Texas e-voting machines count votes three times for good measure

If you thought that November 7th was the final day that you'd hear about e-voting zaniness, you'd be incorrect. While a myriad of states (and foreign locales) have had their bouts with Diebold and other electronic voting machines, the internet hunting state is now reporting an oddity of its own. Apparently, voters using machines built by Election Systems and Software in Williamson County, Texas showed up three separate times to legally cast their votes for the same candidate, or performed some sort of "human malfunction" in order to make the machines think so, anyway. While we're inclined to think that the actual machines were the culprit, the company still insists that some form of "user error" caused each vote placed to be counted three times. Although the triplicates did not skew the percentages of votes cast for each candidate, it still seemingly signifies an apparent flaw in the e-voting system, yet election officials were quoted as saying that they'd "review their training procedures" -- you know, so we can all work together to circumvent the problem.

[Via TechDirt]

[Vince @ Nov 17th 2006 12:43PM]

E-gads y'all! If it's a Texas problem, why are you showing a picture of Ohio? They're not even close...

[Juaquin @ Nov 17th 2006 12:51PM]

Yes, blame it on "user-error" so you're company doesn't have to take the rap for designing crap.

[Matt B @ Nov 17th 2006 12:55PM]

You got, you got, you got what I need!!

[Evil Closet Monkey @ Nov 17th 2006 1:24PM]

The state pictured behind the ballot is Ohio, not Texas. If you're studying for any upcoming High School aptitude exams, be sure you're not using the above picture as a study guide. Those students in Ohio probably wouldn't have had a problem. Those in Texas, I'm not so sure about.

(zing!)

[Scott @ Nov 17th 2006 1:25PM]

Let me guess: it benefited republican candidates, right?

[Matt @ Nov 17th 2006 6:59PM]

If you read, it says that it did not change the percentages of the votes.

[wilby90 @ Nov 19th 2006 3:17PM]

It's normally the other way around. Democrats have a history of voting fraud.

[Vinyl Vision @ Nov 17th 2006 1:27PM]

eGADS! I live and vote in Williamson County Texas. I wonder if the votes will be RECOUNTED three times. Maybe my candidates would have won if I had voted more times - in error of course - since voters are being blamed for the triple vote count error.

[masterhibb @ Nov 17th 2006 3:40PM]

I also live in Williamson County, TX. I don't know about you, but I filled in dots on good ol' paper ballots.

...I WAS wondering about those carbon papers attached to the back, though.

[rithim @ Nov 17th 2006 2:06PM]

you used the word myriad incorrectly. "While a myriad of states" should read "While myriad states."

[Anonymouse @ Nov 17th 2006 3:03PM]

How f*cking hard is it to design a system that inreases a value when a person selects a certain input? Does the government hire pre-schoolers to design these systems? f*cking morons! Glad to see my tax dollars at work

[Arul @ Nov 17th 2006 3:12PM]

Its pretty sad that the US is not able to learn the IT way. the Election Comission needs to go for a training in India, where there have been two successful elections with the same technology. And it has been 5 years since the first e-election happened.

[Jason @ Nov 17th 2006 3:43PM]

i++;

Man, that was hard.

[eflyersteve @ Nov 17th 2006 3:48PM]

Lemme get this straight - a machine records three votes from the same people and but it's very nature is easily discovered. How is this worse than a paper ballot that is scanned by a machine that relies on human input to make sure multiple ballots are not cast multiple times?

Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of room for improvement, but this sort of thing would have easily passed by without the electronic machines. The best thing we can do as a nation to ensure fair elections would be to require identification at each polling place. Many simply require you to state you name. If it's not on the list, you still cast a provisional ballot and hopefully someone checks to make sure it's a legal one and one of a kind. But there is a particular left leaning political party that refuses to require voter identification. Hmmmm - I wonder why?