NATIONAL: “Widespread Reports of Problems at Polls” (NYTimes):
Although most were general inquiries, nearly 2,100 involved reports of problems like polls opening late, machine malfunctions and confusion over voter registrations. More than 200 calls involved claims of voter intimidation.
REMINDER: If you had probs at the polls today (or are still having them, as polls are still open out here in the West), please remember to report them to 1-866-OUR-VOTE! It’s very important to track records of all such probs, as the full extent of problem patterns often don’t reveal themselves until the days, weeks (and sometimes, even months) after an election! Thank you…
TX: Collin County – E-pollbooks, networks fail at “vote centers” disenfranchising untold numbers of voters. (Collin County Observer)
According to our information, voting in many locations was interrupted due to the issues with electronic pollbooks and networks, and the resulting phone calls into the Elections Office overwhelmed their capacity to receive and handle calls.
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Technicians in the field are working to correct the IT issues, but making changes to the software while voting is in process raises multiple security concerns.
…
We hate to say “I told you so…” but the Observer has been sounding the alarm on this issue for years.
We know how ya feel, Observer. Collin County, btw, is also where a voter reported a Diebold touch-screen flipping his vote from Democratic to Republican.
CA: Contra Costa County – Inspired by my own e-voting disasters in ’08 (when the ES&S InkaVote Plus system here in L.A. County misprinted 4 out of 12 of my votes) and in ’10 (when after two hours of failure with two of the same machines I finally had to give up and vote on a hand-marked paper ballot), a voter in Contra Costa tries to use the e-voting system for disabled voters as I did. After spending four hours trying to cast a vote on the counties ES&S AutoMark, he eventually had to give up. The shameful tale is detailed here. And remember, allowing disabled voters to vote privately and independently was one of the prime thrusts for the $4 billion federal “encouragement” for states to “upgrade” to these e-voting systems as per the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Fail. Again.
National: Here’s the lede from Joyce McCloy’s Voting News tonight…
See her report for details and links for all of the above.
NJ: Warren County – Touch-screen machine flips GOP to Dem and Dem to a ballot initiative. Via OurVoteLive.org’s problem report database…
MD: Diebold touch-screen votes flip from GOP to Dem… (Luterville-Timonium Patch))
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At least two voting machines at Pine Grove Middle School in Parkville had to be restarted after some voters had problems voting for Republican county executive candidate Ken Holt.
MD was the first state in country, along with GA, to go to all Diebold touch-screen systems. The BRAD BLOG obtained and published a long redacted SAIC report on their systems in 2007, years after its secret 2003 publication. The report was described at the time as the “Pentagon Papers of E-Voting,” showing all kinds of problems with the systems. The state was supposed to move to paper ballots by this year. So why didn’t they?
MUCH MORE BELOW…
AL: “Pencils causing problems for some voters.” Seriously? A problem finding enough pens?!…
Calhoun County Probate Judge Alice Martin, the county’s chief election official, said the pencils have caused some problems here and elsewhere in the state. Voters who bear down too hard with the pencils in some cases are leaving an impression on the other side of their ballots, causing the machines that read them to reject the ballots.
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Representatives of the company that provides election equipment and services to nearly every Alabama county [ES&S] said the change was made because it was becoming increasingly difficult to find enough pens.
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ES&S contracts with 66 of Alabama’s 67 counties to provide election supplies and support.
KS: Attorney General investigating robocalls telling voters they had to bring proof of home ownership to the polls in order to vote. And that voting was on Wednesday!
NV: 3:02pm PT Dave Weigel on Twitter says “Early exits have dead heat in” Nevada Senate race between Angle and Reid. Bad news, if so, since there will largely be no record of verifiable voter intent to “recount” across the state on their 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems. More details here…
NATIONAL: Combing through lots of problem reports at OurVoteLive.org problem database. Call them with any poll problems voting at 866-OUR-VOTE.
