vern buchanan’s wife had trouble voting too
dcdave
It looks like, despite claims to the contrary on Buchanan’s part, there were definitely equipment related voting problems in the race for FL-13. On Dec 21st, Buchanan’s campaign released this:
Furthermore, [Jennings’s] absurd allegations that the voting machines failed to record thousands of votes have been proven false by the Secretary of State who after two rounds of tests issued a report this week concluding the machines used in the election were 100 percent accurate and no votes were lost.
As it turns out, even Buchanan’s wife had trouble voting. According to an internal memo from the Buchanan campaign:
Mrs. Buchanan indicated that she had to hit the button more than once, I think she said three times – to record her vote for Mr. Buchanan.
Something doesn’t pass the smell test. Which is it Mr. Buchanan? Either this didn’t happen to your wife, or it did. My guess? There was a massive voter machine malfunction in FL-13 and Mr. Buchanan is trying his hardest to hold on to a seat he didn’t win through sleazy tactics designed to disenfranchise Florida voters.
Cross Posted @ The Delightful Yank
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January 5th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Dangit. I had to hit the button several times too. (My mother reported the same occurance.)
January 6th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Yeah, I think the Jennings camp is talking about something different. What Mrs Buchanan is describing is a well know hardware issue that even I ran into. If you hit the button several times and the big green check mark doesn’t appear next to any candidate you know it immediately. Then the page at the end that lists all of your choices clearly indicates you didn’t vote in that race and as I recall my machine actually had a pop up to warn me I didn’t vote for one race. The voting machine people said that the screen on the machines can get out of sync with the software at times (just like any touchscreen I have ever used) after excessive use and you have to actually touch just above or below the box to get it to light. The Jennings camp is indicating the votes simply were not recorded. To my knowledge they are not postulating that 18,000 people ignored the first screen that did not populate a green check in the box next to a candidates name, the warning screen and the summary screen that they were supposed to read to verify all votes. If that was their contention they would have to show that those 18,000 people ignored all of these clear indications that they had not cast a vote on this one race only yet were able to verify their vote was cast on all other races. The point of course being that we have no way to verify what happened that day since we have no other records (miss those hanging chads sometimes right?)
January 6th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Right. Either way, there’s something rotten in Denmark.
January 6th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
It is just new tech, every time the method of counting votes changes there is a lot of concern because it is new. The tech will get better, it will take determined people to force it in some cases but a lot of the problems people reported with the machines were traced back to issues with poll worker training or simple user error. If you didn’t cast a vote the machines draw your attention to it, rather that a punch card where you can’t see what little holes are punched or not so the new tech is better in some ways. Fact is machines are making voting faster and quicker in the vast majority of poll locations as long as the poll workers are properly trained and the equipment is functioning making it easier to vote. Also disenfranchisement is a word that gets thrown around a lot but voter turnout has increased steadily 2006 estimates are a little over 41.1% of eligible voters turned out while the last midterm on 2002 drew 39.5. It is not possible to say for sure if the increase was due to dissatisfaction with the course of our country but it certainly doesn’t seem that the public their vote is being suppressed.
January 6th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Am I supposed to be impressed by 41.1%? That’s relatively low compared to other democracies. I have to say, regardless of the efficiencies of technology, touch screen voting is fraught with error and potential for fraud. Whether the disenfranchisement is intentional or not, it is occurring. I’m not anti-technology, but I am pro-oversight, and handing over the voting system to a handful of privately owned tech companies that don’t allow government audits of their machines is not acceptable. The entire process is in peril and you’re not seeing it for what it is. Even the appearance of incompetence, fraud or tampering can sap the confidence of voters. The increase in voting you cited is merely a symptom of cyclical politics. Enough people were fed up, and the voted. But most aren’t, and that’s a problem.
January 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
“disenfranchisement”, you know that word means revocation of the right to vote right? Since voter turnout is increasing, even in midterm elections which traditionally draw far smaller voters than presidential year elections, explain where the evidence of disenfranchisement or waning voter confidence can be found? In fact a larger percentage of folks are voting now than in the past 35 years in all national elections. More oversight is fine, but railing about the corporate hijacking of the electoral system seems a bit overzealous when we are seeing the most widespread political engagement in a generation.