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting
machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts Tuesday, delaying voters in several states and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.

In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly until about 10 minutes after polls opened.

"We got five machines _ one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a trouble shooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.

In Indiana's Marion County, about 175 of 914 precincts turned to paper because poll workers didn't know how to run the machines, said Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler. She said it could take most of the day to fix all of the machine-related issues.

Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., extended voting hours because voters initially couldn't cast ballots in 75 precincts. County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the push-button machines were programmed incorrectly but the problems were fixed by late morning.

Pennsylvania's Lebanon County also extended polling hours because a programming error forced some voters to cast paper ballots.

With a third of Americans voting on new equipment and voters navigating new registration databases and changing ID rules, election watchdogs worried about polling problems even before the voting began.

"This is largely what I expected," said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan group that tracks voting changes. "With as much change as we had, expecting things to go absolutely smoothly at the beginning of the day is too optimistic."

At some Broward County, Fla., precincts, electronic ballots were mixed up and, in one case, a poll worker unintentionally wiped the electronic ballot activators.

In Utah County, Utah, workers failed to properly encode some of the cards that voters use to bring up touchscreen ballots.

Rep. Harold Ford, the Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, claimed a polling place in Jackson shut down because its machines weren't working, but Tennessee election coordinator Brook Thompson said he knew only of typical election morning problems starting machines.

In Illinois, some voters found the new equipment cumbersome.

"People seem to be very confused about how to use the new system," said Bryan Blank, a 33-year-old librarian from Oak Park, Ill. "There was some early morning disarray."

But voting equipment companies said they hadn't seen anything beyond the norm and blamed the problems largely on human error.

"Any time there's more exposure to equipment, there are questions about setting up the equipment and things like that," said Ken Fields, a spokesman for Election Systems & Software Inc. "Overall, things are going very well."

Some voters even liked the new ballots.

"It was much clearer on what you were voting for and you made sure you absolutely were voting for what you wanted to vote for," said Cathy Schaefer, 59, of Cincinnati.

Other problems had nothing to do with machines.

A location in Columbus, Ohio, opened a few minutes late because of a break-in at the school where the precinct is located.

Power failures in Denver knocked out laptops used to verify voter registration, forcing workers to call the central office for information. In North Carolina, about 100 voters waited nearly an hour at a church because the person with the key didn't show up on time.

In Kentucky's Bourbon County, a school board race had been left off some of the ballots, requiring the county clerk to make up paper ballots on the spot, Secretary of State's spokesman Les Fugate said.

Although turnout generally is lower in midterm elections, this year was the deadline for many of the election changes enacted in the wake of the Florida balloting chaos of 2000. The 2002 Help America Vote Act required or helped states to replace outdated voting equipment, establish voter registration databases, require better voter identification and provide provisional ballots if something goes wrong.

Control of Congress is also at stake this year, and because individual congressional races are generally decided by fewer votes than presidential contests, any problems at the polls are more likely to affect the outcome.

According to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm, 32 percent of registered voters were using equipment added since the 2004 elections.

Nearly half of all voters were using optical-scan systems that ask them to fill in blanks, with ballots then fed into a computer. Thirty- eight percent were casting votes on touchscreen machines that have been criticized as susceptible to hackers.

Just getting to the right polling place with the right identification posed a challenge for some voters.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford got a quick reminder of the voter rules _ he was turned away the first time because he didn't have a voter registration card.

Many states established voter registration databases for the first time and found problems matching drivers' license and Social Security data with voter rolls, sometimes simply because of a middle initial.

Although not required by federal law, some states passed new voter identification requirements. While courts struck down photo ID requirements in several states, Missouri's chief elections official, Robin Carnahan, said she was still asked three times to show a photo ID, despite a court ruling striking the requirement down there.

Some New Mexico voters complained they had received phone calls giving them incorrect information about where in vote. The Athens County, Ohio, prosecutor also warned voters there to be wary of fraudulent calls claiming their precinct had changed.

In one of the worst fiascoes, Maryland election officials forgot to send the cards primary voters needed to activate electronic machines at their polling places, and some voters had to cast provisional ballots on scraps of paper.

Baltimore County election director Jacqueline McDaniel said poll workers had a few problems on Tuesday, including one who left part of the equipment in his car.

Several Florida counties stocked up ahead of the election with extra voting machines, paper ballots and poll workers on standby. Apart from the state's infamous chads in 2000, Florida voters have struggled with poorly trained poll workers and precincts opening late or closing early.

"As of right now things are rolling smoothly," Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb said. "We're not real happy with the weather but it's not so bad and we hope that everybody will go out and vote."

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/07/D8L8C3D82.html

[ALIPAC]

George Allen for Senate Phone Lines Out on Election Day

CALLING GEORGE ALLEN, CALLING GEORGE ALLEN [Byron York]
More on the George Allen phone troubles: The "Campaign Phone Lines Down" e-mail is being sent out for the second day in a row. "Phone service at Allen campaign headquarters is currently down, for reasons that remain unclear," the message says. It gives several cell phone numbers for reporters to contact press spokesmen.

I called them to see what was going on. And the answer is, they don't really know. "Yesterday, it was something with our network," says one Allen staffer. (The campaign's phone company is XO.) Apparently, the company's entire system was down for a while yesterday, and now, it's happened again. "We don't know whether it's the same problem, or an isolated incident," the staffer says.

Is there something fishy going on? Staffers don't have any reason to think so, but they're frustrated at the unbelievably bad timing of the phone system going down on election eve and election day. If it's just bad luck, it's really bad luck.

Posted at 12:06 PM

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

Discussion at ALIPAC via
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