Here we go again.
Looks like the voting machines are sensitive to votes for Democrats.
Votes for Obama registered for McCain and voters told it’s OK – “everything is alright.”
Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes
Jackson County touch-screens switched votes, 3 residents say – West Virginia GazetteAt least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk’s office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
“When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain,” said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.
When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge “responded that everything was all right. It was just that the screen was sensitive and I was touching the screen too hard. She instructed me to use only my fingernail.”
Even after she began using her fingernail, Matheney said, the problem persisted.
When she tried to vote for candidates running for two open seats on the Supreme Court, the electronic machine canceled her second vote twice.
On her third try, Matheney managed to cast votes for both Menis Ketchum and Margaret Workman, Democratic candidates for the two open seats.
Calvin Thomas, 81, who retired from Kaiser Aluminum in Ravenswood in 1983 and now lives in Ripley, experienced the same problem.
“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.
“The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican,” Thomas said.
“When I hollered about that, the girl who worked there said, ‘Push it again.’ I pushed Obama again and it stayed there. Then, the machine did the same thing for other candidates.
“Why didn’t she [the polling clerk] tell me before I even used the machine that might happen? And how many people, especially my age, didn’t notice that?
Use your fingernail !!!!?!!!!
How about a pencil and paper that provides a trail –
a paper trail. ATMs have it….. why not voting machines?
let’s have paper ballots and we wait for the count.
[Early Voting Update:] in North Carolina, it’s Block the Vote
…irate McCain supporters gather to protest and heckle a crowd of people . . . voting . . . in North Carolina:
Photographer Joe Eddins and I headed over to the closest one and found a steady line of voters hoping to cast ballots early. Most seemed to be Obama supporters and several had come from the rally. Nearly all the voters were black.
Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white.
As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama’s acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word “terrorist.” They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.
[.]
Is this some kind of freaking joke?! It’s like the “Homer Simpson tries to vote for Obama” clip that’s on YouTube (and which embedding has been disabled:()
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtwZSF7uQLw
I keep waiting to hear a Republican voter complain about this phenomenon. So far, I have never heard a Republican complain about this even once.
let’s not hold our breath.
the GOP ACORN outrage is a scam.
It’s voter over-registration
vs.
voter disenfranchisement.
otherwise known in GOP circles as adding to our column
Three is not a charm. This time there’ll be a revolt.
more wrongdoing:
Yikes, and a little publicity.
Arrest made in GOP voter fraud in CA
Be careful what you ask for.
Are the WV democrats doing anything about this?
The real question is “How many places is this happening without us being aware of it?”
Exit poll discrepancies across the country will be attributed to the “Bradley Effect”, not the “Diebold Effect”.
you beat me to the punch.
good point. you betcha.
And on election night, the miraculous comeback will cause the talkingheads like Chuck Todd and David Gergen to tell us it was the Bradley effect.
.. and don’t forget that youth voters don’t show up on election day, either. Combine this with the Bradley effect and Joe Sixpack will eat a 6% reversal of polling.
they may just surprise this year. Who do you think staffs the Obama HQ? the whole campaign is a youth movement reaching out to mom, dad, gramps, grannies, aunts, uncles and cuz.
Early voting in Ohio
Voter suppression is launched by John McCain’s Southwest Ohio campaign chairman,
a *TPM *Deters is friend of a known racist –
Every freaking election these machines are reported toi have swi5tched votes, always from the Democrat to the Republican.
It’s time we went back to paper ballots.
and our Congress critters on both sides see no need to seriously put in place a remedy.
why is that?
I’ve done programming on touch screens from way back. The old ones were really bad. If the technology is touch sensitive, rather than infra-red detection, they sometimes work better if you use the eraser end of a pencil. The eraser is smaller than a finger & has just the right amount of smooshiness.
I know this doesn’t fix the problem, but it may help those who are still forced to use these machines.
and then there are those confusing ballots in NC
Voting Rights Watch: Could confusing ballots swing the presidential election in NC
In Federal election for president, can we not have one national standard?
DO NOT VOTE BY MACHINE IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY AVOID IT!
Sorry for shouting, but I needed your attention.
Why this push for early voting? To push using the machines. In Illinois you can vote absentee or on election day by paper ballot. Early voting is all by touchscreen machine using the same machines that elected Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, exactly opposite the exit polls.
If I had to use a voting machine, I wouldn’t waste my time.