Milwaukee, WI: “Ballot mix-up in Brookfield” (Journal Sentinel)
NC: Problems reported with op-scan machines in Waukesha, WI (where, as we recently reported, the County Clerk keeps the election results only on the personal computer in her office(!) See Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s online problem report database. Sort by city to see reports for Waukesha, including machines not working at several different high school polling places.
SC: Tea Partiers Allegedly Harass Black Student Voters in SC (Mother Jones):
11/1/10, NH: NH Democratic Party Loses Phone Service (AP):
Michael Brunelle, the party’s executive director, said two phone and Internet providers haven’t pinpointed the problem. Service was affected in Concord, Manchester, Milford, Dover, Hampton, Nashua, Keene, Plymouth, Exeter, Londonderry and Somersworth starting at 1:30 p.m. Monday.
The party also alerted the state attorney general’s office as a precaution.
In 2002, a scheme to disrupt Democrats’ get-out-the-vote efforts by jamming telephones with hang-up calls resulted in criminal convictions for former state GOP executive director Charles McGee and former political consultant Allen Raymond.
WCVB in Boston reported that there were massive phone outages in many parts of New England due to an extremely high number of political calls.
Or you can just imply that it was the evil GOP up to more dirty tricks…
Mike Pompeo, running against East Indian Raj Goyle in Kansas District 4, had a billboard with John Wayne saying “True Americans Vote For Pompeo” and is now accused of robo calling [Democrats] telling them to vote on Nov 3rd and to bring proof of home ownership. Pompeo campaign said billboard was by an unauthorized supporter and denies responsibility for robocalls.
So the GOP was caught red-handed in phone jamming on an election day, and Republican Party operatives were actually convicted and sent to prison for it.
And yet WingNutSteve is offended that anyone would dare to recall this factual event occurred while reporting there’s a problem with the phones on this election day.
It’s called context, Steve. Context helps people be aware that an isolated incident could potentially be part of a pattern. Context helps one look at the big picture, like how for years Brad has transparently covered election issues without consideration for who benefits, be they Republicans, Democrats, Green, Independents, etc., etc.
Try putting down the partisan blinders for a sec and try to see if maybe you can look at these issues as an American first. Fact: Phone lines were down on a crucial, hotly contested election day in a region where it’s happened before. If someone is jamming the phones anywhere for nefarious purposes on any election day, don’t you agree that’s wrong and should be stopped and prosecuted, regardless of party affiliation?
Thanks to the CREDO petition, ABC has rescinded its invitation to Breitbart to be an analyst for their election coverage tonight.
Brad,
I won’t detail here, but click my linked name and you’ll be taken to my blog, where today’s post outlines the troubles I had (and eventual failure) trying to use an ES&S AutoMark handicapped voting device at my precinct in Contra Costa County, California.
Yours in striving for election integrity!
Steve
Soul Rebel @ #4 – WHooOOO! Excellent news~! Thanks for posting that juicy.
Bluffton, SC. When I voted at 6:45 tonight, I noticed that one of the offices on my ballot was showing the wrong district and wrong candidate. I alerted the voting officials. They moved me to another machine. Same thing. The guy 2 machines down, same thing. So all day, everyone in 4A voted for the wrong person. What a shame that they didn’t question it earlier.
Linda Lacy – Have you reported the problem yet to 866-OUR-VOTE? If not, please do ASAP!
No problem here in MN, voted in person, on paper ballot, counted by a DRE but machine count is audited automatically by hand recount of randomly selected precincts.
Some Repubs checking for voter fraud but seem to discover election staff follow rules and there are a number of ways to establish ID same day if not registered.
Repubs are complaining of machines jamming and not being able to machine count, so ballots have to be hand counted…don’t understand what is so wrong with that
Well, the Democrats are taking a helluva beating…as projected, but damned if they didn’t do it to themselves. Shoulda listened to the Progressive Base, but they thumbed their noses at us for two years. Live and learn. Not that I didn’t vote. Well…I dropped off my ballot anyway. Who knows whether it was counted.
Hey Brad, 12:20 am and Riverside County, CA is reporting 0/1492 precincts.
http://www.voteinfo.net/eresults/58/Election%20Result.htm
Any news on why they haven’t reported anything yet?
Jeannie Dean,
When are you going to apologize to all those who read this blog for you undying support, under the color of law, for the violation of the rights of more than 6 million voters in Florida’s 2000 election?
Bill4 – As of 1:30am, looks like a little more than half of the precincts are now in. I don’t have any particular inside info tonight on what’s going on down there. But they are traditionally (at least in the last election or two) the slowest of all counties to come in with their numbers. They still force, I mean “encourage” their voters to vote on DREs, so that adds time on the back end now that CA requires “voter-verifiable paper audit trails” on them be counted by hand, though that usually doesn’t happen until days after the election (or in the case of Riverside and their terrible registrar, months after the election).
Anyway, hopefully some of our Riverside readers — paging Tom Courbat! — will jump in with some info before I’m back on the grid tomorrow morning…
Simply I feel pain in my head when I think about these election 🙁
(#12) ~ …when you grow a pair. And a brain.
Hi All,
I am asking Jerry McNerney, district 11 not to concede. Jerry was one of Karl Rove’s The race is within 100 votes. Contra Costa uses overseas servers .. potential man in the middle attack. Here is what I wrote:
Hi Jerry,
You need to get a recount.Especially with only a few votes different.
I was watching the results come in from Contra Costa County. The numbers on the individual precincts don’t make sense. You can see how the percents in the individual precincts would stop and start, sometimes reverse. Additionally, the Contra Costa County Server is located in Europe!.. Potential for man in the middle attack.
Final Tally:
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39347/en/summary.html
Location in Europe:
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://results.enr.clarityelections.com
Bev Harris of Blackboxvoting.org discussed Contra Costa County and clarityelections on her blog. She also saw a similar pattern in previous electionss.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/78433.html?1225343655
Here is a partial list of the snapshots going through the from the Contra Costa website: Note that
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/38907/en/summary.html 8:35 PM 14% of the vote
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39082/en/summary.html
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39236/en/summary.html 9:35
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39236/en/summary.html 10:46 16%
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39281/en/summary.html 10:50 24.48%
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39281/en/summary.html 11:07 24.48%
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39315/en/summary.html 11:22 32.96%
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39315/en/summary.html 11:46 32.96%
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39335/en/summary.html 12:05 41.05 %
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Contra_Costa/21781/39335/en/summary.html 12:19 41.05 %
Latino voters in LA told to vote after election
Jeannie Dean in #15,
“(#12) ~ …when you grow a pair.”
I have a set just big enough to challenge your anti-democracy positions.
“And a brain.”
This from the person who tell us that when there are 179,855 spoiled ballots, there is no need to recount all of those ballots.
Your argument tell us that it is fair to violate the law and just recount in rich counties such as Palm Beach, and to ignore Gadsden County, which is the poorest county in the state and with only predominantly African-American county.
Why didn’t Gore want follow the law and recount in that county? Why don’t you want a recount in that county?
My argument is simple. Count all the votes. Your argument is you can deny the right to have votes counted because you *think* that is what the law allows.
Again, when are you going to apologize to all those who read this blog for you undying support, under the color of law, for the violation of the rights of more than 6 million voters in Florida’s 2000 election?
Teddy2001
I am a poll worker in Massachusetts. Despite all the hype from the corporate media, Democratic voters did come in to vote big time. It was the Republicans who stayed home! We did have a fair amount of Republican voters come in. But some of them voted a straight Democratic ticket. I wonder if this was due to the Scott Brown factor?
Is it fraud to pretend that there will be fraud:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/5/105819/882